Page 69 of Unspoken Lies

The front of the journal is a dark navy blue and completely unassuming. Opening it slowly, Theo looks down at the first page.

“Well?” I ask, wondering if she used dates, or if it’s just a stream of consciousness.

“This starts at about a year ago,” he says. “I don’t know if she would have other journals… I’ll read it out loud.”

“Brokenness is a funny thing. Even when you think every part of you has shattered, there’s always farther to go. The fire department was called today for a microwave fire and I hid in my closet in an effort not to leave my apartment. The alarm screamed, my mind told me I had to leave, but I just… couldn’t. It was easier to hope and pray for the best, or wait for the pain to disappear in the flames.”

“She could have burned to death,” Elijah says, his voice strangled.

“Everything about the outside world scares me. The meds help enough that I can function in the cocoon of my home. I keep the drapes shut, the lamps on, and beg the world to be kind to me, even though it never has before this. Opening the apartment door even to accept groceries makes my body break into a cold sweat. The only reason that my apartment isn’t filled with trash is because I have a garbage chute inside of my closet that drops into a collection area at the bottom of it. Laundry is currently collected by someone that Emil is paying, because I’m such a damn mess.”

“Is that how she did laundry?” I wonder. I saw there were baskets on her couch.

“Skip ahead,” Elijah requests, his eyes on the ground as he speaks. “I need to see where it gets better. If it’s better.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get that,” I say.

“I just need to know,” he pleads.

“I’ll skip ahead,” Theo promises pensively, flipping pages. I can see him trying to make sense of the words he’s reading, but I don’t think he can when it comes to trauma like this.

“March fifteenth.I forgot to eat again for four days. I don’t want to end up in the hospital again, I really don’t. I am going to begin to set alarms, make myself something even if I don’t think I’m hungry. Being normal doesn’t seem possible, which means I constantly have to remind myself of what that was like.”

Theo pauses for a moment before reading ahead in his head, causing me to elbow him. After wincing in pain, he continues.

“I threwout all of my razors today. I can’t be trusted, and I know that. I’m flying solo with minimal support since I’m supposed to be dead, yet the whispers have been intruding more and more. Maybe I should just end everything, finish what the Kings started? Sometimes, I dream about waking up in a coffin where no one knows where I am, no one cares, but this time… I die?—”

“Stop,”Elijah says, shaking his head as his fingers pull his hair. “What was Mr. Reyes thinking, leaving her alone here?”

“Think about it,” Theo snaps, his words harsh as he snaps the book closed. “She was supposed to be dead. He thought she’d stay hidden, and she was until she walked into our establishment. Rachelle is stronger now than the words in thisjournal. She wouldn’t have been able to show up to work otherwise.”

“Sometimes, in the dark, everything is worse,” I whisper, knowing it’s true. The three of us have all had fucked up childhoods, various times where we couldn’t sleep alone. “Look at her curtains. They’re open. Things are different now.”

“She almost didn’t make it out the window,” Theo reminds me. “We scared her into leaving. We were the worse option than her phobia. That’s fucked, but it worked.”

“It doesn’t mean she’s cured,” Elijah says. “One moment of bravery isn’t going to change her life.”

“No,” Theo grunts, standing with the journal. “I’m taking this with us. I’ll study it, mark patterns and triggers to figure out what makes her fucking tick now.”

“You only take things apart when you want to break them,” I say thickly. “I think she’s had enough of that, don’t you?”

“I can learn to do things differently,” Theo insists. “We have to learn or she’s not going to survive working for us or Santa Barbara.”

The logic is sound, even if it’s a little desperate. Returning everything to its place except the journal, we see ourselves out, and relock the front door.

“Excuse me,” an older woman asks as she steps out of her apartment. “You’re not supposed to be in there.”

“We were fixing her lock,” I tell her, my feet never slowing. The woman doesn’t need to know that we changed all the locks, and not just the slide deadbolt.

I switched out the keys on Rachelle’s key ring, and kept the duplicates. There are too many busy bodies here, if we ever feel the need to check on her, this will make it easier.

Call it your friendly neighborhood assholes, at her service. It’s better than busting open the door each time.

CHAPTER 17

IGNACIO

“Do you want to spend the night?” Liliana asks as we cuddle after a nap.