Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
I could compartmentalize that way. I could explain her sickness by saying something else took her over and that wasn’t really my sister dragging the knife down my back because she wanted to taste my blood.
But it was always there, wasn’t it? She just figured out how to behave in a way that didn’t tip off the world to her truth.
She was like my father. Cold and dead inside.
Now she’s gone.
I stand near the cliffs and cry. I’m exhausted, my legs ache, my throat hurts from gasping, and I sob until I don’t have anything left in me. Why am I letting myself face this now, after all these years? I’ve been so good at keeping Lucy’s demon hidden, even from myself.
But that demon is why I can’t fit in anywhere. Lucy is why I feel so ruined and hollow inside. I never had friends because I was terrified of bringing them around my sister. I never made connections because Lucy insisted she was the only connection I ever needed. She controlled me, dominated me. When she left for Saint Parras, I thought it would be like getting a tumor excised, but instead it felt like losing a limb.
How did she break me so completely?
And how am I going to fix myself?
“I hoped I wouldn’t find you here.”
I whirl back toward the path. Emilio’s there wearing his running gear. He looks concerned, but he’s not coming closer. If he’s afraid of panicking me, he doesn’t need to be. I’m too wiped out from my cry and from my run to lose my cool now.
I move away from the cliffs and sit in the grass in the shade of a palm tree. He hesitates, but comes over, and lowers himself down beside me.
“I never tell anyone why my voice sounds like this. Nobody knows the full truth except for Lucy, and we never talked about it. I’ve been carrying this story in me for so long now.” I look at him and the need to tell someone this truth is so overwhelming I can’t stop myself. “My voice has been a mess since I was eight years old,” I say, staring back out at the ocean. He says nothing, only shifts closer so that our shoulders are touching. “I told everyone it was an accident. My parents, the doctors, everyone kept asking how it happened, but I wouldn’t tell them. They said it looked like someone strangled me. I said it was a jump rope. Lucy made me swear it had to be our little secret, and I guess I was smart enough to understand that she’d get in a lot of trouble if people found out. So I kept quiet and I lied.”
“What happened?” he asks gently.
I take a trembling breath and let it out. “She came to my room one night. I was in that place right before sleep, you know what I mean? Right in the twilight. It wasn’t unusual for her to come snuggle into bed and I figured that’s what she was doing. But instead, she got up on top of me, straddling me, and pinned me down with her weight. She was ten, I was eight. I didn’t understand what was happening until—”
I close my eyes, trying not to cry more. Reliving that experience is like jabbing a piece of jagged glass into my chest. But in some ways, it’s cathartic, working out some of this pain. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from Emilio, it’s that sometimes pain can feel good, too. Pain can heal, wash away, start over.
“It’s okay,” he says and puts an arm over my shoulders. “You can say it.”
“I could see it in her eyes. They were flat and dead. The demon had her and I was so scared as she wrapped her fingers around my throat. She didn’t smile. She didn’t talk. She strangled me. It wasn’t playful. It wasn’t gentle or curious or whatever. She wrapped her hands around my throat and dug her fingers into my flesh and squeezed as hard as she could. I felt something break inside my neck and I guess it was my voice box, that’s how hard she squeezed.” I have to stop. My heart’s racing and I feel like my brain’s about to explode. I never talk about this—never, not ever, not even once. I’ve never told anyone this story.
But Lucy’s gone, and I think Emilio might be the only person in the world that could possibly understand me right now.
“I almost blacked out,” I say after a long pause to gather myself. “Her face turned red and her eyes stayed wide. I remember the eyes the most. She just kept staring at me and instead of fear or anger, she was just curious and detached. Like she desperately wanted to watch me die. She kept going and going and I felt myself drifting, my head spinning, my ears were burning and buzzing and ringing, and my vision tunneled—but then she stopped. She released me and I rolled off the bed, coughing and gagging, and she stood there watching the whole time, just watching as I threw up blood all over the carpet. That’s why my voice sounds like this. My sister almost killed me one night for no reason, and I’ve never talked about it since.”