I run my hands back through my hair, then clasp them together on the back of my neck. My legs are shaking as I do my best to sit here and believe that my brother hasn’t abandoned me.
Life isn’t all that great right now, but I know it would be worse without him.
How did Darby do all of this without breaking?
I miss her.
Especially in this newfound loneliness that’s gripping my heart. My mother may not have been the strongest woman in the world physically, but she bore more on her back and in her soul than Dad would have ever been capable of.
With a sigh, I lift my face and glance toward the driveway, tears springing to my eyes when I see no sign of light on the horizon. Of course, I should be used to that by now. The only time we’d ever seen light in this fucking house would be when Mom would help us with our studies, cuddle us after Dad laid into us, and kissed our cuts and scrapes when we fell.
Get back up. No matter how many times you fall, you get right back on your feet. It will always make you stronger.
A tear rolls down my cheek as I think of what Mom always told us. I don’t know much about our grandmother really, but I doubt she got up as many times as Mom did. We’d hide in the shadows when she and Dad would argue. We’d see him hit her and watch her get right back up and in his face. We saw when she hit him first and his reaction confused us. Almost as though he approved of the action, and I think that’s where Richter gets that from—the confusion, not the lesson.
I don’t really believe there was anything in this house that we could have learned from Dad, only from Mom.
I get to my feet and brush the dirt off the back of my jeans. I don’t know if I ever really loved my father, but I did love my mother and I’ll do my best to make her proud.
One last glance up the driveway and I shake my head as I turn on my heel and push the front door open, locking it again so he doesn’t know I was outside.
I’ll have to hide the key before he gets home, if he does.
Maybe Richter will come home, maybe he won’t. However, if he’s got any real Greene blood in him, he’ll be the good man that Mom always wanted him to be and leave Cleo where she is.
She deserves better than this.
We all do.
I startle when the front door opens and closes about twenty minutes later. I had almost fallen asleep on the couch watching some old reruns, but now I’m wide awake again.
Hoping that my sister is somewhere far away from the desperation and depravity that hangs low in the air of this home, staining the walls and beds alike.
“Skylar!”
I sit up and rub my eyes.
Richter sounds frantic, angry, and a little worried.
He probably thinks I ran away.
I chuckle despite the mood I’ve been in for most of my life after Mom. He always seems to forget that I’ve already tried that once, and when he caught me, into the oubliette I went for a solid seven days.
I think being in there under his rage has to be worse than Dad’s because at least he would allow for small meals to be tossed in sometimes and bottles of water on occasion.
Richter’s anger dictates scraps from the table and piss sprayed down into the darkness.
And even through all of it, he swears that he loves me and that we’ll be happiest in this home as husband and wife—a request I have yet to acquiesce to.
“Are you okay?” I ask him after I find him pacing the kitchen floor. Richter looks a little disheveled, which isn’t something I’m used to.
“I found her,” he says, glancing over at me as he continues walking back and forth. “I found Cleo.”
I bite back a sigh of relief. It seems that he had the good common sense to leave her where she was after all.
“How is she doing?” I ask curiously as I cross my arms loosely over my chest.
Richter stops pacing almost instantly and rubs a hand irritably over his face. He’s getting angry and if his temper explodes, I’ll be on the receiving end of his mood. I have to be careful now considering I’ve sassed him enough in the past few days and have the sore lip to prove it.
His shoulders slump slightly as the air of anger leaves his body in a whoosh. “Honestly? I think she’s doing great without me.”
His tone is so full of dejection that I walk over and wrap my arms around him. As nothing more than his little sister who loves him dearly and wants him to know that nothing that’s happened to Cleo—good or bad—after Dad sent her off to God knows where, is in any way his fault.
When Richter shifts in my embrace and lowers his face toward mine, I let him go and take a step back. I know it will only add to his frustration, but I can’t reconcile anything about this being right.
He sucks his teeth for a moment before he walks past me and I follow him because that’s what good Greene women do.
“Sit down,” he tells me in a stern tone after he takes a seat in Dad’s favorite recliner. He clears his throat as he leans forward and rests his elbows against his knees.
I do my best not to laugh out loud, because it’s almost like staring at the man himself when my brother is like this.
“Cleo’s fine,” he begins curtly as he rubs his face irritably again. “And that’s what bothers me. She lives with some weird family, in this commune environment, and you know what the kicker is? The guy that
