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I grasp Julian’s arm and look at him. I know he can read my eyes.
“Oh yes, he’s fine. It wasn’t his house he lives in,” Yolanda pauses. It was your parents' house, Poppy.”
Julian braces me.
“What?” I try to speak, but it sounds like I’m having a stroke.
Yolanda’s lips thin,“He got a call early this morning. Last night, your parents' house burnt down. He’s there now, meeting with the firefighters and police.”
Chapter 42
Poppy
Silence is a man’s best friend and an insane man’s worst enemy. It allows you to fill the quietness with thoughts.
“It’s Andrew,” I blurt out as Julian drives slightly over the speed limit to my childhood home.“It has to be him,” I insist again. Andrew killed his father and is on the run; he’s here, nearby, close enough to burn down my parents' house.
Andrew warned me that he would take away everything I loved. He threatened Henry, who is obviously guarded, so Andrew hit what was left unprotected.
A memory I cherished. My childhood home.
Julian grips the steering wheel so tight that I reach out for his hand and remove it. If he breaks the car, it'll take me longer to get there.
He exhales.“It makes sense.”
I lay my head between my knees, pressing my kneecaps into my skull, trying to make it all stop so I can breathe.
Inhale. Exhale.
It should be easy and simple. I shouldn’t have to think about it.
Isn’t that something the brain just does automatically?
Why is it so hard?
It requires more thought than the SATs.
I hear my heart beating so loudly it’s trying to escape through my ears, but at the same time, it feels like I can’t breathe.
“My memories, Jules. Andrew has taken them. All my parents' things, my things, Peter's, even Henry's, they were in that house. Things I left there when I moved because I thought it was safe. Andrew took them.”
Oh god. It’s so painful.
All the photo albums mom made, dad’s old computers he built with Henry and Peter, all my baby clothes, all the dishes my parents used to cook our Christmas dinner. All the gifts I saved from my childhood. Every memory that was solidified in a tangible material item was subject to fire.
Did anything survive?
“He’ll pay for this,” Julian mutters.
“I don’t care about that anymore. I just need it to stop,” I gasp, my hot breath turning my pale face a sickly shade of crimson as I bury it between my knees.
The car slowly stops, and Julian rolls down the window.“The street is closed off,” a man says.
“This is Poppy Moore. Her parents' house was the one that caught fire.”
God, those words don't sound right.
“You said, Poppy Moore?”
