make our dad pay attention to me, encouraged me to try out for the band, took care of me, night after drunk night, and all he ever wanted in return was to be my friend, my brother, my twin. I ruined that. I ruined everything.
Lucy squeezes my hand tighter and I realize I’m whimpering, tears streaming down my face, soaking the front of my shirt.
Then Rose-Brady says my parents are on their way, and my brain clicks off and I sink down in her hard-backed office chair and I wait for whatever comes next.
I can’t sleep.
Much earlier, after I got home from school, after that awful, horrible day, all I wanted to do was sleep. I wanted to close my eyes and never wake up.
Instead I’m lying on my bed with all my clothes on, even my shoes, staring up at the ceiling. It’s nine p.m. and I’ve been lying here for hours, staring.
I’m turning May’s words over and over in my head, trying to fit them back together, like maybe if I rearrange them in just the right way, they’ll mean something different. But they won’t—of course they won’t. It was me. There’s no two ways about it. May was the person vandalizing our house—the person who made my life miserable for months on end. And she lied to my face over and over and over again.
Was she just getting close to me so she could get to my mom? Using me for some psychotic revenge on my family? It’s pretty obvious that she never cared about me at all.
There’s a knock on my door. It takes all my energy to hold back a scream.
“What?” I growl.
“Zach?” My dad pops his head into the room. “Just seeing if you want to watch something with me…” He trails off. “You okay, kid?”
I press my mouth into a long, thin line. “Yes. I’m fine. I’m always fine.”
He hesitates in the doorway and then comes farther into my room. I squeeze my eyes shut. Can’t everyone just leave me alone?
He sits down on my bed. “Want to talk about it?” He’s acting like this is normal. Like we’re best buddies. Like I’d want to talk to him about anything at all.
“Nope.” I open my eyes and glare at him.
“C’mon. Might make you feel better.” He nudges me.
I move away from him and cross my arms. “Stop.”
He sighs. “Shit. Zach, man. I’m trying, here. Can’t you throw me a bone?” He reaches out again. I shove his hand off my arm.
“Get. Off.”
“Hey…” He reaches out a third time, and deep within the center of my being something snaps.
I grab his fingers and look him straight in the eyes. “I said, get off me.” He flinches out of my grip with a hurt expression, but I don’t care. I just don’t care.
“What are you even doing here? You pick today of all days to act like you care? Where have you been for the past year? The past five years? Trying to start a stupid band like you think you’re my age? Hiding out in your fucking cave, forcing me to clean up your mess—forcing me to take care of Gwen. I’ve made the two of us dinner, driven her to school every day. Cleaned up the horrible shit that people wrote on our fucking garage.” Bile rises in my throat at the thought of the garage and who those people were. I refuse to cry in front of my father. Instead, I grab my phone. Stand. “I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Zach—” He reaches for me again, but I move too fast. “C’mon. Zach!”
He’s still calling my name as I walk out of my bedroom, down the staircase, and out the front door.
* * *
—
A short while later, I pull up to Conor’s. I texted him on my way over, and he’s waiting outside as promised, holding a brown paper bag by his side. The house looks worse than the last time I was here. The weeds in the