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I try so hard to distract my sisters, to block out the yelling, but nothing works. When Eliza’s sniffles become too loud to ignore, stifled tears leaving a wet spot on my top, I can’t take it anymore.
Quickly and quietly, I usher my sisters out of bed and bundle them up as best I can, shoving hoodies over their heads and too-big sneakers on their feet. When they're sufficiently weather-proofed, I hoist open the window, warm, damp air slapping me in the face.
“What are you doing?” Lux grips the back of my jumper, attempting to yank me back inside when I swing a leg over the window ledge. “Jackson!”
“I’m not listening to that anymore.” I nod in the direction of all the freaking yelling before pointedly glancing at our little sisters. Lux follows my gaze, eyes darting from the door to the steadily falling rain to the sad girls peering up at us.
A handful of contemplative seconds pass before she sighs and practically shoves me out the window.
It takes some maneuvering but between the two of us, we manage to maneuver the girls outside without dropping them in the growing puddles of mud steadily growing around me. Before she hops out, Lux passes out a bag filled to the brim with blankets, and I stuff it under my hoodie before the rain can seep through.
Together, we make a mad dash for the old barn a couple hundred feet from the house. Lux and I broke in here on our first night when, after a long day of listening to our grandmother berate our absent mother and her choices and her children, the prospect of staying under the same roof as the evil woman seemed way too stifling to consider.
Empty stalls and eerie silence greet us as we push open the creaky door. As we pile inside, a wistful sigh catches my attention. Pushing back her head to reveal a hopeful expression, Eliza’s lips twitch. “Do you think Grandma would buy me a pony?”
My chest hurts as I smooth her hair back from her face. “Maybe.”
The little fib is worth it; Eliza skips away with an actual smile on her face.
The second she's out of earshot, an elbow jabs me in the ribs. “You shouldn't lie to her like that,” Lux admonishes, scowling at me and looking so much older than eleven.
I elbow her back. “I'm the oldest. I can do what I want.”
With the wind howling and the rain pelting loudly off the roof, we settle in the loft of the barn, the five of us drifting off to sleep as we huddle under a mound of blankets, sandwiched together like sardines in a can.
Uncomfortable and damp and noisy because of the rain, but at least we don't have to hear about how awful we are.
At least we're together.
I woke up this morning rattled, disorientated, and inexplicably sad. It was the first time we camped out up there, but it wasn't the last. The girls used puppy dog eyes to convince the ranch hands to help us make the place more comfortable, dragging half the contents of our dusty attic up there. Old mattresses, rotting furniture. There was even a hammock, at one point, before someone swung a bit too vigorously and broke it.
It became our safe spot, the one place on the entire ranch that truly felt like ours.
The first bit of a real home we ever had.
29
JACKSON
“For the last time,Lux, I'm sorry.”
An unimpressed huff echoes through my phone. “Apologies don't make the abandonment sting any less.”
“You are so fucking dramatic.”
“Don't curse at me, Oscar.”
“Sorry,Alexandra.”
“Don’t start with me,” she warns, the sound of something slamming in the background only emphasizing her bad mood. The same one she’s been in since I fled the house at the beginning of the weekend, barely calling a goodbye as I frantically booked a flight.
We don’t take well to being ditched, us Jacksons.
“I’m sorry, Lux.”
My sister grunts, her sullen attitude prominent even as she asks, “Is your friend okay?”
“My girlfriend is fine.”
