The Secrets We Keep

The Forty-Sixth Chapter

Hayden

"I can't go in there," I say as Nathan pulls to a stop in front of our house. All the lights are off because, in our panic to get to the hospital, I forgot to put them on, not realizing the next time we came home, it would be dark out. "I can't be in that house by myself."

It's the first words I've said since we left the hospital. I think somewhere on the ride back I started crying because I felt Nathan's hand on my thigh, a silent comfort as my body shook with my sobs. But now that we're here, it's hitting me all again. 

"We can drive around a bit if you like," Nathan says, already starting up his car but I shake my head. 

"Can we please go back to your place? I just want to be anywhere but here right now."

"Ok," he says and I catch him staring at me in concern as he starts the drive to his home. 

-

By the time he pulls into his garage, I've gone through every single moment with my brother since Amelia died. 

"It's not him," I say as Nathan opens my door for me. "They've made a mistake." Nathan doesn't say anything to contradict me but when I look up into his blue eyes, I can see he doesn't agree. "What? Don't tell me you think he did it," I say and my words are acid. 

Nathan sighs as he tries to pick up my hands but I refuse to let him touch me, not when he's thinking my brother could've done something like that. "They found a note, Hayden. He confessed to the murder."

"Ok, but the fire? If he wanted to kill himself, why try and burn the whole school down? He could've killed a lot of people. Why would he do that?" I demand and I'm so angry at him, at my brother, and at the world that I push my hands against Nathan's chest. But my body's weak and he catches my wrists after the attempted assault. "I'm sorry," I tell him weakly. "I don't know what I'm doing." Or what I'm going to do.

Wordlessly, Nathan pulls me to him and rests his chin on my head as I start crying again. It's all just finally sunk in and it's too much to take in. 

Not only did my brother confess to killing a girl, but in an effort to take his own life, he almost killed another person. 

-

I'm such a mess that the only way Nathan can get me out of the garage is to bridal carry me through the rest of the house. And then before I know it, he's tucking me into his bed and putting on the TV. He chooses a dinosaur documentary and as the lead paleontologist's voice starts talking about the Triassic Period, I feel the bed dip on the other side. 

"Are you feeling better?" He asks and pushes back my hair from my face. 

"No," I say and watch the pictures of what the creatures supposedly looked like back then flood the screen. "How am I ever supposed to be alright after this, Nathan? He killed her. How could he have done something like that?"

"Sometimes good people do bad things but that doesn't mean they're evil. He's your brother and it's ok to be upset about this but it's still ok to love him."

"No," I say and sit up in the bed. His black sheets fall around my waist as I glare at him. "No one deserves to be cared about after doing something like this. And for what? I get that she might've hurt him but to take her life? He killed someone's daughter, someone's friend." I feel my face go slack as my own words hit me. And just like her family lost a daughter, today mine last a son. Because that person in the hospital right now is not my brother, he died the moment that other thing took a girl's life. 

"Hayden," Nathan says and he looks pained by my words. "How can you say that? He's still the same person-"

"No. I don't want to talk about it anymore," I say, standing up from his bed. I pace a bit, the TV white noise in the background as I clear my head of all things Damien. "Christopher," I suddenly say, remembering how he was the other one in that library. "How is he?"