She’d sworn that he was the one, and that she would wait as long as it took to get him back. But I couldn’t imagine, even after all these years, that she was still thinking of him in these moments. She had to have moved on. Right?
I’d have to ask her about it. Because the only thing I could think of that would be worse than having your heart broken by a cheating ex was losing someone who could’ve really been it, and then spending your life missing them.
“Come on, let’s go inside,” Deva said, flashing her teeth in a quick grin.
I nodded, feeling strange. Happy but caught in my own thoughts too. Deva was beside my door a second later and pulled it open for me. Somehow, I remembered to unbuckle my seatbelt, and then we headed for the porch. My mind felt like candy floss, like it had been whipped around until it was as light as air and barely there at all. It wasn’t unpleasant at all, but maybe a little disorienting.
The look vanished from Carol’s face, and she smiled as she saw us heading toward her. “Feeling good?” she asked, tossing me my keys.
I couldn’t help but return her smile and nodded as I unlocked the front door and threw my keys on the table inside the door. Then froze. The happy, relaxed feeling faded away and a cold shiver moved down my spine. I lifted my arm and stared down at it, realizing that every hair was standing on end. It was more than just goosebumps. This was every hair follicle pushing, every atom of my being telling me something had changed. Then I dropped my arm.
Before I even stepped forward to let Carol and Deva in, I knew deep in my soul that something was very, very wrong.
It felt like the floor was tilted under my feet as I let my gaze roam over the room. There was blood on the floor. Not a lot of it, but a small pool. And there were splatters around it.
If Henry was injured, it would be a bad injury, but he’d be okay. It didn’t explain why he hadn’t called me or why he was nowhere to be seen. I moved forward, taking in the rest of the living room as my eyes darted away from the pool of blood. It was trashed. Furniture had been tossed around. Vases and lamps that my parents had bought were shattered on the ground. And yet, the TV was tossed on its side, not stolen. Nothing seemed to be taken. So if this wasn’t a robbery, what was it?
“Henry!” My feet crunched on glass as I began to move, looking to the bright windows that faced the sea. The white sand was still perfect, no tracks, no scuffle marks, nothing. The waves still rolled in and out as if my brother hadn’t been hurt. But there was no sign of him. “Henry!” I shouted again, panic uncurling in my belly.
Behind me, I could sense my friends were standing in shocked silence. I told myself that I should keep going through the house. Maybe he was somewhere inside? And yet, my instinct said otherwise.
“Deva, could you call the police?” My words came out hollow.
It was the thing to do. Right? In situations like this, people called the police?
My heartbeat filled my ears, and Deva’s voice was somewhere in the distance. I moved through the house like a nightmare, seeing more destruction with every step I took. Flashes of the car accident came into my mind, rising like a shadow around me until it was all my mind could focus on. My parents had been talking in the front seat. Henry had been asleep beside me. Headlights had seemed to fill the windshield, and I remembered the look of horror on my mom’s face.
The memory moved in slow motion, just like I moved in slow motion through the house, fighting my mind to see what was in front of me and not what had happened in the past. I checked the bathroom and saw nothing to indicate Henry had cleaned and bandaged an injury, but saw toiletries thrown everywhere. The car appeared in my mind almost larger than life right at the moment when the glass shattered like an explosion. I remembered the front of the car crushing in, almost swallowing my parents, and then the car had teetered and started to roll over and over again.
Henry had called my name that night.
I called his name now, over and over again as I stared at his room, which was destroyed. Even his expensive computer monitors had been smashed in, and his sheets ripped and thrown about the room. Then I went to what was currently my room. I doubted he’d been in our parent’s bedroom since they died. But still, I searched the room and my bathroom, praying he might have thought to hide in there, but I found the same destruction as the rest of the house, and no Henry.
That night came again, swallowing me as I stood in the center of a room filled with my destroyed belongings. The car had rolled until it was upside down. My back had felt like it’d been torn in half and blood was everywhere. But Henry was so scared beside me. So I’d unbuckled us both, which wasn’t an easy feat given the strain our weight was putting on them as we hung there, and crawled through that broken glass.
I looked at
