Page 145 of Ominous: Part 1
Me: You good, baby?I send the message and don’t expect a response. I click off my screen after I ensure my phone is on vibrate, then I rest it on my chest, both hands coming behind my head as I close my eyes.
“Depends on the day of the week,” I answer Janelle.
“Did you hurt her?” This question is lower than her other. I think of her little sister, Jean, and marvel at the fact there were once two unhinged children on this street. What are the chances? The diagnosis isn’t given lightly, and usually, for kids, it’s unofficial, or called something a little less heavy.
Conduct disorder.
The label I was saddled with until Montford.
“Would you believe me if I said no?”
Janelle is quiet a moment, then she says, “Are you saying no?”
I smile, eyes still closed, but I don’t say anything. We all heard her scream when Dominic grabbed her.
A jolt of something unpleasant rises in my chest at the thought, my pulse speeding up marginally.
I feel sick, and I grit my teeth, swallowing rising bile at the back of my throat as her scream echoes inside my head.
I didn’t know I hurt her. She didn’t show it, until after Dominic grabbed her.
Why do you always have to pretend to be so goddamn tough? Break a little, just for me.Guilt is unfamiliar to me, regret is another planet. But if I could go back, I’d have paid better attention.
I hear the creak of Janelle’s chair as she shifts in her seat, and I wonder if she’ll leave, but the door doesn’t open, and I don’t sense her standing. She’s just getting comfortable, maybe, and I don’t mind. Janelle doesn’t care if I answer her questions, and she’s okay in silences, too. We aren’t extremely close, but after Jean was gone, Janelle wanted to know things, and I was the only person she could ask who knew what it was like to be stuck with a brain like her sister’s.
“Why Luna?” Another thing I like about Janelle. There’s no judgment in her question. I don’t care what people think, which means I don’t care enough to argue my morality with them. Janelle doesn’t make me.
“Why not?” I counter, rotating my neck, keeping my eyes closed. “She was there, and she’s trying to piss Dom off. It worked out.”
“Okay,” Janelle says slowly, and I can tell another question is lurking. She doesn’t make me wait for it long. “Then whynotEden?”
I open my eyes, staring at the awning of the balcony, but in my head, I see Eden’s thighs spread for me on the island, feel her hand over my heart.“Be bad, baby boy.”
My abs flex, involuntarily, like hearing her words in my mind is a punch to the gut. “I don’t know.” It’s partly true.
I can feel Janelle looking at me, trying to find the lie. It’s there, too. “What’s your best guess?”
My phone buzzes on my chest, and I sit up straighter, swinging my feet from the ottoman, planting them on the hot wooden planks of the balcony. I pick up my phone, flipping it over and holding it with both hands.
Eden: I’m fine.
I smile at her lie, biting the inside of my cheek as I text her back.Me: Try again, but with the truth this time.
I send the message and turn my head to find Janelle’s eyes locked on mine. Her knees to her chest, ropey muscles of her arms flexed, wrapped around her shins.
She really wants to know, because she thinks of her sister every time she tries to get into my psyche. The reality is I don’t know why Jean was playing with her dad’s big game rifle. I don’t know if she intentionally pressed the barrel under her chin. I don’t know if she knew it was loaded. If she intended to kill herself when she pulled the trigger with her toe.
I can’t give Janelle the answers she’s looking for.
I don’t want to kill myself. Not for hurting Eden, not for fucking around with Luna after she left, and not for anything that happened the night Winslet went missing.
But sometimes, I do wonder what it would be like to feel content. Less restless.
I got a taste of it last night, with Eden in my arms.
And that’s the answer to Janelle’s question.“Then whynotEden?”
One day, even she wouldn’t be enough to silence the noise. And just like with Jean and the gun, maybe I wouldn’t intend to pull the trigger, perhaps it would be a twisted little accident. But either way, I don’t want to be the one who breaks Eden’s mind into pieces.
