But as I pull into my driveway, I shut off my lights and take a deep breath. I have to go home for some sleep. My eyes are heavy, and my body aches. I can’t keep going. I need to rest. I need my bed. Just a couple of hours and then I’ll head back out.
I pull myself out of my car and make my heavy legs carry me into the house. I walk in and it takes my breath away as I try to make my way up to my room. I stop as I come to the top of the stairs. I look into Nicole’s room. It still looks the same. Her bed unmade from when we were in a rush to get to school that morning. Her walls decorated with pictures of her girlfriends and all of her trophies from her cheerleading competitions. A picture of Brecken, her, and me at the football field sits on her dresser.
I have to look away. The thought of what she must be going through is so hard to bear I can’t help but want to scream. I run to my room and lie down on my bed. I scream into my pillow as my heart pounds in my chest. My fingers dig into my pillow as I bury my face in it, not wanting to wake my parents. For the first time in two weeks, I don’t hear their cries.
I wake the next morning and make my way down to the living room. I still feel drained; the four hours of sleep I got didn’t do shit for me. I go to reach for the coffee pot when I see a letter sitting on the countertop. I pick it up recognizing my mother’s handwriting.
I can’t go on. I don’t want to go on. I just need it to end. For the darkness to take me away.
I need to let go of today. Hold on to the hope of tomorrow.
Come tomorrow, I will be in a better place.
It falls out of my hand and floats to the floor. I take off in a mad dash to their bedroom at the back of the house. “Mom?” I yell as my heart pounds in my chest. Let me be wrong! “Mom?” I scream so loud my throat burns.
I go crashing into their room, and my body comes to a halt as if I just ran into a glass wall. It takes several seconds for my mind to understand what I see. My mother lies on her side of the bed. A peaceful look on her face as she lies on her back. My father lies beside her, his face turned toward me. My hands shake and a sob comes out as I look at the blood that covers him, the bed, and the floor.
I run to them. Sobbing and my body trembling, I take them in my arms.
I can’t look at her. I don’t even have the strength to lift my head. But I can hear her cries. I can hear her heavy breathing. I close my eyes tightly and let out a long breath. “I understood why they did it,” I tell her. We had all went to a very dark place after Nicole went missing. She was on my mind every second of every day. The thought of what was happening to her was unimaginable. I sat there and held my father for two hours. I didn’t move, just sat there and cried my eyes out as I screamed for help. Brecken showed up and found me like that. My voice was hoarse and my throat was raw from calling out for help. He called the police from my house phone. The same officer who had informed me two weeks before that my sister was missing had to pry my father’s lifeless and bloodied body from my hands. I was taken to the hospital; they thought I was in shock because I wasn’t talking to them. Little did they know, I couldn’t. I had no voice. I had nothing left of me. Finding out that your mother hung herself in the living room and your father shot himself will do that to a child.
The only thing the police could come up with was that my father must have found her in the living room hanging from the top of the staircase. He must have taken her down and carried her to their room. He had to have placed her in their bed and laid down next to her before he took his own life.
I found out later that they had been dead when I came home the night before. No wonder the house was so quiet. If only I had gone and checked on them … Who knows if I could have saved one of them.
At the time, I couldn’t fathom why they did it. Yes, Nicole was gone, but I had refused to give up hope we could find her. How were they going to bring her back if they were dead? Two weeks later, I understand completely. That was when I tried to take my own life with the very gun my father had used.
Taylor places her hand on my arm, but I pull away from her. I don’t deserve her to feel sorry for me because I thought of suicide as well. It crossed my mind more than I would like to admit, and I would have succeeded if not for Brecken stopping me.
“Why would they do that?” she cries.
I open my eyes and turn to face her. I get why she doesn’t understand. I wouldn’t either unless I had gone through it. “I guess they felt they would rather be dead than have to live another second thinking that their daughter was now a sex slave.”
She lets out a sob and places her hand over my mouth. “I can’t imagine …” She shakes her head. “But how do they leave a child behind?”
I had asked myself that same question a hundred times. And I never did get an answer, but over time, it didn’t matter. I came to terms with what they had chosen to do with their life. And I chose to fight. I chose to live no matter how much easier it would have been to end it all.
“I can’t answer that,” I say honestly.
TAYLOR
I sit on his bed with my knees pulled to my chest and my head resting on my knees. My body shakes as I think of what happened to Case. What happened to his twin sister, Nicole. What she must have gone through. How terrified she must have been.
I feel two strong arms wrap around me, and I wrap my arms around him, welcoming his comfort as I sob into him. Here he is, the one who has this horrible past, and I’m the one who is crying like a child. “I’m so sorry, Case.”
He doesn’t say anything, but what is there for him to say? He’s lived this tragedy. I pull away and look up at him. His dark blue eyes are soft but free of tears. I don’t know how he can retell that story and not cry? Not show emotion to the fact he lost everything.
I reach up and place my hand on his unshaven face. “How can you do that?” I ask in all seriousness.
“Do what?”
I wipe the tears from my face. “Not show emotion. How can you hide what I know you must feel?”
He pulls away from me and gets up off the bed. He stands there as he looks down at me. He doesn’t look mad. He doesn’t look upset. He just looks empty. “I don’t need others to see what I feel inside,” he says flatly.
I get up on my knees as I sniff. “Case,” I say his name softly and then lick my lips. “What you have been through …”
“I’ve dealt with it,” he interrupts me. “That was twelve years ago.”
“I know. But you were alone. Now, you’re not. I don’t want you to hide from me,” I whisper. Is he afraid for me to see him cry? I know it has to still kill him not to know what happened to Nicole. It would eat me up alive.
“You know, I once thought that same thing.” He points a finger at his chest. “I thought I was alone. I thought I had no one. My parents killed themselves.” My chest tightens for him as a knot forms in my throat at how cold his voice sounds. It makes my skin break out in goosebumps. “They couldn’t take one more day of hell. And believe me, Taylor, it was hell.” His chest rises and falls quickly as he takes a deep breath. “You think I didn’t want it to go away?” he asks, and his dark eyebrows pull together. “You think I didn’t ask God why he let that happen to my family? What I had done wrong? I wanted a way out,” he admits. “I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I tried …” He reaches up and runs a hand through his dark hair. “The thing was I couldn’t hate my parents for what they did. I wanted to do it.” His hands fall to his side, and he shakes his head. “I wanted to end the nightmares,” he whispers.