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by Ashley Jade
Jace despises him. In fact, I’d say he hates him as much as I hate Liam.
Bianca and I tolerate him, but only because he buys us cool shit.
Planting a fake smile on his face, he looks around.
He has a habit of doing this weird thing where he forgets our family is as fucked up as it is.
Kind of like how he forgets he has kids when he’s gone all the time.
“Oh, wow. What’s all this?”
Jace glares at him. “What does it look like?”
“Right, well. It smells really good.” Averting his gaze, he playfully messes up Bianca’s hair. “Thank you, Jace.”
He always treats Jace like the hired help around here.
But it’s the way Mom treated him too.
The entire world has been placed on his shoulders ever since she died.
Most days I forget the reason Bianca, Liam, and I are able to have a childhood is because Jace gave up his.
It would be nice if Jason Covington realized that too and stepped up to be a parent.
“Whatever.” Jace tosses the spatula on the counter. “I’m gonna go wake Liam up.”
Jace trudges up the stairs…leaving us alone with the sperm donor.
“So, anything interesting happening at school?”
Bianca picks her cuticles. “No, not really.”
He looks at me. “What about you? How’s football?”
“I have no idea…it’s spring.”
He laughs nervously. “What can I say? Time keeps getting ahead of me.” He rubs his chin. “But you know what? I’m gonna shift some things around at work and start going to your games next season.”
I won’t hold my breath. He has yet to attend a single one.
Meanwhile, Jace never misses them.
“If you say so.”
He turns back to Bianca. “How’s studying been going?”
“Fine.” She purses her lips. “Can I have money to go shopping? I really want new shoes and some nail polish.”
His face lights up. Unlike Bianca who is the spitting image of our mom, and Jace who is a weird mixture of the two, Liam and I favor him with our green eyes and pale Irish skin.
I hate it.
“Sure, sweetie. Let me know when you want to go and I’ll give Mrs. Garcia my card.”
“Jace said he wants to take us to the mall today.”
“I guess I’ll just give it to Jace then.” His eyes widen. “On second thought, how would you guys feel if I cleared my schedule and tagged along?”
Bianca nearly chokes on her drink. “Really?”
“Are you feeling okay?” I can’t recall him ever taking off work to spend time with us. Which can only mean one thing. “Did you get fired?”
Bianca turns ashen. “Do you have cancer?”
He laughs. “No, I didn’t get fired. And no, I don’t have cancer. I own the company and I’m allowed to take a day off whenever I want.”
Baffled, Bianca looks at me. “Oh.”
He plucks an apple from the fruit basket. “So, sport. Is there anything you need me to buy you at the mall?”
I hate when he calls me sport.
However, I love it when he gets me stuff.
I drum my fingernails on the table, thinking. “Not really, but there is a football camp I want to go to this summer. It’s really expensive though since it’s run by a guy who was in the NFL.”
“Consider it done.”
“You look guilty, Dad,” Bianca says while watching him closely. “Did you do something bad?”
Her question takes him by surprise, and he starts choking on his apple. “No. Of course not. I just want to spend time with my kids is all.” He looks at me. “Can you think of anything Jace might want? I know how hard he works around here, and I want to do something nice for him.”
“Yeah.” I start ticking things off on my fingers. “He’s gonna need a laptop, a new computer monitor, a new tower, a new Xbox—”
“Whoa, hold on, sport. What happened to the ones he has now?”
“Liam took a bat to them,” Bianca informs him.
His mouth opens in shock. “What? Why—”
A loud piercing wail cuts him off. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there was a wounded animal upstairs.
“Dad!” Jace yells, his voice cracking. “Dad, I need you. Something’s wrong with Liam!”
My stomach hits the floor. Jace hasn’t called him dad in years.
This is bad. Real fucking bad.
I’m on my feet before anyone else.
Maybe Liam did do something stupid last night and he’s hurt.
Like that time he climbed one of the tall bookshelves in the study, slipped, bashed his head on a corner, and ended up needing five stitches.
Since I’m the first up the stairs, I’m also the first to reach his room.
“What happened—”
My blood runs cold. The thing in my chest bottoms out.
This isn’t like the time Liam got stitches.
Stitches won’t fix this.
I dig my nails into my palms, convinced this is a nightmare.
But it’s not.
Because six feet in front of me is my twin brother…hanging from a rope on his closet door.
Jace looks even more helpless than Dad did at Mom’s funeral.
“What—oh, my God,” our father screams, his legs giving out.
“What’s going on?” Bianca yells down the hall, her footsteps getting closer.
Intuition takes over and I close and lock the door before she reaches it.
I can’t let her see this. She’ll have nightmares for the rest of her life.
She loves her big brother. He’s her favorite.
“Hey! Let me in!” Bianca screams, pounding on the door.
“Go downstairs and call 911!” Jace yells.
It won’t help. Liam is beyond help.
But it will keep her busy for the time being.
“We have to cut him down,” Jace says. “We can’t…we can’t leave him...” His eyes well with tears. “Maybe…maybe there’s still time...”
