Paint You Wings

Twenty-six

My dad puts a hand against his mouth, and then runs it up his face and through his hair. The room is silent, and my palms are sweaty. My mouth is dry, but I don't trust myself to pick up my glass of water. I chew on the inside of my cheek. Time goes by painfully slow, or maybe it's just the silence that makes it seem like hours have passed. My breathing is irregular. I catch myself gasping for air, and then trying to swallow the sobs that threaten to break me. I blink rapidly to stop the tears. My teeth tear the skin on my inner cheek and blood flows through and mixes with my saliva.

Everything is so painfully still. It makes me want to reach out and grab the words I just said. Why is nobody talking? Do I need to repeat myself? What the fuck are they doing?

They think you're crazy.

I blink, and then I realize that everyone has actually moved. My dad is leaning against the island counter, staring at his hands. Cleo is in the corner, hands holding her face, body shaking. She's crying. Melanie is rubbing her back, glaring at me with more strength than before.

If looks could kill.

Cleo lifts her head then, she must've felt my gaze. Her cheeks are tear-stained, eyes and nose bright pink. "Why would you do this?" Her voice is quiet. As if she can't quite believe what I've said. Her eyes are... sad. Lower than sad. Then they fill with a fire, and it isn't the fire that lights up in Aaron's eyes when I walk into a room, but the fire that he had when my dad stormed into our apartment drunk and loud.

The day when he told us Alice was dead.

I'm chewing on my lip now. My cheek has stopped bleeding. I hear commotion going on around me, but I can't focus. Everything seems blurry. Why did I do that? Why did I destroy everything? What am I going to do?

Hands wrap around my throat. "You monster!" Melanie screams in my face. Cleo is throwing something. It shatters against the wall. My dad looks confused. Like he can't decide who to save. Me or the women he loves. I tug and scratch at Melanie's hands. Thankfully, she's skinny and has no muscle, I shove her off me in seconds. "You fucking killed my sister and then you just disappear for a fucking month? Who the hell do you think you are to just destroy a family?"

I regain my confidence, and give her a disturbingly amused look. "You think I wanted to come here? You think it was my choice to come live with all you fucking cunts-"

"That's enough!" My dad roars from Cleo's side. My eyes snap to them and narrow instinctively. "What you're doing here is sick, Annabelle, I know as well as you do that you didn't do it, so quit playing."

"Oh! So you're going to defend her?" Cleo cries, shoving my dad's arm away from her.

"I'm not defending her! Do you honestly think she's capable of killing someone? She was too caught up in her boy toy to even pick up the goddamn phone and call us! She didn't do it! She's covering up for whoever the hell did!"

Cleo stares at him harshly. Her eyes brick walls and his words simply puny stones. And then it dawns on her.

Dammit, it didn't work.

Melanie seems to understand this as well. "Who the fuck actually did it, you bitch?"

She reaches for my shirt. I shove her into the island, grab my keys from the hook and walk outside.

I get in my car, start the engine, and back out of the driveway.

"Dammit! My white socks!" I slam my hand against the steering wheel. Then start laughing bitterly. I'm worrying about my damn socks when they could be calling the cops on me. My socks!

I think about calling Aaron, but then remember my phone wasn't recovered from the fire. Fuck.

My laugh soon turns into sobs, and I have to pull over to the side of the highway I wasn't aware of driving on and cry. My head against the steering wheel, like it was the night of the masquerade party when I fell asleep in the parking lot. Tears stream down my face and drop onto my thighs. My stomach clenches from the sobs. My heart aches. I don't even know why I'm crying. Because they found out I lied? Because Richard burned down Maya's house?