Page 36 of The Mist of Stars
10GEMMA
Once I get to my room, I wander into the attached bathroom to clean up my forehead then lie down on the bed and go into full emo mode, a phase that I believed I’d outgrown, but apparently not.
I lie there for a while before I hear a soft knock at my door.
“Are you okay?” Aislin asks after she lets herself into my room.
Staring up at the ceiling where a few ice patches remain, I tell her, “No, I’m self-loathing.”
“For kissing Alex?”
“Do I even have to answer that?” I drape my arm over my forehead. “I should’ve pushed him away when he kissed me, but no, I had to kiss him back.”
“He kissed first?” She sounds way too upbeat about that.
I lift my arm up enough to throw her a dirty look. “Why do you sound so happy about that?”
She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Because I knew he liked you.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I scoff, returning my arm back over my eyes. “You heard him. He kissed me to get us out of the vision.”
“He was lying. I know my brother well enough that I can tell.” She sits on the bed beside me, the mattress concaving beneath her. “Alex’s defense mechanism is to act indifferent when he’s hurt. He learned that from our father.”
I peer at her again. Her jaw is set tight, and she’s staring at the wall across from her with utter loathing in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I sit up, scoot beside her, and lower my feet to the floor. “I know your dad’s hard on you guys.” I’ve seen firsthand how he speaks to them with such coldness and how he has too high of expectations for them.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” she confesses in a hushed voice. “I think he might be going crazy.”
“Alex or your father?”
“My father.” She looks at me then, and fear is evident on her face. “I think he’s planning something bad. And he keeps something locked in our basement.”
Confusion webs through me. “Like a creature?”
She shakes her head as she stares down at her hands. “No, nothing like that. I think maybe it’s a machine. I’ve gotten a glimpse of it. It was metal and emitted light.”
I tread cautiously. “How do you know it’s bad?”
“A feeling I have.” She places her hand over her heart. “I felt a dark coldness in here when I saw it. My dad caught me and kicked me out of the basement. When he came upstairs again, he flipped out on me.” She absentmindedly touches her cheek.
“He didn’t …?” I shift positions. “He didn’t hit you, did he?”
She swallows audibly. “He did. And it’s not the first time he’s done that.” Her cheeks puff as she exhales. “I’ve never admitted that to anyone before.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and give her a hug. She hugs me back, tension coiled in her muscles. “I think you should tell Alex. I … While I have issues with him, I know he’d protect you if he knew.”
“He does protect me, most of the time,” she whispers. “He’s the one who takes most of the punishments. I don’t want him to know he’s missed a few of them because it shouldn’t even be his burden to bear. But that’s how he is, and I think, deep down, he believes he deserves it.”
My chest constricts in an unnerving way, mostly because of what they’ve been through, but also because I feel this connection to what she’s describing, this hurting sensation of being broken by someone I believed cared about me. I’m unsure why I feel this way. I haven’t experienced anything like that.
In this life, anyway …
“Do you want to stay with me for a while?” I move back to look at her. “My parents won’t care. They’re not supposed to be here much, anyway. Plus, we have this mystery to solve.” I force a smile to lighten the mood. It’s so pathetic, but I have to try something.
This doom and gloom bull crap is wearing on all of us. And I have a feeling it’s merely the start of some giant abyss of secrets about to swallow us whole.
“I don’t know.” She considers it as she ravels a strand of hair around her finger. “Your parents really wouldn’t care?”