Page 132 of Bloom

It’s Jackson who guides me inside, gingerly pushing on my shoulder until I take a seat at the kitchen table. It’s him who makes me tea even though I didn’t ask for it, but I’ll admit the fragrant steam emanating from the mug does have a certain soothing effect. It’s him who firmly shoos his other sisters back to bed when they come out to see what’s going on. When he reaches into the cabinet for a first aid kit, though, that’s when Lux takes over.

She breaks her silent stupor, murmuring that she’ll take over and ordering her brother away, only to repair it as she takes a seat beside me. She doesn’t say a word as she grips me by the chin, tilting my face towards the light, her gaze surveying every last bit of damage.

I know what she sees. A cut on my forehead, another on my temple, a few scattered across my cheeks and along the bridge of my nose, one on the delicate skin beneath my eye. Tiny slashes that bleed way more than I thought such a small wound would, that sting like a bitch—especially as Lux cleans, disinfects, and dabs honey on each of them.

Hands fisted in my lap, I wait for her to say something as she places butterfly stitches on a couple of them, barely able to breathe with the weight of anticipation crushing my chest.

The first time she sniffs, I don’t think anything of it. The second makes me frown, and I wince when the expression pulls at my cuts uncomfortably. When she starts to blink too quickly, and clears her throat loudly, I squint to get a better look at suspiciously shiny eyes. “Are you crying?”

Lux sniffs a third time. “I have allergies.”

“No, you don’t.”

Her dismissive harrumph doesn’t match a wobbling bottom lip, and I feel mine start to quiver in solidarity. “Lux, don’t.”

“I’m not.” A trembling breath leaves her. “This has been happening since your mom died?”

I shake my head because that’s not exactly right. I’m not quite sure how to explain it, but I try.

I tell her how Dad pretty much checked out the moment Mom passed. How it started with him ignoring me and devolved over the years into him resenting me, how it always came down to him hating me. I tell her about the accidental bumps and the purposeful vitriol and the drinking, so much drinking—and the covering for him, so much covering for him.

When I get to that night, that first awful night when everything went so wrong, and tonight, the night that feels like the end of something, somehow, I don't cry the same way Lux doesn’t cry. We both don’t cry together, our clammy hands clasped together.

“You were just akid.”

I don’t know what to do but shrug. “I managed.”

“That’s why you were here all the time. You couldn’t—” Sucking in a breath, Lux sits back and swipes beneath her eyes. “We were so awful to you. You just wanted somewhere safe, and we were—

“Kids,” I repeat the sentiment. “We were all just kids.”

With a whimper, she pulls me into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Line. I’m so,sosorry.”

I don’t need the apology, but the hug, I accept readily. I cling to Lux, absorbing her sorrow and sharing mine, feeling that burden lift off my shoulders bit by bit. By the time we pull away, I can breathe a little easier—even if they are sobbed, whiney breaths.

Swiping at her eyes again, Lux cups one of my knees. “What’re you gonna do?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t act like nothing happened.”

I stay quiet.

“Caroline,” Lux admonishes, slowly shaking her head. “Youcan’t.”

I look down. “I’ve been doing it for years.”

“That’s nothealthy. That’s not fair. That’s not… that’s not a life, Line. Not the kind you deserve.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Frustration furrows my brow, coils in my guts, makes my skin feel hot. “I tell someone, hemaybegets arrested, and everyone knows. Or I tell someone and nothing happens, and everybody still knows. I can’t live like that either.”

Lux goes quiet. She doesn’t argue—after all, she knows what living in this town, under the freaking microscope, is like. She thinks hard enough to scrunch her own brow. And then, measured and mindful, she asks, “Would you… Would you leave? Haven Ridge?”

“You think I should?”

“I don’t want you to,” she answers what I was really asking, with a small, somber smile. “But I think it’s worth considering.”

I don’t tell her that I do consider it. Briefly, but often. Little wishful intrusions that strike me throughout the day at random times, barely real thoughts, just… imagination. A pipe dream that will likely never come to fruition because, “I love Serenity. I love Bloom.”

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