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And on Fridays, he always comes back meaner than when he left.
When I got home, the door wasn’t just unlocked. It was dangling halfway open, with a dent in the middle, and the chain lock ripped right out of the wall. My heart was already in my throat when I threw it open, running into the living room. Even thinking about it throws me right back into the eye of the hurricane. What I found was my worst nightmare. Joel looming over her, hands around her throat. She was starting to turn purple—I couldn’t tell if she was even alive. I shouted at him, but he didn’t flinch. So I charged him. I pushed him, yelling my fucking head off, trying to get him away from her. He let go, but just for a second, stumbling back toward her with a vacant, drunken single-mindedness. So I shoved him again, harder this time, hands square on his chest. One foot caught against the other, and he toppled over backward. I tried to reach for his shirt but caught only empty air. His arms made useless flapping circles as he went down, this dumb empty look on his face. Then his head cracked against the hearth, and he crumpled like a doll.
As he bled out from a gash on the back of his head, I didn’t have time to react. Red. Everything was red. I think I called out his name, trying to get him to wake up. I may have yelled out for help, not knowing that our neighbor, Mrs. Givens, had already called 911 when they’d started fighting earlier. Cops showed up out of nowhere, busting through the door, taking one look at the scene, and already assuming whatever they wanted about me. I got tackled, thrown to the floor, and cuffed, while somebody did a half-assed job of reading me my rights with a knee between my shoulders, pushing the air from my lungs. I didn’t get to speak to my mom, let alone look at her before the EMTs loaded her on a stretcher and into the ambulance.
I don’t know if she would’ve looked me in the eye anyway.
Women are fickle that way. When it comes down to a duel between their kids and their man, the kids aren’t always a sure bet.
After shaking away the horrifying mental image that just doesn’t want to leave, it takes me a minute to realize that I’ve stopped talking and that everyone is staring at me. I don’t know how long I’ve been going on for—everything inside of me feels empty and numb. Like I’m at the bottom of a frozen lake in an alien universe. I wish I could take a deep breath, go under, and never come back to the surface.
“I don’t envy you, kid,” the big guy snorts, shaking his head and pawing at his mustache. “Somehow, you’re going to have to live with knowing your actions resulted in your stepdad’s death. Good luck getting over that one.”
His words hit me all at once. Joel is dead. And—regardless of intention—his blood is on my hands.
My name is Weston Langmore.
I’m a murderer. And from this dark night of the soul forward, nothing will ever erase that label.
Chapter One
Elowyn
“You seem so sad,” my older sister, Ensley, tuts from her place in the kitchenette, putting away my measly selection of plates from IKEA, her beaded bracelets clacking against each other with every reach of her long arms. “I told you. You weren’t going to live with Mom forever. This will be good for you. A real chance to grow. Thrive, even.”
As much as I love my eldest sister, I’m not sure I can take another Ensley-style pep talk. They always start off relatively normal before veering into a discussion about ‘karmic potential,’ suggesting crystals to me, and repeatedly using flower metaphors. My sister takes her new-age lifestyle to heart in the best way. She even makes her living selling advertising space on her very popular vegan blog. While my sister is a well-known social media influencer and practicer of all things woo-woo, I’m a person, not an exotic blossom. Nor do I want ten pounds of quartz all over my apartment. I wouldn’t even know which one to use for what intention, and I’d end up using my love crystal for abundance.
And never manifest anything.
Moving always puts me on edge, so I shove some tarnishing silverware into a drawer with more force than necessary.
It’s such a royal pain in the butt, and it doesn’t help that my new apartment is so small it reminds me of my old dorm room. The tiny space even has the same popcorn ceilings and gray low-pile carpet, complete with mystery stains. And… I’m pretty sure I saw a mouse hole under the bathroom cabinet. Maybe that ancient memory popping into my brain birthed my current sadness by painting images of the place where I first failed. My parents, all bright-eyed and full of hope, sent me away thinking they’d get a pharmacist in return. Instead, they got a flunky cocktail server who can’t pass Algebra and has a loser boyfriend.
