I release him with a shove, and he stumbles back. The shock over my outburst is written all over his face, and I don’t want to see it. I’m ashamed to be feeling this way. I hate Kennedy, fucking hate her so much, it’s all I can feel sometimes, but every once in a while there is something else, something deeper. It comes out of nowhere and makes me think twice about what I’m doing to her.
“You okay, man? You’re acting weird,” Talon says, pushing me to my limits. His voice is a saw cutting through me. I want to flatten him.
“I’m fine. Now get the fuck out of here before I beat the fuck out of you. I want to be alone,” I yell at him, pointing to the door. He backpedals, his entire face ashen now. I can’t imagine how I look at this point. Like a beast that’s ready to explode.
Slamming down onto the couch, I take my head into my hands and listen for the door to close. When it slams shut, I shove up from the couch. Her fucking scent is all around me. It’s in my head, under my skin. I hate her. I fucking hate her. There is no room for anything else inside of me. Walking into the kitchen, I grab the bottle of bourbon off the top of the fridge, twist the cap off, and bring it to my lips.
My muscles quake as I tip the bottle back and let the liquor pool inside my mouth before swallowing it down. It burns a path of fire deep into my belly, warming the coldness inside my chest. Tears prick my eyes as I sag to the floor and continue drinking.
“Why the fuck did you do this to me, Jillian?” I scream into the empty space.
It’s not her fault she died. It’s not her fault that she got into the car that night. It’s mine. It’s Kennedy’s but never hers. She didn’t deserve to die. I drink some more, letting the brown liquid cloud my mind, but nothing can truly make me forget. This is a temporary fix. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and be reminded of it all over again. Such a vicious fucking cycle.
“I hate her so much, Jill. I hate her, and I don’t want to care, but a part of me does, and it feels like a betrayal. She killed you, took you from me…” I sob, feeling the loss of my sister for the first time. I never cried at her funeral. I couldn’t. I needed to be strong. For my parents, for myself. Plus, crying wouldn’t fix anything, wouldn’t bring her back, but not allowing myself to mourn—my best friend, my twin, my other half—only made the emotions I was feeling ten times worse. I held it all in, thinking I could swallow it down, but all it did was swallow me. I was drowning, and there wasn’t a lifeboat in sight.
Sighing, I down the rest of the liquid, and when it’s empty, I toss the bottle at the wall, watching as the glass fractures, flying in a million directions. I’m not sure how many shards of glass the bottle has become, but I imagine that’s what my heart looks like now.
It’ll never be whole again.
Feeling the unbearable rage building inside me again, I want to hurt someone, but like always, there is no one here to hurt but myself. Needing to unleash the pain, I rear my hand back and punch the wall. One hit isn’t enough, and neither is two.
I clobber the wall like it’s the pain I face every day. I beat my fists into the drywall until I’m sure someone is going to call the cops, until my knuckles are bloody, and there is nothing left inside me. No anger, no sadness, just a numb feeling that washes over me, taking all the good and bad with it. Tonight I realized something… Kennedy might have been the one to kill my sister, but I helped. I helped put her in the ground. I’m to blame too. Sagging against the floor, I close my eyes and hope that I never wake up, that the nightmares become my reality.
12
Kennedy
It’s been a week, and I still feel used. Like I whored myself out. I don’t want to see Jackson again or think about what we did. It was wrong. We shouldn’t have gotten pleasure from each other’s pain, but somehow, we did. Immersing myself in classes, I focus on schoolwork and nothing else. I pick up a bunch of extra credit and toss myself headfirst into the work.
It’s the only thing I can do to stop myself from thinking about him. Any time that my mind starts to wander, it’s to him. I think about how angry he was and how he felt inside of me as our bodies became one. Thank god, I haven’t seen him since that night. I’m not sure what I would do, or even say if I did.
As I rush from the library–with three books for my extra credit project in hand–I nearly collide with another person. Looking up from the ground, I prepare myself to apologize, only to realize that I know the person I just ran into.
“Oh, hey!” the girl says. I rack my brain, trying to remember her name.
“Hey,” I mumble back, noticing that we aren’t alone. There are two men with her, hovering around her like protective animals. Both are brooding and dark, with a possessiveness in their gaze. Is she with both of them? Are they her friends? I shake the thoughts away before they can take root. I don’t care. I’m not interested, at least not really.
“Remember me? I’m Stella.” She smiles, and her eyes twinkle with excitement. She’s way too eager to make friends.
“Uh, yeah…” I press my lips together. I don’t really want to do this. Not today, or tomorrow, or ever really. I don’t need or want friends, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to tell that to this girl.
“It’s funny that we meet again. Maybe we can go get a coffee or something? Or even have a glass of wine sometime?”
All I can do is shake my head and backpedal. “I… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
One of the guys she’s with places his hand on her shoulder and gently pulls her toward him. “Let’s go, Stella. She doesn’t want to make friends, no matter how adamant you are.” The smile he gives her is one of love and admiration, and I’m only a little jealous. A frown appears on Stella’s face as she brushes some blonde hair from her eyes.
I feel bad, like someone kicked me in the stomach, but I still turn around and rush back to my apartment. I’m halfway to my complex when I realize the streets and quad are much fuller than usual.
“I can’t wait to show you my dorm and the library. You’re going to love it, Mom,” a girl exclaims as she walks past me, a middle-aged couple following behind her.
Oh, god. Pressing a hand to my forehead, I can already feel the onset of a migraine. I continue down the sidewalk, and that is when my reality becomes a nightmare because of all the things I could forget, family weekend definitely shouldn’t have been one of them.
“Kennedy!” my mother squeals as she runs down the sidewalk, wrapping her arms around me. “We called, but it went straight to voicemail. I wasn’t sure if you still wanted us to come, but since we hadn’t seen you in a while, I figured it would be nice to make the trip,” she says as she pulls back. I gaze at my father over her shoulder. He hasn’t moved an inch and doesn’t look like he’s happy to be here either.
My mother takes my clammy hand into hers and walks me toward my father as if I’m a small child that can’t do it on her own.
“Kennedy,” my father greets in a monotone voice. He used to tell me he loved me, that he was proud of me. Now, he barely acknowledges me.