There isn’t.
His stiff body has taken on a blue-ish hue, and his eyes are nearly popped out of his skull.
We can’t save him. No one can.
Jace looks at our father who’s now curled up in a fetal position on the floor. “Dad.”
Come on, old man. Pull yourself together. Your kids need you.
Be a fucking parent for once in your goddamn life.
But he won’t…he can’t. He doesn’t know how.
I dig around in my pockets for the pocketknife I keep on me. “I’ll do it.”
I hated him so much…it should be me.
It won’t be emotional for me like it will be for Jace. Just another task.
I start to take a step forward…but the green blanket on the floor of the closet snags my attention.
There’s a piece of it missing.
I found it on my bedroom floor this morning.
Liam tried to tell me.
A horrible thought occurs just then. It’s so sick, so twisted, so messed up I’m gasping for air.
I told him to join her.
But I didn’t…I didn’t think he’d…
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Liam does things for attention, but this?
I should have checked on him.
I had that feeling. I know what that feeling means.
Wiping his tears with his sleeve, Jace snatches the pocketknife out of my hands. “I can do it.”
Bianca pounds on the door again. “The ambulance is on the way. Let me in.”
“Go downstairs,” Jace shouts.
“No. I want to see Liam.”
She can’t.
She’ll never see him again.
None of us will.
Because he’s never coming back.
“Bianca, go downstairs,” Jace screams again, but he’s choking up so bad he can hardly get the words out.
“Liam
!!” Bianca cries, banging on the door harder. “Liam, come out here!!”
He can’t.
Guttural sobs wrench out of her. “I want to see Liam.”
He’s gone.
He’s never coming back.
“I need you to take her downstairs. When the EMTs get here, she’s gonna try and run past them.”
I think Jace is talking to me, but he sounds so distant.
Everything seems far away. Like an alternate universe.
A universe Liam isn’t a part of anymore.
I feel different…less than.
Like something’s missing inside me. An organ or…
Bianca kicks the door. “Liam!”
“Cole.”
Liam and Cole…it’s always been Liam and Cole.
Now it’s just…
“Cole,” Jace pleads. “Please.”
“Okay.” I don’t recognize the sound of my voice. It’s shredded.
My vision is hazy, and my legs feel like limp noodles as I make my way to the door.
Somehow, I manage to turn the knob.
I’m so out of it, I’m not prepared for Bianca’s strength. She flies past me.
A high-pitched blood-curdling scream fills the room. “Liam!”
“Dammit,” Jace hisses.
“I’m sorry.” I turn to look at him. “I’m sorry I fucked up.”
I fucked up so bad. So bad he’ll never forgive me.
I’ll never forgive myself.
I scoop Bianca up, kicking and screaming, and barrel down the staircase.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as she sobs.
I’m sorry your favorite big brother isn’t here anymore.
I’m sorry I didn’t listen to him last night when he needed me.
I’m sorry I hated him when I was supposed to love him.
I’m sorry he’s dead when he should be here.
The pain in my chest is back with a vengeance, but it’s not because Liam’s hurt.
It’s because—just like that green blanket—there’s a piece of me missing now too.
A piece I’ll never be able to fix or repair.
A piece I’ll never get back.
And it’s all my fault.
Chapter 73
Sawyer
The tears are falling so fast I can’t wipe them up with my sleeve quick enough.
My heart is breaking into a thousand tiny pieces for Liam.
For Jace.
For Bianca.
But mostly…for him.
“Cole—”
“After they took his body away, I went back in the closet and found the Bible,” he utters, his voice barely above a whisper. “It was underneath his blanket. He must have been holding it when he…”
“Cole—”
“He didn’t leave a note…but he left that.”
“Only Liam knows why he circled that passage. It’s easy to see something as negative when the worst has already happened. Maybe Liam meant it as a reminder for people to love everyone because he was bullied—”
“You don’t know him,” Cole argues as he stands up. “You didn’t fucking know him.”
He looks up at the sky, his expression so dejected it rips out every one of my heartstrings.
“He’s dead because of me.”
“He’s dead because he killed himself,” I correct, getting up off the grass.
Not to place the blame on Liam, but to shift it off Cole.
No wonder he never lets anyone in. The real Colton is encased in a tomb of guilt.
As if he died that day too.
He shakes his head vigorously. “He tried to tell me something was wrong.”
It’s easy to see it that way after the fact.
Cole sent him away because Liam annoyed him, and he thought he was having another manic episode or looking for attention.
Not because he wanted him to die.
What Cole did was insensitive and ruthless…there’s no disputing that.
But he didn’t kill Liam.
I grab his face, forcing him to look at me. “In an ideal world, you would have stopped him, okay? But you had no idea what was going to happen. It’s not like Liam was wearing a flashing neon sign showcasing his intentions that night.”
You never truly know when someone’s on their last breath…even when it’s suicide.
“Yes, he was. And I fucking ignored it. Worse than ignored it…I made it worse.”