Ex-boyfriend.
Whatever. Jesse broke my heart by sleeping with my best friend and forcing me to move back in with my parents. But now I’m here, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that yet. I’ve never lived alone.
“Have you looked at those savings accounts I suggested?” Eden calls out from behind the TV, where she’s been screwing in cables for the last thirty minutes. My middle sister is nothing if not capable. She studied abroad and came back even more worldly than when she left. I feel like I’m stuck in place. Hell, maybe I’m even going in reverse. “Your rent payment is so low you can afford to divert quite a bit without making any significant lifestyle adjustments.”
Eden is always right. At least she seems to think so. Between the size of the place and the outdated fixtures, rent barely makes a dent in what I make in tips in a week. She tried to talk me into something a little bigger. Forever the pragmatic one, she even drew up a budgetary spreadsheet for me to prove the idea’s feasibility. How she got my income down so exactly without my involvement, I’ll never know. But I don’t mind living somewhere small. In fact, I’m trying to downsize my life as much as possible. I don’t want to be in debt to anybody. I don’t want to be under anyone’s control ever again. I used to feel so trapped. I can’t bear to go back to that again.
I cock my head to one side. “No, I haven’t. I’m sorry you put so much work into that list. I just haven’t really felt up to anything.”
I should be excited. Most people are when they get their own place. Free from their parents, allowed to do whatever they want from eating the entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s to whipping out the trusty vibrator without fear of being caught—it’s a pretty sweet set-up. But I still can’t help but feel a sense of melancholy as I familiarize myself with the mechanics of my new sleeper sofa, a gift from Mom and Dad. Frankly, I think it was less of a gift and more of a gentle shove out of the nest. “Please, Elowyn, leave our guest bedroom and take this thinganywhereelse as a token of our love.” Because nothing says love more than a piece of furniture.
I think, more than anything, I’ll miss the safety net. When I finally broke things off with Jesse six months ago, it was nice being somewhere he couldn’t find me. Somewhere my dad could protect me from him. Where I could finally stop looking over my shoulder. He was so volatile for so long, blaming me for getting him fired from The Frosty Pint. I still jump when a car backfires, at any strange sound really. I’ve heard that’s a sign of a dysregulated nervous system.
Jesse thought that if he could get the job back, he would get me back right along with it. Everything would go back to normal, like nothing ever happened. It was the first time in history that my ex didn’t get exactly what he wanted. I didn’t actually have anything to do with him losing his job, but I couldn’t help being thankful to management just the same. I never would’ve been able to work there if he stayed, and it would’ve sucked to lose the job in the break-up too.
Confident that I can unfold the sleeper and fold it back up again, I sit down on the sofa and try to tear the tag from a throw pillow with my nails. Ensley floats into the room, settling in beside me with a willowy arm around my shoulders. I wish I had inherited an ounce of her height or grace. When I was a kid, she reminded me of a painting of a ballerina or a princess in a storybook. Especially with all of that hair. Ensley inherited that trademark Lorenson golden blond, and Eden took after my mom with her almost black locks. But mine was a mousy brown before I left junior high.
Now I’m lucky if I can afford highlights.
“First step is complete. You’ve got an apartment. Now let’s finish your degree! As a pharmacist, you’ll make bank.” She ruffles my hair with her delicate fingers, something she’s done since we were small. “You’ve got this, little sis.”
There it is again.Finish your degree.It’s all they ever talk about. How I won’t have to work nights—I’ll get to be awake with the sun like a real person, instead of crawling into bed right after breakfast. Sometimes I swear they think I’m a vampire. They lament about how I won’t come home sticky with grenadine and smelling like stale beer and floor cleaner. Drunk guys won’t hit on me. All of these won’ts—but never anywills. It’s always about how much my life sucks now, but never about how being a pharmacist would make me happy. Or if it’s what I even want.
The worst part? I don’t correct them. I still haven’t learned how to stand up for myself. Not with my family. Not with Jesse.
