Page 3 of Deluge
“Have a nice night, Jessa.”
I roll my eyes and press the button on the console, turn the car on, and peel out of my spot.
ChapterTwo
Home isan anomaly to me now.
If I’m being honest, this place stopped feeling like ahomewhen we had to start taking care of ourselves.
After Mom got sick, she couldn’t keep the house up, cook our meals, or even help us with our homework.
Granted, we did the best we could, and while I think we did a damn fine job, I wish she would have regained her bearings at some point to guide us.
I rub my face with both hands as I kick the door closed and head into the living room. As I drop down on the painfully empty sofa, I drop my arms and tilt my head toward the ceiling, sighing.
This is the emptiest I’ve ever felt.
Mom is gone.
Kalen’s gone.
And I can’t help but feel that both are my fault somehow.
Kalen is obvious; as much as I loved him and still do, he was far too sick to be normal.
Mom… her fucking obsession with the piece of shit that begrudgingly showed up at my graduation is what did her in. However, being a son of his makes me feel responsible.
Maybe if I had paid better attention to her and tried to be a better kid, it would have taken her mind off him long enough to see that all she really needed she had in front of her.
Her twin boys had loved her most of all.
Hell, we loved her more than we loved each other, which is saying a lot. I shared a womb with Kalen. Sometimes, it even felt like we shared the same mind, but his began to rot a lot quicker than her body did.
The last straw was when I caught him fucking her in her bed.
As if though it werenormal.
I remember turning to Luna and asking her whathewould do, then following through on a rumor.
Something I hadn’t yet confirmed myself because I never really wanted to, and now I’m alone again.
I run my hands viciously down my face as a way to punish myself for being so fucking childish and foolish. Deep down, I know that I did what I did because I wanted to impress a man I hadn’t met, and when I finally came face to face with him, I felt even more lost.
I never knew that something like this could spiral and feel worse than it did that day, but the more I sit in an empty house, the more I know that my brother is dead because of me, and the more the loss becomes like a black hole in a universe not yet discovered.
“You’ll do.”
A stamp of approval that gave Luna so much joy felt like a punch in the gut to me. I hear that bullshit in my sleep night after night since she ran away and returned to him.
“You’re a fucking Greene.”
An act of branding that, by blood, holds water but reminds me of the foul lineage I can’t escape from.
That haunts me each and every time I pass Kalen’s room. It widens the black hole in the unseen universe that watches over me like a fucking cloud of despair.
I’m alone in this world.
No matter how many Greenes are out there, and fuck knows how many of us are, I’malone.