Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“What did he want you to keep?” That’s the only part of the argument I can recall, and now with the knife sticking out of his neck, blood pooling around his body, those memories are already fading.
“Nothing,” she says, and it angers me as much as it always does.
My older sister is the queen of secrets. She never answers my questions, responding instead with don’t worry about it, or you’re too young to understand.
“I’m not a fucking baby!” I scream, the bad words foreign in my mouth.
I look back at my father, wondering if breaking one of his rules will bring him back to life just so he can punish me.
“It’s none of your business,” she spits back, just another familiar response when I demand answers.
“We have to call the cops.” My voice is pleading. “You’re going to be in so much trouble.”
“We’ll be in trouble,” she clarifies. “You watched it happen and didn’t try to stop it.”
I shake my head, immediately rejecting her words. “I didn’t do this!”
She frowns at me like I’m the disappointment here when she’s the one that stabbed our father. She’s the one that stood back while he gasped for breath, blood spilling from his neck as he begged for help.
She stood back, arms crossed over her chest, much the way she is now. She let him die, and it was nothing like I’ve seen in the movies where someone is stabbed and they fall dead to the ground. He rattled, his hands clawing at his throat. He twitched after falling to the floor.
I squeeze my eyes closed, wanting this day to have never happened.
“They’ll take me away. Do you want that? Do you want to go live with our grandmother?”
Just the thought of living with that woman makes me look at my sister for alternatives as I shake my head.
“We’ll leave. We can make it on our own.”
I want to believe her, but my sister can’t even make curfew. How will she ever make a living at fifteen to support us?
She brought her consequences on herself. I don’t know how many nights I heard her begging him to stop the punishment she earned only to go out and do it all over again the next night.
She begged the therapist he brought to the house to help her.
She begged the man next door he enlisted for help even though we were always warned to never be caught alone with him. It’s the same man that looked at me when he was here last week and asked when Dad expected that I’d need his help. My father telling him soon has kept me on my best behavior.
Nothing has helped her. She’s determined to break any rule set in front of her.
“I have to shower,” she says, the blood on the front of her shirt drawing my attention.
“Don’t leave me down here,” I beg, but she shakes me off when I reach for her.
“I’ll deal with it when I’m out of the shower.” Her voice is flat, emotionless, just like the many times it has been after Dad brought a visitor home.
I can’t be fooled into thinking she’s sorry for what she’s done because she never is.
Her shower goes on forever and ever, and she’s only making things worse. The longer she takes, the more we’re going to have to clean up.
Pain shoots through my head, and I know it’s probably because I haven’t had the chance to eat, but it isn’t the first time I skipped a meal to avoid the risk of being seen by my dad while arguing with my sister.
I don’t want to be called a disappointment the way he calls her.
I close my eyes, wishing it all away, but when I open them again, I’m no longer on the couch.
I feel weightless as I try to blink away the steam filling the bathroom.
Liana is there, her hand running over her lower belly, and I don’t understand. She’s probably sick to her stomach from what she did, or maybe it has to do with the red welts on her back and bottom. They look like they hurt.
I keep quiet because she’d be so upset with me if she knew I was in here with her. She’s always complaining about having no privacy to both Dad and me.
After plugging the bathtub, something I find very weird because she has the shower running, she climbs into the tub, letting all of it pour over her.
My first thought when I see the knife in her hand is that Dad is going to be pissed. We aren’t allowed to take any dishes out of the kitchen, but then I remember that he’s dead. She won’t get punished for it.
I gasp when she drags it from her wrist to the inside of her elbow, but she doesn’t hear me. It’s as if she’s transfixed on the rush of red that blooms on a wave.