Page 74 of Broken Souls

“Mark.” I know my voice is small and miserable, but I don’t care what people around the table think. They’ve seen me at my worst. “Mark, look at me.”

“He won’t, Alicia. He won’t look at you because he knows I’m right,” Justin answers instead, his eyes locked with Mark’s. The atmosphere can be cut with a dull knife.

“Shut up, Justin,” I snap. “For once in your life, just shut up.”

All heads whip toward me, Mark’s included. None of them are used to me having outbursts like this.

“What is he talking about? Do you know?” I ask the man next to me.

Mark’s jaw tenses. I can clearly see the muscles in his cheeks working. “Yes, Alicia. I know.”

“What is it then?” I ask desperately.

“Part of me being a trailer trash, I think,” he answers without missing a beat.

I hear a loud intake of air. My mom is shocked. We don’t talk about people like that.

“That’s not it. And you know it.” Judging by Justin’s tone, he’s about to lose it.

There’s a long pause. “He is right.” Finally—finally—Mark meets my eyes. “That’s not it.”

“What is it?” An icicle starts forming at the pit of my stomach, and the cold spreads through my whole body.

“We—” Mark swallows and keeps talking. “We don’t have a good history.”

“Who?”

“Your brother and me.”

“All right. A lot of people don’t have a good history with Justin. He’s got issues. Just ask Kayla. She’s a saint, and I genuinely have no idea how she deals with him.” A weird sound comes from Kayla, and I lift my eyes and find her face twisted with befuddlement. Did I step too far? I was hoping it was going to be a lighthearted joke. Kayla is usually the first one to bug Justin, but she isn’t laughing this time. Her eyes are full of sorrow.

“Our issues…” He quiets as he searches for the right words. “Run deeper.”

“That’s all right. You can resolve it, and we can all move on with our lives, right?” I look around the table. My mom is wearing the same perplexed expression as I am, so I know she’s not in the loop either. But Dad looks between Justin and Mark, scratching his chin. “Right?” I push harder, and Justin finally snaps.

“No, Alicia, this situation cannot get resolved.”

“Why? You’re both adults and can freaking talk it out, right? It can’t be so bad that you can’t do it for me, right?” I don’t know who I’m trying to convince at the end. “Justin, am I right?”

“For fuck’s sake, Alicia.” Justin throws his hands in front of him. “This”—he circles his fingers between me, Mark, and himself—“cannot get resolved. He slept with Ashley, and we were fighting at the gas station the night you were raped, all right? He was one of the reasons why I didn’t get to you on time.”

A sound of glass shattering on the floor.

A loud gasp.

A soft cry.

I don’t know where they all come from because I’m solely focused on what’s going on in my head.

Pain. Emotional and physical.

If he slapped me with a wet towel, it would have been less painful. I rear back as my whole body freezes. My muscles go rigid, but my hands begin to shake.

“Alicia,” a soft voice calls to me, but my mind is numb.

I’m back tothatmoment.

The moment I’ve been reliving in my nightmares for years.