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She laughs and slips a hand through my arm. “Just kidding. Should I go check on her?”
I shake my head. “Give her time.”
“How much time does a person need to come to grips with their sister being a fucking monster?”
I begin to walk back to the party with Lesley on my elbow.
“For most of her life, I’d bet, but let’s give her until tomorrow at least.”
Chapter17
Kaye
The morning after Calico’s beach party, I wake up early, way before anyone else, and go for a run.
It feels good to sweat. I run hard, all around campus, trying to drown the thoughts in my brain with physical punishment. I can’t quite do it—memories keep resurfacing.
Lucy’s tight smile as she held me down and tried to spit in my mouth.Just stop squirming, I want you to tell me what it tastes like.Lucy’s laughter as she released her hamster in the street and watched it scurry through traffic.Oh my god, it’s going to make it! Look, Kaye, he’s in the sewer!!Her excited squeals when she found a dead raccoon in the gutter.Think Dad will let me keep him? He’s so cute!
I always knew Lucy was different.
But there are other memories. My sister in my bed in the morning, hugging me tight.You’re all mine, Kaye, and I love you so, so much. You’re my everything, you know that?The way she’d sing to me when we were little. The long hours we spent reading books together, playing in our little back yard, digging through the mud, running along the sidewalks of Philly.I love you more than life itself, she’d say to me, snuggling with me in my bed at night.
Lucy scared me, but she was the only comfort I ever had. Over and over, day after day, she was there, telling me that she was all I had, that she was the most important thing in my life, and I believed her.
Now I don’t know what I think.
I run faster, harder. I head away from campus and onto the beach. It’s a wreck from the party, and more than a few people are sleeping it off in the sand. I make sure a couple aren’t dead before I run past them toward the wild parts of the island. I find a path and begin to wind my way up the steep hill, up toward the cliffs. I stagger over rocks, stumble over roots. Lucy’s voice keeps breaking into my head.Come on, little sister, you know I love you, just let me cut you one more time. For me? Please?I’m crying and half blinded by the tears. I keep going. Sweat drips down my face, drenches my back. The salty air is warm in my lungs.
Emilio saw Lucy for what she was.
The truth keeps coming back, again and again. Emilio was right. Emilio saw through her. He looked past her charm and sensed the thing lurking beneath the surface. I used to call it herdemonand whenever she lost control of her facade, it was like the demon took control. Her face would crumble and her eyes would go blank, and she’d only care about whatever her new obsession was. Sometimes, I was her obsession. Sometimes, hurting me was the only thing she wanted in the entire world, and I’d have to let her, or else she’d hurt me even worse later on.
I could compartmentalize that way. I could explain her sickness by saying something else took her over and that wasn’treallymy sister dragging the knife down my back because she wanted to taste my blood.
But it was always there, wasn’t it? She just figured out how to behave in a way that didn’t tip off the world to her truth.
She was like my father. Cold and dead inside.
Now she’s gone.
I stand near the cliffs and cry. I’m exhausted, my legs ache, my throat hurts from gasping, and I sob until I don’t have anything left in me. Why am I letting myself face this now, after all these years? I’ve been so good at keeping Lucy’s demon hidden, even from myself.
But that demon is why I can’t fit in anywhere. Lucy is why I feel so ruined and hollow inside. I never had friends because I was terrified of bringing them around my sister. I never made connections because Lucy insisted she was the only connection I ever needed. She controlled me, dominated me. When she left for Saint Parras, I thought it would be like getting a tumor excised, but instead it felt like losing a limb.
How did she break me so completely?
And how am I going to fix myself?
“I hoped I wouldn’t find you here.”
I whirl back toward the path. Emilio’s there wearing his running gear. He looks concerned, but he’s not coming closer. If he’s afraid of panicking me, he doesn’t need to be. I’m too wiped out from my cry and from my run to lose my cool now.
I move away from the cliffs and sit in the grass in the shade of a palm tree. He hesitates, but comes over, and lowers himself down beside me.
“I never tell anyone why my voice sounds like this. Nobody knows the full truth except for Lucy, and we never talked about it. I’ve been carrying this story in me for so long now.” I look at him and the need to tell someone this truth is so overwhelming I can’t stop myself. “My voice has been a mess since I was eight years old,” I say, staring back out at the ocean. He says nothing, only shifts closer so that our shoulders are touching. “I told everyone it was an accident. My parents, the doctors, everyone kept asking how it happened, but I wouldn’t tell them. They said it looked like someone strangled me. I said it was a jump rope. Lucy made me swear it had to be our little secret, and I guess I was smart enough to understand that she’d get in a lot of trouble if people found out. So I kept quiet and I lied.”
“What happened?” he asks gently.
