Little Lies(18)

“Do you feel it?” I whisper, not needing to explain. She understands what I’m asking: Does she feel how fast my heart is beating? How scared I am too?

She gives me one jerky nod.

“Your fear is my fear,” I say, just like my mom does when my heart is beating out of control and the panic takes over. “I feel what you feel.”

Lavender blinks at me, eyes watery. She starts to bite her lip but flinches.

“It’s okay. It’s a little split. It’ll be fine.” It might be a lie, but I don’t want to feed her monster. “We just breathe it out, okay? We just breathe.” And that’s exactly what we do; we breathe until my heart isn’t racing anymore and she’s not shaking like she’s inside her own personal earthquake.

I want to clean up all the blood on her hands and her face, but if she sees the damage, it’s probably going to make the panic come back. So we sit and breathe. With every inhale, I draw a figure eight on her back, and then repeat it on the exhale. It helps distract me from the panic, so I hope it helps Lavender too.

My legs lose their feeling.

My heart slows until all I want to do is sleep.

Calm. Calm. Calm.

Lavender sways into me. Her hand grows lax over my heart and slips down, landing in her lap. I always sleep for ages after the panic monster has been tromping around in my head. I lean against the wall, legs asleep and neck already cricked, but I don’t want to disturb Lavender.

So I wait for our parents to come home.

And I fall asleep too, because anxiety and fear are exhausting.





Chapter Seven


Into the Spiral We Fall

Lavender

Age 9

I WAKE UP to shouting. My body hurts so much, and I’m confused. I’m not in my bed. I’m in the spare room, and suddenly I’m dumped on the floor.

“What did you do to her?” River is screaming, screaming, screaming.

River has a big temper sometimes, the kind that explodes out of him in ways that make my entire body break out in a cold sweat. Mostly he gets mad when someone does something to upset me. He’s like an angry, rabid dog right now, barking and lunging at Kodiak.

I try to find my words, but I can only make one sound. “I-I-I.” I hate it when my brain and my body don’t work. And I’m so tired. So, so tired.

“She got locked in the closet! She was scared and couldn’t get out!” Kodiak’s voice is loud and strained and unsteady.

The floor vibrates under me as more people come rushing down the hall.

“Hey! Boys! That’s enough fight—oh my God.” My mom skids to a stop, hazel eyes wide, hand coming up to cover her mouth. She pushes past Kodiak and River, dropping to her knees in front of me. Her hands hover in the air like scared birds before they finally cup my cheeks. “Lavender, baby, what happened?”

I open my mouth, trying to find words, but her fear is my fear, and it all gets stuck again. Kodiak’s mom, Lainey, appears in the doorway, eyes bouncing around the room, taking in the way Kodiak and River are facing off against each other.

“River, Kody, what happened?” Lainey asks in a tone I’ve never heard before.

“He did something to Lavender!” River shouts and points a finger at Kodiak.

I cover my ears with my hands and shake my head. My hands hurt. I don’t understand what’s happening.

All of a sudden Daddy is in the room too, and he is angry—angrier than River. His voice is a sonic boom. Kodiak bursts into tears. And there is yelling, yelling, yelling.

And I am scared all over again.

I can’t breathe.

I remember smells and sounds and being scared, but I can’t connect them to anything but the darkness and how badly I wanted out of the closet and how it felt like I would be there forever.

It’s Lainey who cuts through the noise with a shrill whistle. She doesn’t yell like everyone else. Instead, she says, “Everyone out except Violet, Lavender, and Kodiak, please.”

When Daddy starts to argue, she holds up a hand and says, “Your anger is a trigger for both of them, and we cannot get the story with you here. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. So please, help us help them.”

“Please, Alex,” Mommy whispers brokenly. Her palm is damp as it smooths my hair away from my face. “Lainey’s right.”

He backs out of the room, taking a still-uncontrollable River with him, and then there’s just the fear monster in my head and the salty sadness left hanging in the air.

“Kodiak, can you tell us what happened?” Lainey asks softly.

He stumbles over his words, desperate to purge them. “We w-were playing hide-and-seek. Mav was it. He found R-river first and t-took a l-long time to f-find me.” He sniffs and swipes under his nose with the back of his hand, but his voice grows steadier as he speaks.

I want to be strong like Kodiak. I want to know how to make the monster in my head smaller.

“When Mav found me, we decided we were bored with t-the game, and we went to get a snack. But then I asked if he’d found Lavender, and he said she always hides in the same place, which is true most of the time. But I had that feeling—the one that makes my stomach feel off. Y-you know, the one you told me not to ignore?”

“Your instincts,” Lainey says.