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I pull my tongue back into my mouth, but I can’t swallow. My throat is frozen, and my heart hammers as I think about Mom in the living room, watchingLocal News with Jackieafter Dawson died. I can’t leave her a mess.
I straighten and spit the pills into my palm, deposit them in my pocket, and wash my mouth in the tap the way Dawson always did, the way Mom says ladies don’t do. She’d laugh when he did it, maybe affectionately scold him for being raised in a barn. I feel bad for it, as if I chose to flip her off as my last act.
I take in my appearance, and I know it won’t do. I’ll cause Mom enough pain when I swallow the pills. I don’t need to make it worse.
What I need is a plan.
I start to hum “Die Young Stay Pretty” as I wash my face. I heard that when you die, your body empties, so I use the bathroom so I won’t make a mess for anyone to clean up. Then I go to my room, avoiding even a glance at the bed. I sit in front of the vanity and carefully apply makeup, contouring my face and adding bronzer and heavier blush than usual so I won’t look pale in death. I lean in, setting my lashes and applying mascara to replace the coat that tracked down my face. Last, I make sure my lipstick is perfect and there’s none on my teeth.
I pull on my favorite jeans, even though they have rips in the knees and Mom didn’t like them. I’ll make things easy for her, but this is the one choice I’ve gotten to make in three years. I’m going to wear what I like. I pull on a simple, fitted tee, one that matches my sapphire eyes, and stand back, running a brush through my long blonde strands before I decide I’m perfect.
I turn away from the mirror. I guess I chose something last year, if only for a few days.
I think of Colt giving me those pills, and I send a silent thank you to him for coming through for me one more time. He’s always saved me, since the first day we met, before we even knew each other’s names. Then there was the day in the basement, the day the Dolces caught us and pulled us into their web. There’s always been a thread of understanding between us, both of us knowing what the Dolces would do to us if we disobeyed.
I send Mom a text saying I love her. I think about lying on my bed, but I can’t bear the thought of even touching the sheets where the betrayal happened. That’s not my mess. My sisters can clean that up.
I go to the door at the end of the hall and open it, climbing the creaky old wooden stairs into the attic. There, I find the chain for the bare bulb and pull it, switching on the light. When I was a kid and we’d visit, my great aunt would bring us up here to play. Everything was old even then. My sisters and I would sit at a tiny wooden table on tiny chairs and drink lemonade, or take turns on the ancient rocking horse, or put our great-grandma’s dolls into the cradle that actual babies had slept in once upon a time. I liked to watch my great aunt sew on the antique, treadle sewing machine, her feet moving up and down to make it go.
Now the attic is full of ghosts, furniture covered by white sheets. I make my way to the fainting couch under the eaves, where I remember lying with my book and listening to the rain that sounds so loud up here. I pull the covering off the red, velvet seat, my favorite part of the room when I was eight or ten. I’d curl up on it and readThe Secret GardenorAnne of Green Gablesor one of the other books from the shelf.
Tonight, I lie down on it, taking the pills from my pocket and staring up at the two portraits on the wall at the end of the room. One of them is a big painting in a frame, featuring four generations of Walton girls. My great aunt said it was up here to show that this was a ladies’ space, the place she found refuge and brought her friends for tea and gossip. Even Dawson wasn’t allowed up here.
My mom is a baby in the portrait, a chubby blonde thing with ringlets, perfect even then. My grandma was only a few years older than I am now, and the resemblance is unmistakable. Next to her is her sister, my great aunt who lived here. I wonder if they ever did something unforgivable to each other. How they got over it.
In the painting, their mother is the same age that my mother is now. And then her mother, my great-great grandmother, is in her sixties, still blonde and formidable looking, with a rigid jawline and tight mouth.
Next to the gaudy gold frame holding the oversized family portrait is a simple, black and white photo of Jackie Kennedy in her pearls. My great aunt put up that one herself. She said she liked to look at it and remind herself what strength looked like.
“Sorry, Jackie,” I whisper under my breath, opening my palm. I stare down at the three little pills that can save me from this life the way humans never do.
There’s one person who can save me, though.
I always thought people with no friends were losers, pathetic and sad and alone. That’s what everyone says about Colt. What they said about Harper when she moved here.
But maybe it’s not a weakness to be alone. Maybe it’s a strength—the only strength. Because without my sisters, I have no one to save.
No reason to stay.
I sit up and close my hand around the pills.
When Rylan asked if I slept with the twins, I told him I didn’t have a choice. But everything’s a choice.
Being strong is a choice.
Being a victim is a choice—even a victim of my own hand.
One choice at a time, we decide who we are and what our lives look like.
I’m tired of being strong. But being strong when you’re tired of it is the real test of strength. I’m tired of winning. But pulling out your last reserve of energy to win one more game when you just want to lie down and rest is the true victory. I’m tired of looking at my life and seeing who I’ve become. But changing it instead of giving up is a choice I’ve never gotten to make.
Tonight, I get to choose. And I choose to fight.
I drop the pills back into my pocket and pick up my phone.
That’sLo: You’re right. We’re even. You could never love me and do the things you’ve done, and now, I can never love you. If you ever touch me again I will scream so loud the whole world knows what you did. We’re done. Forever.
I don’t need a response, so I leave my phone on the seat before descending the stairs. I grab my keys and slip out the window, so I don’t pass my family on the way out. I’m no longer a perfect Walton girl. I don’t belong with them anymore.