I don’t have the right answer for him. Not one he’s ready to hear.
But I have to try and get through to him.
“Because you were a kid!” I scream. “A kid who didn’t get along with his brother. A kid who didn’t know how to deal with his brother’s mental health issues because he was going through his own. Ignorance isn’t culpability. It’s like blaming someone for drowning when they never learned how to swim. You didn’t have the right tools or knowledge. You didn’t know—”
“He tried to tell me, and I turned him away.” Agony slashes his face. “Hell, I was probably the one who planted the goddamn idea inside his head in the first place.”
“You don’t know that. He needed help, Cole. Serious help. It sucks that he didn’t get it.”
He closes his eyes. “He didn’t get it because of me.”
“No, because everyone—namely your father who was the adult—was so scared of Liam’s disease, he brushed it under the rug.”
I don’t think Mr. Covington is a bad person. My heart goes out to him for everything he’s endured. I can’t imagine the pain of losing a wife and a son so close together.
However, his other children didn’t ask to be brought into the world, and they sure as hell aren’t dead.
They needed him to be a parent…and he failed them.
Frustration lines his expression. “You don’t understand, Sawyer.”
“Neither do you. The most devastating thing about suicide is that it leaves those behind with so many questions…and zero answers. But just because you don’t have those answers doesn’t mean it was your fault. There are so many tiny little things that shape our decisions—”
A strangled noise leaves him, and he drops to the ground again. “Stop. Stop making excuses…stop looking at me through your bullshit rose-colored glasses when I’m showing you the real me.”
He wants me to blame him and be done with him.
He thinks it’s what he deserves…but it’s not.
I kneel down beside him. “Stop looking at Liam’s suicide through one lens.”
He snorts. “Christ. Do you even hear yourself? I bullied him. I hurt him. Every single fucking day I hurt that kid. I never—” His voice cracks. “I never…”
He can’t say the words.
I wrap my arms around him. “You never forg—”
“I never loved him,” he tosses back before his voice drops to a broken whisper. “And now I’ll never have the chance.” He bunches my sweater in his hands, trembling against me. “He took it from me. That selfish, cowardly motherfucker.”
I hold him tighter. So tight I can feel the sorrow coursing through his body. “It sucks so fucking bad, Colton. So fucking bad. But it still wasn’t your fault.”
Cole will never move on if he can’t grasp that. I get why he wants to blame himself. I’m sure some people would even agree with him.
But it’s not black and white. Things like this never are.
“I never got a chance to fix it,” he muffles against my neck. “He never gave me a chance to fix it.”
And that right there is probably the saddest part of Liam’s death.
Liam and Cole might have mended their relationship…but no one will ever know.
His pain is so palpable it’s tangible. “I’m a horrible fucking person, Sawyer. A ho—”
“If you were a horrible person, you wouldn’t have helped Oliver out.”
His expression clouds over. “I—”
No. I won’t let him try to make excuses. I’ll keep pummeling him with
my words over and over again until some of them start to stick.
“If you were a bad person, you wouldn’t have given Cortland your car.”
He growls in exasperation. “I never should have taken the b—”
“If you were a bad person, you wouldn’t have pulled the fire alarm that day at school.”
He freezes. “You knew about that?”
Of course, I did. I remember every single agonizing moment of that incident.
Everyone was standing in a circle mooing at me—the new fat girl at school—while I stood there in nothing but a towel.
Everyone but Cole, who was storming away from the pack like someone on a mission.
Shortly after that…the fire alarm went off.
Everyone started running toward the exits, but I ran back toward the locker room.
I didn’t care if the building was on fire and I’d be burned alive.
I wanted to die that day.
However, when I walked inside, I saw a blazer on the bench.
The initials CC were on the inside tag.
Right then and there, I knew exactly who pulled that fire alarm…the same person who gave me his blazer so I had something to help cover up until my mom arrived at the school with new clothes.
Edging back slightly, I look at him. “It was the worst day of my life, but you helped me. You didn’t have to. You could have joined in and made fun of me like everyone else did…but you didn’t.”
It’s how I knew he was special.
More than just a vapid black hole on the inside.
Colton Covington is a gorgeous man and a talented football player with one hell of a golden arm.
But those weren’t the reasons I gave him a piece of my heart that day.
I gave it to him…because he showed me his.
Sometimes, when you least expect it…two beautifully broken souls end up finding each other.
Even when the world says they’re not supposed to…because they don’t fit inside the same box.
“Terrible people don’t do things like that for others,” I tell him.
He averts his gaze. “It still doesn’t erase what I did to Liam. It doesn’t take away the fact that I bullied him…that I turned him away when he needed me.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t change what you did in the past.” I kiss his forehead, his cheeks. “But it means you learned…you grew. We all make mistakes. Some of them so awful it will churn stomachs, break hearts, and ruin lives. But people can and do change. You’re not that same thirteen-year-old boy anymore. Liam’s death was tragic, but something good came out of it because it changed you…for the better.”