Page 36 of When Hearts Unravel (The Orchid #6)
Her eyes fill with moisture again. “I had to work twice as hard to accomplish what she could easily do. If anything, I should be the one to be depressed, right? It’d be easy—I was the forgotten twin, the second fiddle. None of us ever expected her to be sad. She had everything.”
Olivia pulls away from me and steps toward the fire.
“We were supposed to start college together. It was prom. She had a hot date with the student body president. I was going with my first and only boyfriend. He booked a hotel room for our first time.” A flush creeps up her face and I try to tamp down the burn rising in my chest at the idea of her with another man.
“We were going to talk about our experiences the next morning.”
She tosses another scrap of paper into the fire.
From this distance, I see they are photos—this one of the cave excursion in Mykonos.
“When I went home the next morning, wanting to tell her sex was overrated, I knew something was wrong. You see, twins would have a connection. When she was scared, I felt it. When she was happy, I sensed it.”
Olivia shakes and I walk over and pull her against me as a foreboding weight sinks deeper into my gut.
I smell the damp earth tinged with metal from the night that changed my life. Visions of my mom’s twisted body appear before me.
“It was the nothingness I felt when I stepped inside the house that morning. Dead silence. An eerie hollowness. It was wrong, terribly wrong. I remember sweating when I made my way up the stairs. I remember holding my breath when I turned the doorknob of her bedroom door.”
She pulls in a sharp inhale, then the rest of her story flows out in a strange monotone. “I knew she was dead before I saw her up close. She swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and tucked herself into bed, the comforter up to her shoulders like she was going to sleep.”
Olivia shook her head. “She didn’t do the work, Rex.
This is why I always say you have to do the work.
No one can help you unless you want to help yourself.
I thought something was bothering her before.
I told her she could talk to me. I even took her to the bookstore so we could get self-help books.
I thought it was stress—graduation, moving across the country, something run-of-the-mill.
But she never confided in me. She laughed and told me I should get books for my overactive imagination. ”
I close my eyes, remembering the small boy who found his mom, his marbles scattered around her. Then the maids screaming and my siblings bawling when they heard my cries.
And my dad, the great Linus Anderson, who was strong, brave, and everything I wanted to be when I grew up…
He collapsed.
“I’m so sorry, Olive,” I rasp, knowing exactly the pain she went through and how one event could change the rest of your life.
“She asked me to come to Las Fallas when I turned thirty. I thought nothing of it then, how she made it seem like I’d be making the trip alone, but it was her last wish for me.
‘To burn our regrets,’ she said. But she didn’t leave a note.
She didn’t leave a reason. She didn’t tell me what regrets she had.
I don’t even know why she wanted me here at thirty, not twenty-five, not any other age. ”
Olivia knots her hands into tight fists at her side.
“I missed the red flags. I didn’t realize she was severely depressed. I was her person, and I had no idea.”
Let go, Olivia. You don’t have to be strong anymore. I’m here.
I squeeze her shoulder. “Scream. Yell at her. It isn’t your fault. None of this is your fucking fault.”
Why can’t you tell yourself that? How many times did your family, did Casey tell you this?
“Why are you so selfish, Mia? Didn’t you think about what would happen to me after you left?
Why didn’t you talk to us and get help?” she cries into the roaring flames.
“Carpe fucking diem! You could’ve had a whole long life to do crazy stuff.
Did you know how many people would’ve wanted that time? How could you? How could you leave me?”
The courtyard is empty now. Only me, her, and the small burning fire.
“Let it out, Olive. Let it all out. It isn’t fair. What happened to you isn’t fair at all.”
Tears eke out of her eyes and I see the tendons flexing in her neck.
“You didn’t give me closure! Do you know our parents miss you every day?
That I can never replace you? How can a shadow replace the sun?
They don’t even know my favorite food,” she sobs.
“I know I shouldn’t blame you, that it was a mental illness.
You were miserable and sick and you didn’t want this either, but I’m so angry.
I wish I could hate you, but I miss you too damn much! ”
She shakes like a leaf and my heart shreds into pieces, grieving for her, for me, for every lonely soul who’s left behind after the death of a loved one.
A corrosive burn, one I’ve quashed down repeatedly when I wake up at night, bathed in sweat after reliving the past, makes its way up my esophagus, my throat, then before I know it, I’m yelling at the flames.
“I’m sorry, Mom! I heard you arguing that day.
I knew you were upset, but I ran away because I was scared shitless about loud noises.
If I’d gone to you, if I hadn’t left my marbles all over the place, you wouldn’t have died.
I heard him, you know. I should’ve known you were in danger.
He said, ‘They’ll never believe you, Joanna.
You won’t be here to tell them anything. ’”
My confession spills out of me.
I hear Olivia’s sharp gasp, and I know I’ve surprised her. But I can’t help it. This poison has been bottled up inside me for too long.
I shove my hand into my pocket and clench the marble, a reminder of what I did to my family.
This is why I couldn’t forgive myself as a kid or as an adult.
When I was younger, I didn’t understand what I’d heard.
I thought my memory was playing tricks on me, because the voice was muffled and I didn’t recognize it.
I couldn’t parse the statement—it made no sense.
Mom had no enemies. But I knew Mom had slipped on my marbles, fallen down the stairs, and broken her neck.
Even as a six-year-old, I knew it was my fault. If I’d cleaned up after myself, Mom would still be here.
But when we caught the culprit a few years ago, everything made sense.
Those words I heard—they weren’t from a scared kid with endless imagination.
They were threats from her murderer moments before she died. Mom must have figured out the culprit behind the mysterious deaths of the Anderson wives of first sons. She must have confronted the murderer.
And instead of going to her, I ran away.
That’s why I couldn’t forgive myself when Maxwell unearthed the killer, when he told me it wasn’t my fault.
None of them knew.
It was my fault.
I had opportunities to stop it from happening. Instead, I caved to my fears and ran away.
Useless. A scaredy cat.
I robbed my mom of her life and my family of happiness.
No matter how many jokes I crack, how many smiles I put on their faces, how much of a daredevil I am now, I’ll never be able to heal those wounds.
“I’m sorry!” I yell into the fire. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for being a fuckup now. I’m so fucking sorry!”
My words echo as the flames crackle and my vision blurs.
Ragged gasps etch out of my lips—ugly, horrible sobs—the poison inside me finally overflowing, leaking out of my pores in streaks of black.
Then, I feel it.
Her hand on my arm. She slowly steps into my vision and I see her.
My angel. My siren. My salvation.
Tears stream down her face, no doubt matching mine.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispers urgently, her fingers shaking as she brings them up to my cheek. “Just like how it isn’t my fault.”
Her words are a balm to my soul, an antidote to the poison.
I grip her hand, my breathing heavy, needing to tell her my thoughts as much as I need my next breath.
“And you’re wrong. You aren’t a shadow. You’re glorious—a shooting star at night.
You don’t need the sun because you burn brightly all by yourself.
People worship at your feet. People trust you with their wishes.
You, Olivia Lin, are bewitching, breathtaking, fucking incomparable, and I see you. ”
Her lips part, her eyes widening. A gasp slips out.
Then she pulls my head down and kisses me.
For the first time in my life, I feel it.
Peace.