Behind him, the rest of the family stood in silence until Matthew and the others were out of view. For a moment, he considered turning away from the window, but he couldn’t find the courage to face their disappointment and revulsion. Soon enough, he heard the shuffling of feet moving away and out of the parlor until silence remained. Nausea clawed at his inside. His head swam. He needed to lie down and think. When he could finally tear himself away from the window, he plodded upstairs back to his room.
His ribs ached and his vision swam. When he opened the door to his room, he saw Kathleen sitting on the edge of his bed, staring blankly at the wall. Her hands were clasped in front of her. He leaned against the doorframe as dread settled into his bones. His body hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain he experienced when she turned to look at him with such sorrow in her eyes. No matter what he did would never be enough to make it up to her, he knew.
“Sit down before you fall down,” she said and even her voice sounded a hundred years older.
Taking a deep breath, he inched around her to the other side of the bed and eased into it. As soon as he settled onto the mattress with the blankets flung over his legs and a pillow propping his head up, the nausea receded. He let out a shaky breath and prepared himself for the onslaught he knew was coming.
Kathleen remained motionless and seemed to stare at the wallpaper, taking a moment to reorient herself. Her shoulders hunched as if she dreaded their next conversation as well. She turned to Max and studied him, and Max was certain those few moments allowed her to peer into the very depths of who he was as a person.
“You lied to me, Max,” she said.
“Not exactly,” Max said and hated that he couldn’t, even now, admit the truth with humility. “I was in a car wreck. I just left out some of the other details.” He smiled sickly at her and felt a wave of self-loathing wash over him. He steeled himself for her to lash out and scream at him. They’d had some epic fights in their time, and he knew this one would outshine them all. Better to get it over with now, he thought, before it festers.
“It’s the same thing,” Kathleen said in a huff. Max recognized that indignation and he felt helpless—he wanted to be an adult and address the problem with a clear head, but he was getting pulled into old habits. Fighting with Kathleen was an old habit. Poking her weak spots was his specialty, and as the nausea returned, he realized he simply hadn’t grown up enough to act like he should toward his sister.
“I told you what I thought you should know. You didn’t want to hear about the crap I’d been through—”
“Why would you think that? Am I untrustworthy in some way? Unstable? Why would you think you could hide that from me?” Kathleen demanded
“It’s not that. I just didn’t want to get into it. I knew you’d react this way. You wouldn’t listen. All you’d hear is that I escaped from prison and committed another crime.”
“God, how can you be so irresponsible?” Kathleen said. “You never think about the consequences of your actions. This is just another example of that. All you do is think about Max. What about giving me a chance, huh? How did I become a person it was hard to tell the truth to?”
“How can you understand what I’ve been through?” Max demanded, sitting up in the bed. “I was terrified for my life. Someone was going to murder me, Kathy, and I had to look that man in the face almost every single day. I was constantly on edge, wondering when he was going to stab me in the back, or jump me when I was least expecting it.”
“You could’ve told the warden. What about the guards? They have protections against that kind of thing.”
“You see my ribs? The bruises on my back? I was kicked and punched until I was sure I wouldn’t get back up again. For the past year that I’ve been in prison, every day I wondered if it was going to be my last. Everyone I met might have been a potential enemy trying to get close to me. Don’t you get it, Kathleen? I was terrified every single day. The guards didn’t do anything. Sure, they pulled Colin off of me when they could, but the day I decided to escape, it was because I knew I wouldn’t live long enough to see my freedom. I couldn’t just take it lying down.”
“But you’ve only added to your sentence, Max,” Kathleen said, her voice rising. “Now you’re on the run. You’ve made us all accomplices. Not only that, but you’ll actually spend your life in jail.”
“I was never going to get my life back,” Max said, numb. “When I got out, the cartel would’ve come for me for ratting them out.”
“You dug your own grave, Max.” Kathleen’s shoulders hunched further. “Now you’re complaining that you don’t like the view? You’re the one who decided to sell drugs in the first place. You got involved in that whole lifestyle because you enjoyed the rush or wanted the easy way out. That’s what I’m talking about—these are the consequences of your actions! Face them, for once in your life.”
“You don’t understand,” Max said even as Kathleen’s words felt like barbs in his heart. He wanted to crawl in some dark hole and never come back out. He wanted to run away and never approach this topic of conversation again. Anything to get away from this room and his sister’s wrath.
“What don’t I understand?” Kathleen shouted. “Explain it to me.”
Max looked away from her and out the window. The
