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“And that if I gave you my trust, you’d protect me.”
“Yes.”
“You broke your promise,” her voice had grown soft, pained and tortured. “You broke your promise and it killed me inside.”
“I know, baby.” I closed my eyes, leaning down to brush my cheek across hers. “And I will never ever stop regretting that.”
“Well it doesn’t matter now.” Her voice had changed.
I opened my eyes, stepping back, staring at her, trying to put a finger on what was different.
“You left me, Knight, and it was the best thing you’d ever done for me.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It was the worst?—“
“It was the best. Because then, I learned to take care of myself.” She tilted her chin up. “Yes, at first, things got worse. Worse than you can ever imagine.” She paused, once again trying to find her words, and the red coloring to her cheeks grew deeper. “Do you know what it’s like to be paralyzed in your own body, unable to move, for hours and hours?”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Tati. What are you talking about?”
“To be berated and talked down to, all day every day? To be fucked when you can’t even move an inch.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She shook her head, shaking my question off. She pulled her arms out from behind her back. They weren’t tied. Instead, she was holding a gun. “I do, Knight. And I’ll never let that happen to me again.” She pointed it up at me and clicked off the safety. “You aren’t safe for me, Knight. So I have to protect myself. You need to die.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Age 14,in the United States
Betrayal lay so thick on my tongue, it tasted like curdled milk. Rook was hot on my trail, and so close, I could practically feel his breath on my neck.
"Your dad wants you to takemeout on a helicopter ride?" Rook didn't hide the disbelief in his tone.
"Yeah." I nodded, glancing away as we entered his living room. The couch, old and worn, had orange flowers on it. Sixties style. "Well, I practically had to beg him, but he said yes." My heart was pounding loudly, grateful that the smile I'd plastered on was well practiced.
"But," he tilted his head, his face still too innocent looking for a fourteen year old in this harsh world, "I thought he didn't want you hanging out with me anymore."
"Well. It is your birthday tomorrow."
"Still..."
"I don't know." I shoved my hands in my pockets, staring past the aged sofa and into the kitchen, the edges of the yellowed linoleum flooring curling upward, and shrugged. "He said it was okay, for your birthday." I didn't elaborate. My father hadn't said it, he'dcommandedit.
There was a small hesitation. Enough to make my stomach churn––I hated lying like this to him––but Rook's suspicion was replaced with a crooked smile. "I'll go ask!"
As he raced down the hallway in his small home, I shifted uncomfortably.
Rook had had a hard life growing up, a fact that added poison to the acid lining my stomach for what I was about to do. For what my family was about to do.
His nana took him in when Rook found his mom dead in her own vomit, lying face down on their living room couch. The needle by her side had given a clue to the cause.
His nana was sweet and kind, and even when Rook raged and rebelled, her patience had eventually broken through to him. Rook was probably the nicest person I'd ever met, a lot better than my father's friends’ kids, and I liked hanging out with him.
As I wandered into his kitchen, rummaging through his cabinets, there was the hacking cough of his Nana, then the painstaking drag in of a breath.
Two boxes of crackers, a large jar of peanut butter, five cans of tuna fish and two boxes of Ramen noodles.
In the fridge: a quart of milk and a jar of mayonnaise.