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Mine. Mine. Mine.
My laugh. My smile. My twinkle in those baby blues.
She’s not yours. Not anymore,a little voice reminds me.You made sure of that.
“Seriously, Wentworth. What the hell’s going on with you?” Nixon asks, but I ignore him because I can’t take my eyes off of her.
I drink her in from a distance because I know the moment she sees me, it’ll be gone. She’ll be gone.
You kill everyone you love.
As if she can feel my gaze on her, she looks up, her eyes scanning the space until they land on mine. That beautiful smile falls almost instantly. And that’s when I notice it. Her hair. It’s all gone.
“No,” I shake my head.
“No? What the hell—” Nixon turns around, his eyes searching for the person who has my attention. “Jade,” he breathes out. Her name is a whisper and a curse.
He didn’t know.
She did it all on her own.
He didn’t know.
Cursing silently, I grab my things.
I need to get out of here. I need—
I almost bump into a couple in my haste to leave the cafeteria to put as much space between us as possible, but no matter how fast I run, I can’t run away from the memories.
* * *
9 years old
“I look hideous,” Gabriel says, glaring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. His hair started to fall out recently, and it’s only gotten worse after the last session, so Mom brought hair clippers today to shave the patches that were still holding on.
“You don’t look hideous,” I lie.
Gabriel sees right through me. “You don’t know how to lie for shit, Pres.”
“Well, it’s not that bad.”
“I don’t have eyebrows.” Gabriel shakes his head. “Everybody will make fun of me when I go back to school.”
Some of the kids have been asking about Gabriel and when he’ll be back. Out of the two of us, he was the outgoing one. The twin everybody loved and everybody wanted to be friends with. I was just his sidekick—a part of the package.
“If they make fun of you, they’ll have to deal with me,” I promise, my fingers clenching into fists by my sides.
There was no sense in lying, kids were insensitive assholes, and some of them will tease him about it. Kids like that dumbass Collins. He saw us at the movies. On one of the rare outings, Gabriel was allowed because he begged our parents to take us for weeks until they finally relented. The next day he started talking shit about Gabriel, so I punched him. We both ended up in the principal’s office, and my parents were livid, but I didn’t care. He’ll think twice before talking about Gabriel that way.
“I hate cancer. I hate chemo. I hate everything,” he says, snapping me out of my thoughts. The anger burns brightly in his dark eyes. No, not just anger, but also tears. “I just want to be normal for a change.”
My heart twists at my brother’s words. I hate this for him. Why do shitty things keep happening to good people? It’s not fair. Nothing about this is fair.
“I don’t want to be this… this freak.”
Letting out a breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding, I move him to the side, grabbing the clippers off the counter, and turning them on. Before Gabriel can say anything, I run the clippers down the middle of my head.
“What are you doing?” Gabriel asks, his eyes meeting mine in the reflection.
