The scar on my wrist started burning, searing through my skin as I remembered the night I tried to take control of my fate.
“I couldn’t tell you… or Dad. Dad would never look at me the same again.” Rambling was the only thing I could do, because the thought of Mom being disappointed in my choices was just too frightening. “I didn’t want to sit at the kitchen table across from you every night, wondering if you were thinking about me being hurt. I just couldn’t do it.” Emotion clogged my throat, and I cleared it before continuing. “Cassie found out what happened, and she brought me back to myself when I couldn’t see through the darkness. She reminded me that I have all the control, that he didn’t take that from me. That it’s up to me to move forward and put it behind me. To live. She was such a smart-ass for a little sister. But she was there, and she saved me.”
Mistakenly, I looked at my mother and saw all the pain and heartache I was putting her through written on her face and in the short jerking movement her fingers made as she fidgeted.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You’re right.”
Mom’s words were a slap in the face, a dash of cold water that I didn’t know if I could ever recover from.
I looked up to see her taking one hesitant step after another until she’d crossed the kitchen to stand directly in front of me. Her trembling fingers clasped around my hands.
“You should have said something to me when it happened, Kennedy. I’m your mother. I love you, and I would do literally anything for you. Murder someone, help you hide a body, or even keep a secret from the rest of the world. Being a mother doesn’t just mean being there for the good, my sweet girl.” She pulled me into her arms, and the choked sob that broke free from my throat took both of us by surprise.
“I love you, Kennedy Marie Townsend,” Mom whispered against my hair. “No matter what happened, or what happens in the future, nothing is going to change that. You should never worry about how your father or I will ever look at you. You are perfect. Every one of our children are. No matter what. Looking at you doesn’t do anything to me except make me happier than fuck that you’re still here. Losing Cassie destroyed a piece of all of us. But you’re here. You’re here, my sweet girl. And you’re loved.”
I cried, tears that I hadn’t shed after the rape. Tears that never fell when I tried to kill myself and take control of the only thing left. Tears streamed down cheeks that had stayed dry when Cassie died in a car accident. Tears that I’d held in for years burst through the dam of emotion that I’d kept built up, and my mom was there to catch every single one of them.
“Who did it, Kennedy?” Her question, asked with a hoarse voice and halting words, brought back all of the memories from that night. “Can you tell me? It’s not too late to make him pay.”
“He already paid his price.” I sniffed, trying not to burst into tears again. “He died that summer when he overdosed.”
Mom stayed silent, and I could practically see her rewinding the clock, back through time, as she tried to think of who died that summer. Who she could hate. Who she could try to curse. Who she could dig up and kill again for hurting her child. She’d already gone to see the man responsible for killing Cassie.
“I’d kill him again,” she admitted quietly a few moments later. “I’d bring him back to life, and I’d stab him in the chest just so I could watch the life drain from his eyes.”
I chortled against her chest. “Yeah. And then you’d go to prison for the rest of your life.”
“Only if they found the body,” she practically snarled in reply.
Before either of us could say anything else, or I could ask her to keep it a secret from Dad, the back door flew open with a crash and slammed against the wall.
“The party’s here!” Nox screeched when he stepped inside with a flourish. “What’s for dinner, Grammy?”
Mom let me go and then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before turning to see the new additions.
Nox, standing there in an actual superhero costume and his hands on his hips, eyed the two of us suspiciously. He couldn’t say anything, though, because his mom pushed him out of the way with her arms full of grocery bags.
“We brought extra food,” she said from behind the brown paper bags. “Because Remy invited half the shop to dinner tonight.”
When she stepped aside and Remy walked in with Linc at his side, I couldn’t look away. I watched him, and he stared right through me.
“Uncle Linc said that he’s gonna come to Career Day tomorrow too.” Nox started babbling on like I wasn’t staring at the love of my life and trying to remember how to breathe. “So, if both him and Auntie Kenny come, you won’t have to come, Dad.” Wide-eyed, he stopped talking as he realized what he’d just said.
The silence that filled the air at his words had the power to do two things simultaneously. First, the rest of the oxygen in the room was suddenly vacuumed out, and my heart beat heavily against my chest while I tried to breathe. And I wasn’t the only one affected.
Parker had tears leaking from both eyes and she was visibly trembling. Mom didn’t bother hiding her sniffles and tears, staring at Nox like he was the most precious person in the entire world.
And Remy… my big brother dropped to his knees faster than I’d ever be able to imagine. When he was at eye level with Nox, he pulled the child into a tight embrace.
Everyone watched the two of them in a moment that would forever be branded into our hearts. Everyone except Linc.
I would have missed it completely, except I leaned back to keep the tears from leaking out. When I finally felt like I had control of them, I blinked and found myself staring directly into his eyes once more. Only this time, he wasn’t staring through me. He was devouring every inch of my face. The longing I saw matched my own, and for almost a minute, I got to see that he wanted me just as much as I wanted him.
Until the back door opened again, and Dad shattered the moment I’d be happy to spend the rest of my life reliving.
The one I’d give anything to experience.
6
Linc
Dodging a crayon that went flying past my head seemed par for the course in my life as far as I was concerned. Especially when it came to Nox and the things I’d do for my nephew. I looked down at the offending item and then glared at the little blond girl who’d thrown it at me. The glare, which sent criminals running in the other direction, had no effect on her smile. Instead, she turned back to her teacher and started giggling.
“Remind me again why these kids want us to come to these things if they’re gonna just ignore us,” Remy grumbled as he stood next to me at the back of Nox’s class with his arms crossed over his chest. “Because from where I’m standing, this is the most boring shit in the world.”
I rolled my eyes and struggled not to call him a baby. But then a crayon hit me square in the chest and all bets were off. One withering glare at the snot-nosed kid in Nox’s class had him turning red and whipping his head around to pay attention to some dumbs in a suit at the front of the room talking about mergers and acquisitions.