CHAPTER SIX
Michaela
The holidays are always tough for me, especially Christmas, especially when those awful holiday decorations will be strung up in Tranquil Falls, reminding me of that night - the night that everything came crashing down around our small town, the night that I learned life wasn’t always perfect when you had everything handed to you on a silver platter.
Sitting on the side of my bed in my college dorm that was dressed up to look like it was as close to superior as a small dorm could be, I rolled my eyes at the custom wall paint, the ornately carved furniture, the rugs my mother spent thousands of dollars on to make it look like I was a step above the rest of the freshman and sophomores at my college. In six months, when I was in my junior year, I’d be allowed to live off campus per the college rules. I had an apartment already, bought and paid for by Jack’s parents and mine.
Jack was overjoyed to finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, thrilled to know that, soon, we wouldn’t be bound to the dormitory rules set in place to keep the younger students from partying too hard. He wanted to join a fraternity, but he also wanted to live with me.
Not because he loved me. But because he wanted to keep an eye on me, trap me like his little mahogany feathered birdie in a gilded cage. I was still his property, even after that night, even after he destroyed a family who had never done anything to hurt him.
Christmas was in two weeks, and in a few hours I would be climbing into the passenger seat of Jack’s car to drive four hours back to Tranquil Falls to spend those weeks with our families. It would be our second return since that night, the second time I had to walk around the town and wonder what really happened to Holden and Delilah Bishop.
There were rumors, always rumors, and from what my mother told me, Holden had been seen working at the small twenty-four hour diner closer to his part of town. She’d scoffed at the absurdity that they’d allow a crazy man like him to handle other people’s food, especially since he had a reason to hate the town we’d grown up in. Nobody ever saw him come and go from work. And only a few had briefly glanced at him where he worked in the kitchen. They said he washed dishes. They said he cooked food. They said he hadn’t spoken a word to anybody since that night.
Delilah never returned to school after the accident that killed her parents. In truth, nobody really knew if she was dead or alive. We’d graduated without hearing a word about what happened to her. The Bishop family hadn’t disappeared the night Holden was run down by an out of control car, but they did after the night Holden’s family was struck in an intersection by a semi that had lost traction on the ice.
We knew what happened to Holden’s parents only because one person saw Holden standing alone in the graveyard while the coffins were being lowered in the ground. They said a black beanie covered his black hair. They said his hands were tucked inside the black jacket he wore. They said he looked like a punk, like a freak, like an outcast as he watched his parents disappear beneath the frozen earth. They criticized him even then, couldn’t give him just one single moment of solitude so that he could mourn the destruction of everything he’d once been.
There were two small markers showing where his parents were laid to rest. I left flowers on those graves the last time I’d visited Tranquil Falls. I’d done it in secret because I was still too afraid to step out of line and reveal that I didn’t want to be like my parents and friends. I wanted to have a heart.
Rumors placed Delilah in a home somewhere for cripples. Rumors had her dead body tucked away inside Holden’s house where he kept her because he’d lost his mind. Rumors had her working the streets in another town because she’d become a junkie addicted to pain pills after her recovery.
Rumors.
They were a staple of life in Tranquil Falls.
My last memory of her was from the day I stopped by Holden’s hospital room to see him, to apologize to him, to tell him that Jack was a bastard who didn’t deserve the easy life. Delilah had practically chased me from the room, her eyes swollen from tears, her spirit ferocious as she took on the task of protecting Holden from anybody she believed wished him harm. Even me. Her only friend from the dance team. The only girl in the entirety of Tranquil Falls that genuinely felt bad for what had been done.
I hated Jack for that accident. Hated that his family replaced his car with nothing more than a shrug at the expense. Hated that despite being caught with drugs on him and being blamed for an accident he caused by being a relentless bully and jerk, there were no consequences other than a slap on the wrist. He was still the big man on campus, still the smug prick that skated through life on his daddy’s dime. Still the pompous bully that outgunned every decent person who dared speak out against him.
Even now. Even in college. Jack Thorne was still King. And I was his Queen. The Queen of hearts. The Queen of diamonds. The Queen suffocating beneath the weight of her thorned crown.
His knock on my door dragged me away from my thoughts of Tranquil Falls.
“Come in.”
The door slid open, Jack’s cocky smile wide and excited. He loved returning home during the holidays, loved reuniting the team so they could continue their stupid parties. He loved rushing to see his new friends in the servants’ quarters that supplied him now that Jimmy had died from an overdose.
