Page 58

KANE

A cool breeze blows across my burning back, forcing me to blink awake into a dark room. Delilah. She’s in front of me, her fingers gently working through my hair as she whispers, “I’ve cleaned your back.”

The moon is huge behind her. I can hear the faint crashing of waves while she presses the back of her fingers to my cheek. “Your temperature is coming down now. That’s good.”

She’s so beautiful, framed only in the moonlight, but I know what she’s thinking. Pity. It’s written all over her face and the lack of light doesn’t stop me being able to see it.

“Don’t,” I croak, my anger taking over. “Don’t you fucking dare pity me.”

“I don’t pity you for being in pain,” she says, moving away from me and turning cold. “You’ve been out for a day. You’ll need to drink something.”

I watch her as she slips out from under the sheets in only one of my t-shirts.

The moonlight makes her look ethereal, like a mythical creature that I’ve made up, with her hair glowing.

Then she’s out of sight as she walks around the bed.

I can’t turn to follow her as I lay on my stomach, part of me hoping that she comes back, the other hoping she doesn’t.

The pity has always pissed me off. There was a nurse in the prison who would do it too. She’d sit with me after stitching me up and each time she’d repeat, “You seem like a good boy. I don’t know what you’ve done to deserve this, but I’ll pray for you.”

Fucking dumb bitch. Her prayers didn’t do shit, though she soon stopped when the lie that I was a chomo was spread after I was put on suicide watch. I’ve spent too many years of my life laid on my stomach. The loud thoughts I spent years fighting come back with a vengeance.

What’s the purpose of existing?

The thin frame of the open window slowly creaks from the wind, and I stare at it, debating whether to jump.

I’ve tried pills, starvation, a noose, a knife—none of those worked.

Maybe this time it will, and I’ll be free for the first time in my adult fucking life—in the final moment before I plummet to my death.

Delilah walks back to me, stopping those thoughts.

I want to go back to being an unknown person like I was with the masks.

There was only fear then. Now there’s just fucking pity as she sets a glass of water on the floor to treat me like a fucking child.

Pushing her hands under my chest, she lifts me.

I snap, “I can fucking do it.” My back burns, along with my trembling arms, but I manage to sit myself up with my legs bent over the edge of the bed and the breeze fully on my back.

She stands between my thighs, lifts the glass off the floor and brings it to my lips.

A metal ring is attached to the middle and it protrudes out with bent screws on the edge.

“I think it was a toothbrush holder,” she says, soft and innocent. “I couldn’t find anything else, and they locked the door yesterday so I couldn’t leave the room.”

“Did anyone touch you?” I grit, pissed at myself for leaving her alone.

“Not while you’ve been asleep.”

She holds the bottom of the glass, tilting it so I’m forced to drink rather than examine her answer.

I drop my hand to my knee, slowly inching closer to her thigh.

She doesn’t move back as my knuckles brush her knee.

I’m too much of a chicken shit to do more while she helps me drink water because my hand won’t stop fucking shaking.

I just want to hold her. I want to go back in time and lay in my childhood bedroom with her legs in my lap as she stares up at the sky.

If it was a possibility, I wouldn’t let her leave my room and we’d hide there, waiting for the stars to shine so I can watch the way her face softens in awe of something that is less magnificent than her.

But she pities me and moves the glass away to take hold of my elbows, attempting to pull me up to stand. “Do it slowly.”

“Fuck off, Delilah.”

I lift my arms away from her and press my hand flat against her stomach to move her aside then stand, unassisted.

My balance is fucked, and I sway on my feet as she seethes, “You’ve lost a lot of blood.

I told you to do it slowly.” She drops her voice, mumbling under her breath, “Dumbass. Go on, fall flat on your fucking face.”

Dragging myself into the bathroom, I pause in front of the mirror.

I tilt my shoulders to check my back, wincing instantly as my skin pulls around the healing edges of the lashes.

Some of them are deep enough that they’re going to scar.

The crisscross pattern nearly disguises the old slash running down my back. I laugh to myself.

Growing up I never had scars. I can’t even remember scraping my knee since I was only ever allowed to watch from the sidelines while Asher did whatever he wanted. Now I’m full of them. I finally fucking understand that my entire life is fucked up.

I didn’t know any different than my brother having control of my life.

I thought it was normal until Delilah took over.

Then I thought it was something he would grow out of, just like my parents had said, that he would stop being a dick if I just gave in.

But even when he’s dead, I’ve given him control of me, and I avoid my face—his face—in the mirror as I rinse my mouth.

Once I’ve pissed and washed my face, I go back out. Delilah is under the sheets, facing away from me. She’s not asleep and I wouldn’t really care if she was when I crave her, so I say, “You moved the dresser.”

“Yeah.” She continues staring out of the window. “You wouldn’t have been able to climb over it.”

“Stop feeling sorry for me.” I lay on my stomach beside her, watching the back of her head. “I can do shit myself and I don’t someone like you to fucking baby me.”

