Page 3 of Wicked Little Darling

My entire childhood, I would see bad things happening to other people. All the while, I was thankful those things never happened to me. I didn’t believe they even could. I thought I was untouchable somehow.

The suffering of others was horrible, sure, but it was never mine and I didn’t fully understand how deep it could really go.

I did now.

Everyone said I should be grateful to be alive, that it was some kind of miracle.

I wasn’t grateful. All I wanted to do was wallow in this ugly, aching despair that only grew with each passing day. The further the distance between the accident and the present, the deeper that despair dug itself.

And what kind of miracle left two people dead and one barely alive? What miracle made the only parent left decide to blamehis thirteen-year-old son for a freak accident? What miracle stripped away the illusion that life was good and showed me the ugliest, most painful parts of being human?

I resented the fact that I was still here. Maybe if Dad told me it was okay, maybe if he told me he loved me and that everything would be okay, maybe…maybe I’dbeokay.

I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

“Ready?” he asked, his voice flat and quiet.

I looked at the two open graves, wondering how long I’d zoned out. They’d already lowered the caskets.

“Go ahead.”

I walked forward and pulled out the two envelopes from my pocket. They were slightly crumpled, but I hadn’t wanted them to be ruined by the snow.

I’d wanted to put my violin in Mom’s grave. I didn’t ever want to play again, didn’t want to look at it, but Dad had told me no, she wouldn’t have wanted that.

She made me promise to make it to Carnegie Hall one day. To go to college and do all the things she couldn’t afford to do when she was my age.

That promise felt like the only thing I had left of her now. It was something that tethered us together, something I could do, some way to make amends. To apologize for being the reason she wasn’t here right now.

I crouched low and pressed a kiss to both envelopes. The snow was still falling, collecting on top of the caskets, and there’d be nothing to protect the words I’d written from it.

My hands shook as an uncomfortable buzz of anxiety began winding its way through my nerves.

How would they be able to read my letters if the snow melted the words? Why hadn’t I put them inside the caskets? I should’ve?—

I should’ve?—

“Reese.”

I sucked in a long breath, trying to dispel the tightness in my chest.

Maybe they already knew the words I’d written. They must. They had to know.

I held the smaller one over Lauren’s casket, let it fall, then did the same with the larger one over Mom’s casket.

It felt like losing them all over again.

“Sending all my love in a special envelope only you can see,” I whispered. I stood up but didn’t move away as other people started coming around and throwing flowers into their graves.

I didn’t want there to be flowers in there, wilting and dying on top of them. Decaying in their resting place.

I wanted to jump down and throw the flowers out, to scream and yell at everyone here to fuck off, get lost, you didn’t love them like I did. You didn’t know them like I did. You weren’t there when Lauren was born, you weren’t there when I taught her how to rollerblade or ride a bike or play baseball. You weren’t there when she lost her first tooth and cried so hard she threw up. You weren’t there when she dressed up as a dinosaur for Halloween and got made fun of by all the other kids, you weren’t there to jump in and make fun of them right back.

You weren’t there when she followed me around and copied everything I did.

You weren’t there when she died.

When the first shovel-full of dirt was thrown on top of Lauren’s casket, I wanted to yell at the man to stop, to get them out of there, don’t leave her down there in the dark, she was terrified of the dark. I wanted to hold my mom. I wanted her to holdme. To tell me everything was okay, to sing to me.