Bury Me(34)

I laugh at my own joke, but Nolan just sighs in sympathy.

It’s been a week since my mother shot herself in my bedroom and a week of being ignored by my father while he locked himself in his office and sucked down one bottle of whiskey after another. The only reason I know what he’s doing behind that closed door is because each time he’d finish a bottle, he’d open his office door just wide enough for the bottle to fit through, clunk it down roughly on the floor, and then slam the door closed.

When I walked by the door on my way out here to the lake, I counted six empty bottles all in a clump right outside the door. I’m assuming he’s shoving them out of his office because his drunken mind thinks I’ll pick up where my mother left off and clean up after him. He can just keep right on assuming that because it will be a cold day in hell before I do anything for that man.

“I’ve never noticed that birthmark before.”

Nolan’s finger gently traces over the crescent moon-shaped birthmark the size of a fifty-cent piece on my upper thigh and goose bumps pebble my skin at his soft touch.

Swatting his hand away, I shrug and turn my face toward the sun. “I’ve had it since birth, hence, the name birthmark.”

He chuckles, and I close my eyes, instead of rolling them in annoyance that he didn’t notice the sarcastic bite to my words.

“Has your dad spoken to you yet?” he asks as he leans back on his hands, tilts his head up toward the sun, and closes his eyes.

“Nope.”

Pulling my legs up onto the dock, I twist my body to face Nolan, crisscrossing my legs in front of me.

“He said plenty to me the night she shot herself. I would be perfectly fine if he never spoke to me again,” I tell him, thinking about how my father cradled my mother’s body in his arms, screaming accusations and hatred at me. Even though it was obvious I didn’t pull the trigger, and I didn’t force my mother to do what she did, according to my father, it was still my fault. He cried and screamed, he mumbled nonsense, and then he screamed some more. When I got tired of listening to him, I walked out of the room and left him alone with his anger and misery.

“I know I’ve already said this, but I’m sorry for what’s happening to you,” he tells me softly.

“It’s not your fault. Right now, the only thing I care about is remembering what happened that night in the woods because I feel like it all started that night. Why was I out there? Who was out there with me, and how did I get back up to the prison?”

Nolan is silent and I turn my head to look at him. He’s looking off in the opposite direction, lost in thought.

“You didn’t hear anything about that night, right? Like, maybe some of the workers were here and saw something?”

He shakes his head, but still doesn’t turn to face me. I start to call him on it when he suddenly turns and leans toward me.

“You know I care about you, right? And I’d never let anything happen to you?” he asks.

I nervously rub my hands up and down my arms, feeling agitated by what his words do to me. Nolan and I have spent every day together since my mother’s death. Because my father has locked himself in his office, he hasn’t given the grounds crew a list of jobs that needs to be done, like he usually does every morning when they get here. After the first day when they finished with all of the obvious things that needed taking care of, they didn’t figure it would make sense to come all the way out here and have nothing to do. They left, telling me to have my father call them when he wanted them to come back to work.

Much to my surprise, when I woke up the following morning and came outside for some air, Nolan was sitting on the top step of the porch waiting for me. I tried to brush him off, ignore him in the hopes that he’d go away, but he wouldn’t give up that easily. I didn’t want to like him. I didn’t have time to waste looking forward to his visits. I was too consumed with my newly discovered personality, enjoying the thrill of behaving however I pleased, without having to worry about consequences. I still had secrets to uncover and memories to remember and being with Nolan was simply not on the agenda.

I thought it would be easy to push him aside because I didn’t like the way he made me feel. When he spoke to me so soft and sweet, when he looked at me like he was interested in what I had to say, it scared me deep down to the very core of me. I wasn’t afraid of being chased through the woods, almost drowned, and having my mother aim a loaded gun at my chest. I’m not afraid of my memories that show me the horrible things that were done to me, the awful words that were said to me, and I know I won’t be afraid of what’s yet to come, when it all clicks into place and everything makes sense. All of those things strengthen me and push me to keep going, get to the bottom of everything, and show them all, whoever they are, that they can’t ignore me any longer.