Page 16 of The Truths We Burn

Rose smiles, and my heart aches a bit at how generous and kind she is. How easily she forgives. It’s my biggest concern with her and Silas. What if one of them hurt her? What if he hurts her? And she just keeps letting him because when Rosemary loves someone or something, she loves it so hard and it doesn’t matter how they treat her.

Our parents are the perfect example.

“It’s alright, Sage,” she responds. “I know it’s because you feel like you have to be mean to get out of this place without getting hurt. I just…I don’t know why. You used to be so happy and free, then one day you just changed. Why won’t you tell me what happened to you?”

“Can we not talk about me? I cannot express to you how badly I don’t want to talk about myself right now.”

“I miss talking about you. The old you. Ya know, the one that didn’t care if she was prom queen or what the world thought of her? The one who carried around tattered scripts and pretended she was Meryl Streep receiving an Oscar. Do you remember her?”

I remember her, and one day, I’ll be that girl again. The day I leave this place, I’ll go back to my old self, and everything will be as it was. She just doesn’t understand that if I’m here, in this toxic waste of a town, it will eat me alive.

I will be completely consumed by the soot, drowned in the black tar of misery that is seeping through the cracks here.

“She’s dead, okay? Why can’t you just let it fucking be, Rose,” I snap with unnecessary anger that was never meant to be directed at her. It had always been towards the ones who turned me into this.

In these moments of hostility, I hate myself more for wishing it were her that went through what I did. That I was the one who lived without a care in the world. The one who hadn’t been jaded.

And those thoughts keep me awake at night. Make me hate myself even more. Because I never, ever want my sister to go through what I did.

“Let’s talk about you, okay? How are you? Are you doing alright? Your piece looks like it’s finally coming together.”

When I say “coming together,” I mean “I have no idea what you are trying to create, but I support you either way.” Rosemary has a thing for sculptures made from broken glass, any kind, but half the time I have no idea what the hell they are supposed to be.

“I—” she starts. “I’m alright. The sculptures are fine. Silas and I are arguing a lot lately though.”

My eyebrows shoot up in alarm. “Why? What did he do?”

“Calm down. He didn’t do anything wrong.” She breathes out. “I swear you just look for reasons to hate him.”

“Well, he doesn’t make it hard to do.”

“We are fighting because I don’t want him to go to Hollow Heights. I want him to leave. All the boys are headed to the East Coast, and I want that for him. You know Mom and Dad will stroke out before I go to school anywhere else, but I don’t want him to stay here.”

They’re going to do more than stroke out when they find out I’m not going to that hellhole, even if they don’t give me money for college. I’ve come to terms that I will live in a box before I go there.

“Long-distance isn’t an option?” I offer, even though I want to say, “Tell him to kick fucking rocks.” I know she loves him, and I don’t want to see her hurt. Ever. Even when I’m the one doing the damage.

“He doesn’t want to do that when he knows we could just be together, but I’m afraid he’ll hate me when we are older. What if we break up? Then he stayed here for no reason.” Even in the dim lighting, I can see the tears slipping down her cheeks, and her voice is wet. “I love him, Sage. I love him so much it physically takes my breath away, and I can’t have him hate me.”

With ease, I reach over, wiping her tears with my thumb. “No tears for boys. We are too pretty for that.”

She laughs wistfully. “Not funny. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me to leave him.”

I bite my bottom lip. “Wellll,” I drawl out.

“Sage!” she scolds, laughing louder, “I know you find it hard to believe, but Silas makes me happy.”

I refrain from rolling my eyes. She’d been saying that since they met in middle school, always trying to convince me of how tame he was, how sweet he could be. So much so that it was easy for her to overlook all the other hell they caused.

“It’s not about you being happy. It’s about you being safe.”

“You sure it’s not about my reputation?”

I click my tongue. “Your reputation is a part of being safe. What are you going to do when Silas says the wrong thing to someone? What are you going to do when that loud-ass Rook pushes someone too far?”

My mind sends me flashes of Rook’s face as he stared directly at Easton with a look so full of fury that for a second I was afraid he’d catch fire. His green eyes had become a forest fire, the tops of stunning pines torched by raging orange flames.

I’d never seen anything like it.