Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“Do you want me to call Dr. Anthony? If you wanted to talk—”
“No.” She averts her gaze again. “It’s fine. It’ll work itself out of my system eventually.”
“But you know you don’t have to suffer, right? We’re all here to help you.”
“I know.” But she’s obviously done talking. She’s an island. No one can reach her if she doesn’t allow it.
Casey was only five years old when our mom drowned. She and I huddled on the couch at our old house in Massachusetts, clinging to each other’s clammy hands, while Dad stammered through how to tell us that Mommy was never coming home. It took the better part of a month to realize what it meant. In practical terms. Suddenly she wasn’t there to pull us out of the bathtub and comb our hair. To pour milk in our cereal. To wear her clothes and sit on her spot on the couch.
No one taught us how to navigate this world as women. What it meant to be a girl in high school. Now Casey’s my responsibility and I feel entirely unqualified. How do I coach her through another trauma when I’m not sure any of us have recovered from the first?
In the kitchen, Dad is still sipping tea and reading the news on his iPad. When he asks about Casey, it’s hard not to take it as an accusation.
“She’s not still sleeping, is she?” He checks his watch. “Did she seem under the weather last night?”
“No, she’s not sick.” I put the breakfast bar between us, leaning against the counter for support because more than hearing it from Casey, I hate having these conversations with him. “She’s having the nightmares again.”
Dad puts down the tablet. “Did she talk about it?”
“A little. There weren’t any breakthroughs.”
In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Casey withdrew from everything. She retreated into herself and shuffled around here like a ghost, if we saw her at all. We spent several unbearable weeks gently nudging communication until she was verbal again. Now I see those days reflected in Dad’s worried stare when he meets my eyes. It’s like both of us are always holding our breath that something doesn’t trigger her to regress back into her darkness.
“She’s going to need your help adjusting to her new circumstances now that you’re both back in school.”
“I know that.” Unbeknownst to him, I’ve spent the week committing multiple counts of misdemeanor assault to try clearing a path for Casey to have a normal semester at school.
“We shouldn’t take for granted the progress she’s made to this point. More likely the next few months will be the most difficult of her recovery, so we can’t let our guard down, Sloane.”
“I’m not.”
I swallow the lump of frustration that jams in my throat, but it’s so hard not to let my emotions spill over. Trauma within a family always creates a cascade effect of collateral damage. For us, it’s this widening schism between Dad and me, a result of his deep disappointment and distrust. Months later, we still don’t know who drugged my sister and put her in that car. And in an absence of answers, Dad blames me. I’m the one who brought her to that dance and promised to look after her. I’m the one who abandoned her to get back on my on-again, off-again bullshit with Duke.
I was supposed to be watching her and instead she almost died. Dad’s never forgiven me for that, and I don’t know if he ever will.
What I do know is that I’ll never forgive myself.
“Are you all right?” he asks. “Is there something else we should talk about?”
It’s an empty question. He doesn’t want to know how I’m doing—his gaze is already dropping to his tablet even as he voices the obligatory question. Since Mom died, I’ve been expected to fill her place, to take care of Casey and hold the family together. I’m supposed to be the strength the rest of them rely on, and it’s a burden I bear in silence, because I don’t get to show weakness. Our family is a house of cards built on my shaky palm. If I so much as blink, the whole thing falls apart.
“Nope,” I answer. “All good.”
Dad’s attention returns to his news feed, and I mask my weariness and leave to sweat it all out on my run. For the next hour, I push my legs faster until the heavy, damp air burns in my lungs and my muscles scream for relief. I thrust myself at the miles and terrain, hearing nothing but my footfalls, so that when I lean panting against a tree trunk, doubled over, I’m too exhausted to think.
I’m cooling down, trying to regulate my breathing, when a text pops up on my watch.
RJ: At the spot for a smoke. Join me?