I leave Shane behind, too, completely done with him.
CHAPTER 78
Dollie—present day
“What’s going on?” I ask Nyx, following him out of his van at the bottom of the hill.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to drive to the top.”
“Why? Is it the rain?”
Nyx is often brave enough to venture my hill in his van, regardless of the weather.
“What is all that noise?”
A myriad of voices chant different things at once, preventing me from hearing the distinctions in their hate.
Leading the way in my socks, I stomp the muddy path, following chants of death wishes. All of this reminds me of Shane and the very last words he said to me.
I still in the drizzle that still leaks from the sky, Nyx’s hand on my shoulder. “They’ve been here for hours.”
“Hours!” My brow pulls down, and my mind whirls with so much of my own hate.
Rushing forward, I take in the signs held by the locals. Each hateful protester stands, soaked and to their knees in mud. Awful things plastered over each sign in big, bold letters.
Shane was right, word had gotten out about Ambrose trying to end his life, and it’s brought half of the town here to my doorstep.
An overwhelming feeling of not being able to cope, not without my comfort person, comes over me as I read one sign that bobs up and down in a local’s dirty hands.
Just die!
Two words that take my breath away.
Turning to another that has more to say, I read it aloud, “Your parents are probably wishing for karma from beyond the grave.”
I stare down at the woman in white, who has quite clearly slipped in the mud and landed on her left hip as she climbed the hill. “They would never want him to die.”
She should know better. I spent so many Saturdays in her store as Mom flogged her upcycled pieces and brought in a new wave of customers. I sat with them both, silently lost in my thoughts as Mom shed tears over Ambrose not being home.
Shaking my head, I grip the sign from her frail, aging hands.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demand, asking her and everyone else in the crowd. “You’re so fucked up that you don’t even see it.”
The chanting mutes.
“Oh, you wanna listen to me? Because you need someone to tell you this is wrong? Why? You already know that!” My teeth chatter, partly from the cold, partly through anger. “You’re all here for what? To avenge my parents? To wish that the son they loved so much would die? Do you think they’d be okay with that?” I screech like a manic, so close to a breakdown I feel anxiety licking around my bones. “Do you think I’m okay withthat? With you standing outside my door, hoping the person I love most in this world dies?”
A comment from the crowd flits through the air, something about rape and brainwashing.
“No, he never did any of that.” I shake my head at all these people who’ll believe any bit of hearsay. “Do you wanna know a secret? I wished each night that one day he’d kiss my lips, instead of my forehead, because I didn’t want him to see me as his goofy little sister. But he didn’t. And do you wanna know why? Because he’s a good person. You all come here in honor of my parents, as if they were saints. They weren’t! They were flawed, like we are. My mother spent every day crying because she knew they were bad parents. Knew their actions led us to harm. No one chanted for us. But you’re here for them—them, who I wish were here to tell you to back the fuck off. It was a psychotic break. He didn’t want this. He didn’t know what the fuck was happening!”
I didn’t know what the fuck was happening.
I shake with the need to tell them it was me, that I had no idea what was happening, but Ambrose’s pleas over the last few days beg me not to.
“You hate him for it? Well, I guess that’s your right, but do it somewhere fucking else because this is private property!”
Nyx follows me inside, lifting a package from the doorstep that I’d ignored. It’s probably another cologne set for Shane, who feels the need to buy himself gifts constantly.
