Page 99 of A Heart So Haunted
My brain scrambled to gather itself; I was a basket that had been dropped, contents spilling in every direction. His mouth, still wet and pink, seemed too real. It was too much.
Slowly, I pulled away.
Hadrian let me go. His absence was stark.
“What did you say?” I couldn’t bring myself to adjust my shirt, my hair. Only stare at him in the nasty florescent lighting.
He looked me dead in the eye this time. Didn’t flinch when he repeated himself.
“I killed him.” He rubbed his jaw. “On my wedding day.”
A punch knocked my breath out of me. “You killed your father on your wedding day?”
“That’s what I said, is it not?” he asked, a bit fervent. Brick by brick, the wall came back up between us. He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You mean—what did you think? That you shouldn’t have told me? Why?” I motioned at him, not sure what I was trying to convey. Maybe his shift, or emphasize my confusion. I didn’t know. “That’s kind of important, don’t you think?”
His jaw tightened. I’d crossed an invisible line, and I didn’t know how to back up.
“And you tell me everything?” he bit.
I startled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No secrets in your closet? Nothing you failed to share with me yet, Landry?” For the first time, he bared his teeth lightly at me, as if out of instinct. “If you want to see so badly, go look. I am sure the room will show you. It showed me enough times.”
Where was this coming from? I understood being defensive, but this wasn’t as simple as making a mistake and lying about it. This was larger. It was a life. It would have been the same if I’d tried to off my mom or … But his father had taken his teeth and—no, I couldn’t justify it.
I couldn’t. And he’d hid it. On purpose.
Was this it? The moment the wool was torn away and I saw that he only used my emotions to further his own gain? I was the only one that could help him.
The thought splintered a part of my heart.
I’d known it was a possibility; but for that broken, heady moment, I’d let myself think that he felt that warmth, that tether, too.
“I’ll tell youanythingyou want to know,” I said, stern. “I didn’t—didn’t lie.” I straightened my shirt. Brushed my hair over my shoulders, and marched over to the floodlight, turned it off, then whirled to the doorway. But before I left, I caught myself.
I owed it to both of us to tell him. I might not have been hiding murder, but I surely hadn’t been completely honest.
Jaw clenched, I looked back. Hadrian stood in the dark, almost shaking.
“I have a whore of a father and an addict for a mother. I have an eating disorder that eats me from the inside out and I don’t know how to stop it becausejust eatingdoesn’twork. Some nights I pray I won’t wake up because I know dying in my sleep would be easier than beating my way out of this godforsaken wet paper bag of a life, okay? I was bullied so much in high school I tried to go live with my dad, but he sent me back to my mother. CPS never got involved when I was a kid because she’d clean up just long enough to get them off our backs, get an okay job, before she’d start using again. Even after she woke up in her own vomit because she’d almost OD’d the night before, no one cared. You want to know what my dad said?” I pressed. My hands balled to fists. “He said, ‘She’s a waste of life, Landry, what do you expect?’ And then he still wouldn’t take me!” I shouted. All the blood in my core suddenly rushed up my neck and through my mouth. “Are those enough skeletons, Hadrian? Because I can assure you, the last thing I’m worried about is you killing a man when you’re already supposed to be dead.”
He flinched.
A gaping, screaming hole opened inside of me. I shouldn’t have said that.Too far. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
My motor skills worked on their own accord. Before I could think twice, I stalked through the door. I slammed it behind me, leaving Hadrian in the dark.
I didn’t sleep.
Whether voluntary or not, my mind raced.
Around four in the morning, I gave in. I didn’t care that Hadrian might see from the shadows. I didn’t care that I was alone in the house—that if something happened, no one would notice for days. If my aunt hadn’t wanted me to find what was in this house, to meddle in it, she wouldn’t have left it to me.
That realization spurred me forward.
I crawled out of bed and headed for the closet. If Hadrian wanted me to see, if that room still held the memories, then I’d go look.
