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It never stops with them. It makes me sick. I always thought the feud between our families was like the cliques at school. An easy way to belong, never with any teeth. But then—people got bullied out of school, didn’t they? Not everyone had an older brother waiting in the wings to scare the shit out of anyone who tried anything with me. Not everyone was safe. Leo wasn’t safe. I just thought he was.
After Haley leaves, Leo becomes a ghost. A shadow of himself. He doesn’t come upstairs for four days. Doesn’t go to his bedroom. Every afternoon I come down and knock on the door to his office. He looks at me with hollow eyes and tells me to go back to my painting. He keeps saying he’s okay, but I know he’s not.
I know, because Mrs. Page hovers outside the door, conferring with one of the cooks from the kitchen in hushed tones. Timothy, I think his name is. Gerard paces the halls. He walks miles, his mouth in a thin line.
And I paint. I paint waves upon waves, and then I cover them in white and start again. I paint until my fingers cramp. I paint until I can’t stay awake anymore. The weather gets colder. The air inside the house feels like icicles.
Emerson: Talk to me.
I don’t answer him. I don’t know what to say. It feels wrong to be texting him. I’m afraid that if I text him, I’ll tell him how afraid I am. I’ll ask him to take me away.
Emerson: I know you’re there, little painter.
He doesn’t know anything. I can’t tell him anything.
On the fifth morning, I wake up early with my stomach in knots. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch Leo sit at his desk with that horrible blank expression. I can’t do it. I’ll tell him about Emerson. I’ll tell him anything to make the fire come back to his face. I’ll tell him, the way I always used to tell him everything, and he will come back to life.
The house is silent on the way downstairs. Everything has a sheen of white to it. Winter light. It’s almost crystalline. I watch it play over Leo’s wallpaper and think of how it might look on ocean waves. A storm coming in, maybe. Storms can be ominous, but in winter they wipe things clean. Fresh, new snow.
Emerson: Anything.
I push open the door to Leo’s office.
Emerson: If you won’t talk, I’ll talk to you
Emerson: It’s cold as hell on the water today.
Emerson: The beach is empty.
It’s warm inside, but it looks cold. Light pours in from his courtyard. I can see everything. The book abandoned on a table by the fire. The glass paperweight I gave him when I was twelve. I found it at an art gallery and thought he would like it, and he’s kept it since then.
Leo, dead on his desk.
My heart stops. He’s not moving. You can see it when a person breathes. There’s no motion in the room. He has his head in his arms, and his shoulders don’t rise. There’s nothing.
“Leo.” I rush across the room, my blood running as cold as the snow outside. My phone falls out of my hand. “Oh, shit. Oh my god. Oh my god.” A bottle of pills is upended on his desk beside a bottle of—I pick it up and stare at the label like it can give me an answer. Whiskey. “No, Leo. No.” He didn’t do this. “Oh, shit, what do I do? What do I—Leo. Please?” He can’t have done this, he can’t, he can’t. He wouldn’t. Not while I’m in his house. He would never want me to find him like this. “Leo—”
I put my hand out to shake his shoulder.
He’s instantly in motion, shoving my hand away, getting to his feet, yelling. It shocks me to the core. He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t ever yell at me. “Don’t touch me. Don’ttouchme!”
It’s the most anguished I’ve ever heard him. Like I hurt him. Like he doesn’t want to be alive.
“I thought you were dead.” Tears run down my face, and I can’t stop them. I’ve never been so terrified. “You weren’t moving, Leo. Have you been in here all night? Did you drink all of that?” I point at the bottle on his desk.
“Get out,” he snaps at me. No color in his face. “Get the fuck out.”
“No. I can’t leave you in here. I thought you were dead. Did you try to kill yourself?” I don’t know what to do. “You’re—you’re scary like this.”
And he is. He’s never scared me so much. I didn’t think he ever would. My heart is trying to peel itself out of my chest.
Leo’s face clouds over with regret, and pain. He sits down in his chair and balances himself with a hand on the edge of his desk. “I didn’t try to kill myself. I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.” I clear my throat to keep from sobbing. “You’re so pale. And you were so still. I know you’re not fine. I can see you.” I go to the side of his desk and swallow more fear. I wanted to be independent, and strong, and now look at me. “I think I should call Eva. She would know what to do.”
“She has her own heartbreak to deal with. Her own life.” Her own heartbreak? What heartbreak? The scariest part is how resigned he sounds. Like he’s known this for a long time. He knows one of Eva’s secrets. Like she knows one of his. It’s too much to think about.
“Why don’t you go to her?” My heart is breaking for him. I don’t understand how he can love Haley the way he does and stay away from her. I don’t understand how he can do this to himself. “Why don’t you go to Haley?”