She nearly smacks me in the face as she abruptly turns, glaring at me. “What the fuck does that mean? Someone like me?”

“Selfish,” I answer. “Conceited. A bitch who only cares about herself pitying me makes me pathetic. I’ve already been that for you once.”

I’m picking a fight. I don’t really a give a fuck.

I’m pissed and I hate my life so why should she be allowed to be calm?

She may not have been the person who conspired to make my sentence even worse, more torturous, but she caused this shit.

Whether I like it or not, I can’t compartmentalize all the different parts of her anymore.

She can’t be my Delilah when we’re alone and the catalyst for my destruction at the same time.

She has to exist with every flaw in every moment to stop me forgetting while I pay my dues for the fucked up shit I did.

Then I’ll be back to myself. I’ll stop being bitter and maybe, just fucking maybe, I’ll be able to have her back.

There’s a doubt in the back of my mind of whether I’ll ever be able to move past the fact that if Delilah hadn’t killed Asher, I wouldn’t be here.

My skin would be scar-free, but most importantly, so would my mind.

“You know what?” she spits. “I do fucking pity you. Not because your grandmother is a twisted freak, or because we’re here. I pity you, Kane. I feel sorry for you because you’re so fucked up and in denial that you don’t even know who you are anymore.”

She inches closer, still on her back, and I don’t know how to fix all these jagged pieces of who we are to be able to hold her.

“I pity you for being such a gullible idiot that you went out of your way to hurt me. Because all you did was break any chance of a future we could have had. You hurt the one person who was willing to kill for you. I hope that you feel the loneliness of that every single day for the rest of your life.”

This shit isn’t my fault. Not all of it. It’s her parents who acted like puppet masters. It’s Delilah who decided to kill Asher. The blame for making her think she was crazy lies with me, but the rest isn’t mine to take responsibility for.

“You caused all of this, and I understand why you did, but there’s always going to be a part of me that hates you for it,” I admit. “You broke us long before I ever did. We never would have had a future. I have his face. He hurt you, you hate him, but I’m stuck with his face.”

She’s silent for a beat, taking in the truth, and then softly says, “I met you first, so to me, he always had your face. It was always Kane then Asher.”

Fuck.

It’s all confusing and painful, so I latch onto hope as I ask, “Would you have given me a future? If I spoke to you when I got out, would you have given me that?”

We come to a silent understanding, putting our bitterness and hurt aside as she opens up with the stars and moon overlooking us, just like we’re teenagers again.

“There was a time that I’d dream about it.

” Delilah shuffles closer, lifting the sheets to cover the back of my legs.

“I spent years thinking that you hated me, then my nights were plagued with the idea of you. So, if you spoke to me—really spoke to me—I would have given you whatever you wanted to be able to keep you.”

“But you moved on.”

“I haven’t had a relationship since you.

I would have waited for you if you told me that’s what you wanted.

But after so many years of sending letters and getting no reply, I had to try and live my life.

I’m sure you don’t really care, considering you put me in another man’s bed.

” Her anger comes back and hardens her voice.

“You tried to play with my head again like I would think months of my life had disappeared.”

“It was the only way I knew to stop you moving on. I could control him. I couldn’t control you.”

“Because I’m a whore?” she scoffs, shaking her head and moving away from me.

I wrap my arm around her hips, keeping her beside me as I correct her, “No, you crave attention, but you’ll use your body to get it. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how lonely you were.”

I’m only able to see her profile and her jaw tenses as she swiftly turns her head to look out of the window.

“I didn’t hate you at first,” I admit, begging her to look at me again. “I kept waiting for someone to visit me and I only ever wanted it to be you. But then no one ever came, and I was stuck in my cell for months at a time. It fucked with my head, and I didn’t have anything to distract me.”

Hate is the only thing I have that belongs to me. I can’t tell her that the emotion has been my only comfort, solace, friend, companion, for so long that I’m terrified of letting it go. Instead, I keep confessing to her like she can absolve me.

“That’s one thing no one tells you about prison. There’s so much time. It’s endless, like the world slowed down and all you have to do is think. There’s no distraction when that’s what you need. Distractions are good because not all thoughts are built equal.”

“Like?”

“Like trying to convince myself that you loved me while watching videos of you fucking other men. I knew you were doing it. I wasn’t fucking stupid, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t care that you would leave my brother’s bed to come into mine.

In my head it was justified because you were mine first. I’d romanticized it.

You weren’t cheating on him, you wanted to be with me.

You weren’t leaving me, you were coming to me. ”

“I did,” she whispers, turning to look at me.

“Tell me,” I beg.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything, everything. Why didn’t you tell me what he was doing?”

“You wouldn’t have believed m?—”

“I would. I do.”

The moonlight shows her tears welling against her bottom lashes but she’s stronger than I am, managing to disguise her voice so she sounds cold instead of hurt.

“How could you, when my mom had drawn him a chart of acceptable places he could leave marks?”