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Chapter Twenty-One – Will
Ash’s mood had settled pretty low during the car ride home. Well, I hated to call it home because it never really felt like home. Our wonderful father always made sure of that. It was never enough for that guy.
As I turned us into the long, winding driveway—practically a mile long—I kept checking on Ash in the rearview mirror. She stared out the window, not at the giant house on the grassy hill in front of us, but just…just out. At the general outside world. She nibbled her bottom lip slightly, and I frowned.
I didn’t like seeing her so upset. I had to figure out what it was, especially if Declan was too blind to see it.
I loved Declan, I did, but sometimes he could be a little dense. Take Sabrina, for example. She and Travis had been fucking around on him for months, and he didn’t know it. I knew Declan wasn’t the type to call things off, but when he did, I knew things were serious. But then, I always suspected something was going on between Sabrina and Travis; I didn’t hang around with them because I was a few years older, but it didn’t take much. When Declan came home with stories, I read between the lines.
Declan and Sabrina probably would’ve gotten back together, because that’s just the kind of guy my brother was, but unfortunately Travis was not the only one she’d been sleeping with at the time.
I really, really hoped Ash wouldn’t follow Sabrina’s lead. So far, things between her and Declan seemed different, more open. Plus the whole…relationship with Travis thing, not to mention the talk Declan had with me before. Declan was okay sharing, as long as the sharing was out in the open. Everyone had personal boundaries. Lies usually went against those boundaries, and Sabrina had been a liar.
I was a liar, but I only lied to protect Declan from the truth.
The garage was attached to the house, and I parked just outside it. I’d pull it in later, though I supposed I could just leave the car parked outside and really piss Dad off. Declan was the first out of the car, and he opened Ash’s door and helped her out. I went to the trunk and grabbed our bags. We didn’t pack much, mostly because this wasn’t going to be a full-length break. Declan and Ash were headed back to Hillcrest early, and there was no way I’d be staying here with Dad by myself.
Fuck that. Dad could look at me with suspicion all he wanted, but it didn’t matter. I had the evidence, and I was waiting for the perfect time to use it. Ash was…a nice, constant distraction, but it would happen eventually.
Sometime very soon, it would all be over.
Declan took Ash to the house, and I walked behind them. Declan would show her around, show her where she’d be staying, and I…I needed to avoid Dad as much as possible. He was still on campus probably, doing whatever it was deans did, so I had some time to unwind, some time to practice how I would act in front of him.
Ever since getting stabbed, it was like Dad suddenly wanted to be a part of my life again. Go figure. All it took was nearly dying for him to come crawling back to me, and even then, he was full of suspicion, as if he thought I invited the attacker to stab me.
No. Just…no. But it wasn’t like I could tell him that it was Ash’s crazy serial killer of an ex who attacked me. That was a bit of information I had to keep tucked neatly away to myself.
While Declan gave her a tour of the empty house, I meandered up the grand staircase and to my room. The halls seemed narrower, the lights dimmer. The magic of this place had worn off years ago, and yet, even after everything that had happened inside these walls, we still lived in it. Dad never moved us. How could he? This family had far too many skeletons in its closets.
I found my bedroom in a few minutes, and I heaved a sigh as I set my bag down and moved to my bed. The room was practically as large as my entire apartment, full of furniture that hardly saw use, multiple dressers whose drawers were mostly empty. Hardwood floors beneath the circular carpet situated in the center of the room. Two large windows sat on the far side, window seats in each of them. This was a room many kids would die to have growing up, and yet it just felt empty to me.
Most things felt empty, actually.
I reached to my chest, laying a hand against my ribcage. I could feel my heart beating, and yet, odd as it was, I felt as though it had stopped all those years ago, when I learned the truth. This family was not as perfect as it pretended to be. Dad was simply a monster lying in wait to pounce…and, foolish me, I’d delivered Ash right to him.
But Ash wasn’t like Mom, and she wasn’t like Sabrina. Ash had come from nothing, and even though she wavered on occasion, she was stronger than she knew. Maybe Ash and I could take the bastard down together.
That…that was a thought I would ponder all during this break.
Time went by, and eventually I got up and headed to my bag. A part of me had wanted to bring it along, just to have it with me, but I knew Dad well enough by now not to trust him. He’d go through my things, find it. He’d find it, and I’d lose what little I had over him. Without it, it was just my word against his, and he had the money and the connections. Me? I only had the money. Trust fund baby.
“Well, well, well,” Ash’s voice broke through my thoughts, and I turned, setting my bag down on the bed as I watched her walk into my room. She held her hands behind her back, and I noticed Declan was nowhere near.
Did she want to come to me alone?
“So this is where William Briggs grew up, huh?” she spoke, her lips curling into a smile. Those lips…did she not know how tempting she was? Holding myself back was hard. I knew Declan had told me it was alright, but still. He was my brother. I didn’t want to disappoint him, to hurt him, even if he gave me the go-ahead.
“This is it,” I said, watching as she walked around the room, checking everything out.
“You don’t have any pictures hanging on your walls,” Ash commented, glancing at me.
No, I didn’t. Mostly because there wasn’t anything important to hang. None of me, none of this family. No childish pictures of animals or anything like that. My room was large, but beyond the furniture resting in it, it was pretty bare.
Watching her, observing her notice little things hardly anyone else did, made me realize that this girl might only be eighteen, but she was much older than that inside. The things she’d seen had forced her to grow up. Sometimes she was silly, but more often than not she was serious, almost too mature for her age. Like…like she hadn’t had a childhood.
Just like me.
Ash and I…we were alike in more ways than I thought.
