Page 129 of All Your Hate
She nods and I know she wants to ask me about what happened. I’ve shut her down every time before, but maybe now is as good a time as ever to open up to her?
Taking a breath I set the controller down and shift my hip so I’m looking right at her. “You asked me before about my tattoo. The moon on my shoulder. It’s for my sister, Kimmy."
Wynter looks sorry for me. I'm well past needing condolences and the last thing she needs is more pain in her heart. But this is what she wants. To know all of me.
"She loved dancing, but she was terrible at it. One Christmas recital, she had to play as the moon. All she did was stand there at the back of the stage and twirl around a bit. I was annoyed that they’d given her the worst role, but she had this huge beaming smile on her face the whole time. I teased her after that by calling her moonbeam and it just kinda stuck.”
“How old was she when she died?” Wynter asks quietly.
Every muscle in me seizes up at once, keeping my secrets and pain locked tight inside. But all it takes is Wynter’s sad eyes to have each one loosening.
“She had just turned ten.”
I see Wynter’s heart break for me. That’s the same age as Summer is now. I know she’s missed her birthday, but I’m not sure if she knows that. I haven’t had the heart to tell her. Once this is over she’ll get to celebrate each one with her.
Taking her hand, I lead her upstairs. “Where are we going?” she asks behind me.
“It’s about time I showed you something.”
There are plenty of unused rooms in this house. Most of them left to gather dust on the various things that have grabbed my attention over the years. One room is a half finished recording studio from when I thought it would be fun to learn the drums. That lasted about a month. Another is full of comic books, my attention already moved onto something new before I finished collecting an entire series.
This place has become a graveyard of my life. Each room a long forgotten era, but there’s one room that can never be forgotten.
Unlocking the pale blue door at the end of the West wing of the house, I open it and show Wynter my little sister’s room. She steps in first and looks around the untouched space.
“My father wanted to get rid of it all. To move on and forget, but I made him leave it as it is.” Kimmy's bed is still made, her makeup and dolls a mess on the dresser, her shoes piled up in the corner where she’d always kick them off rather than putting them in the closet like Mom told her to.
“Noah,” Wynter says through a breath as she turns to face me. I lean against the doorframe and take the room in. I’ve not stepped foot in here since I tried to kill myself. My wrist twinges from the memory of pain. It’s something that never disappears no matter how hard you try to push it back. In the end, pain always remains.
“I kept it locked up like I was expecting her to come home any day,” I scoff, knowing how stupid an idea that is now. “I realized a long time ago they aren’t coming back, but rather than let go I locked it all away.”
Wynter places her hand on my shoulder, I’m not sure if she intends to touch the scar from that night, but the heat from her fingers soothes me anyway. “You really want to know what happened?” I ask and she nods.
Slowly I fill my lungs and take her hand in mine once more, leading her back downstairs and to my office.
“The rug was dry cleaned and put back as if nothing happened, but they never could get all the blood out of the floorboards.” Flipping one corner of the rug over I show Wynter the dark stain beneath. She doesn’t make a sound as she stares down at my feet. Her eyes fill with sorrow for me. “Remember what I told you. Eyes on me and never down, my love.”
Her gaze locks on mine and I can’t stop myself from smiling a little. “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me,” I tell her. “I’ve been doing enough of that myself.”
I catch the tremble in her legs as she leans back against the wall. She’s still exhausted from last night and here I am dragging her around the house on a trauma tour.
Taking her back to the lounge room I make sure she’s comfortable before sitting next to her.
“I wasn’t supposed to be out the night it happened. I was fifteen and had snuck out to get high at my friend's house. When I came home the front door was wide open. My father was out, he spent most evenings working late at the office so I knew something was wrong. Rather than do the smart thing and call the cops or even my father, I went inside. I heard my mom crying in his office then I heard the men threatening her. I ran in there hoping to stop them, but I was just a kid. What was I actually going to do?”
Wynter places her good hand in mine and grips me tightly. Staring down at her fingers I tell her more. “Kimmy was on the floor, not moving. A dark shade spreading underneath her on the rug. It wasn’t until later that I realized it was blood. Mom was pinned down on my father’s desk by one man while the other raped her from behind. When they saw me they stopped. Mom fought back and they killed her, shot her in the stomach. I couldn’t move. I was fucking frozen to the spot.”
Wynter’s grip on me tightens further.
“They shot me before running off. Got me in the shoulder. I lay there staring at my mom and sister’s lifeless bodies as I bled out. Somehow I managed to crawl to the desk and I called my father. I wanted to hear his voice before I went. Next thing I know I’m alone in the hospital, no idea where my father is and I have to hear from a police officer that Mom and Kimmy couldn’t be saved.”
My throat closes up and it takes everything in me not to break. I thought I was immune to these feelings. Thought I had becomenumb to despair. Recounting it to Wynter, to the love of my life makes me feel everything again.
“I’m so sorry,” she says as she squeezes my hand. “Thank you for telling me.”
Letting out a shaky sigh, I wrap my arm around her shoulder and press my nose to her hair. She smells like a mix of us now. My spicy musk from my shower products and her natural sweetness underneath it.
“I should have just told you the first time you asked, Shouldn’t have been such a dick.”