I wasn’t sad to hear about Jimmy. I blamed him for what happened to Holden and Delilah as well.
Scrubbing his hand over the back of his neck, Jack’s smile faded, his eyes narrowing in concern. “I came to see if you’re ready. Is something wrong?”
“No, I lied, “just feeling a little gross. Guess my stomach didn’t like what I ate for dinner last night.” If I told him I didn’t want to go home, there would be hell to pay for it the entire ride there. He’d call me a freak-lover, a whore to rejects. That’s what he always said when I brought up either of the Bishop kids.
“I guess Delilah wasn’t all that bad. She, at least, looked like she would be a fun time. But her brother? He deserved what he got.”
Those were his exact words the first time we went home for Christmas break and I brought it up. The words he spoke before he and his friends got high and got right back to business destroying the hearts of high school girls. Jack didn’t stick close to me anymore during his parties. It was a crapshoot who he’d take to bed once the festivities wound down. Me or some oblivious girl that didn’t know better.
If I did something like that, Jack and both our families would destroy me. Jack’s family and friends would run a smear campaign on my reputation. My parents would most likely disown me.
All for money.
Money.
Money.
Money.
The only thing those assholes had that made them believe they were superior to everybody.
“That sucks, but do you have your bags packed? We need to go.”
Glancing up at Jack, I let my gaze trail over his hair that had grown out, the stronger cut to his jaw that appeared when the last of his childhood had faded away. He was more handsome now than he’d been in high school and it wasn’t fair. There were moments when he could be sweet, and I grasped on to those moments, clung to them like small islands in a turbulent sea because I’d hoped they meant Jack was turning over a new leaf, that he would finally understand the evil that he’d done.
But just like everything I actually enjoyed in my life, those moments were fleeting. They were a tease, a small window showing me exactly what I was missing.
“I’m packed. My bags are by the door.” Jutting my chin in their direction, I had a flash of stupidity to think Jack would actually pick them up and carry them to the car. Instead he smiled again, jangled his keys and opened my door to step into the hall. “Awesome. Grab them and come on. It’s a four hour drive back to Tranquil Falls.”
Rolling my eyes, I stood from my bed and sighed as the door slammed shut. He couldn’t even be bothered to hold it for me. When it opened again and he poked his head through, I was taken by surprise. Maybe he realized he was being an intolerable prick. Maybe he was going to help me with the bags after all.
“Oh, and when we’re in the car, try not to breathe in my direction. Keep your window cracked or something. Just in case your stomach pain is a virus and not bad food. I don’t want to get sick.”
The door slammed shut again. I picked up a book from the desk and tossed it at the wood. The book thud hard and slid down, but the door didn’t open again.
Another sigh burst out of me, one filled with regret, anger, torment and bitter strife. I had no one to blame but myself. By going along with him, I was letting this happen. Yet, I still picked up those bags like a good little girl and dragged them down one flight of stairs to where Jack was waiting by his car. Hitting the key fob, he opened the trunk for me. The biting cold was nipping at my cheeks, my jacket not thick enough to keep my body from trembling. While I rounded the car to tuck my bags away, Jack climbed into the driver’s seat to escape the weather.
At least one of us was toasty and warm.
Fog rolled over the surface of the parking lot, dissipating beneath the light sprinkle of freezing rain that wasn’t quite snow yet. The dorms were deserted already because most of the students left yesterday when the weather was still slightly nice. I wanted to go, too, but Jack had a party to attend at a frat house he didn’t belong to. Always a party. Always.
Sliding into the passenger seat, I was about to buckle up when Jack grabbed my wrist to stop me. Déjà vu flashed, another time he’d stopped me from putting on my seatbelt that led to the destruction of an entire family.
“What?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to go.”
His expression twisted with annoyance. “Can you take off your wet jacket, at least? You’ll ruin the leather seats.”
My eyes narrowed, but I shrugged out of the jacket anyway. Thankfully the seats were heated and I would be warm eventually. The engine purred as Jack pulled out of the campus parking lot, his foot a little too heavy on the pedal as we shot like an arrow down the highway towards home.
I’ve heard that all over the world circumstances had a way of changing from day to day. Life had a way of changing, for good and for bad. It wasn’t the same tired story being told over and over again, never changing, never evolving, never giving you the opportunity to actually learn something about life.
Not in Tranquil Falls.
In my small town, nothing changed.
It always stayed the same.