Page 41 of The Space Between Heartbeats
“I know.” Mom’s crying again. Actually, I don’t think she’s stopped yet. “Our boy. Our sweet boy.”
Our sweet boy.
Owen.
His name sits on my chest, making my already aching ribs crack in two. Every breath is agony, but it’s not worse than picturing him moments before he sat down on that ride. The way his face went slack when Sawyer ignored him, how he clocked my hand on Sawyer’s low back and hung his head. He was confused, shocked, devastated. And fuck, I was happy about it.
And Sawyer—I forced her onto that ride, like the relentless prick I am.
The thought loops through my head on repeat. It has been since I woke up in this bed with a concussion and a half dozen fractured ribs and the knowledge that my brother is truly dead. I forced Sawyer onto that coaster. I saw the opening—Ella complaining about feeling sick or whatever she was doing, Owen being his usual accommodating self—and I took it. Maneuvered. Manipulated. Put my hand on Sawyer’s lower back like I had every right to touch her and guided her toward the line.
Two years of watching her with him. Two years of showing up at family dinners and birthday parties and holidays, acting like I didn’t care. Like it didn’t kill me every time he touched her.Every time she smiled at him the way she used to smile at me before everything went to shit.
Two years of punishment I deserved, and even when I hated her, I still couldn’t stay away.
I kept tabs on her. I knew her schedule, her favorite coffee shop, the route she took home from her shitty hotel front desk job. I told myself I was just making sure she was safe, that someone needed to watch out for her since oblivious Owen sure as hell wasn’t going to do it. But that was bullshit and I knew it.
I watched her because I was obsessed. Because she was mine first and Owen stole her and I hated them both for it. And her fucking family ruined mine. She ruined me.
And now Owen’s dead and I’m alive and the last thing I said to him was that that me being with Sawyer wasn’t a big fucking deal when it was everything to me. When I knew I was hurting him and liked it.
The machines beside my bed beep steadily. My heartbeat. Proof I’m still here when Owen isn’t. When multiple strangers aren’t. When Sawyer almost wasn’t. My heart doesn’t deserve to keep beating.
“We should let you rest.” Mom’s beside my bed now. I didn’t even hear her move. She touches my cheek with trembling fingers. “Oh, Knox. My boy. My baby.” Her words slur. Meds must be kicking in. That in itself triggers me more than this whole fucking situation.
I need her to go before I vomit or punch something or scream. I’m not her baby. Owen was her baby. He was the perfect one. The one who made them proud no matter what he did. Even when I dropped everything and left school to keep the company afloat while Dad lost his fucking mind after the Thorne scandal.
It was me, not him.
But I can’t think about that. Not now. I can’t think about the things I know that Owen never knew and never will now. The things Dad did. How Mom locked herself in the bathroom for three days after it all came out. The pills I flushed down the toilet at two in the morning while she was passed out fully clothed. The screaming matches I heard through walls that Owen slept right through at his dorm, hours away, blissfully unaware.
The affair that almost destroyed what little was left of our family.
“Knox?” Mom’s still touching my face with clammy fingers. “Honey, did you hear me?”
I blink and force myself to focus on her. Her eyes are so swollen and her makeup is smeared down her cheeks in black streaks. She looks like she’s aged ten years since yesterday morning. Understandable.
“Yeah…I heard you.”
She reaches for the remote with the call button, pressing it into my palm. “Your father and I are going to get some coffee. The cafeteria closes soon and we need to…” She trembles and holds her hand over her mouth to suppress a sob. “We need to start making calls. The funeral home. Owen’s friends from college. His professors. His coworkers. Everyone who loved him.”
So an endless list, because everyone loved Owen.
“Okay,” I say.
She leans down and kisses my forehead, and I feel her tears on my skin, hot and wet. “I love you so much. You know that, right? You’re all we have left now. You’re all…”
She can’t finish. She just sobs against my hair while I bring my hand to her back, holding her as much as I can stomach. And Dad’s standing there with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor like he’s searching for an exit that doesn’t exist. Like all of this is more than uncomfortable to him.
I nod against her, not trusting my voice. I can’t let the words out because if I do I’m afraid I’ll crack open my chest and release everything I’ve held on to for too long. And they’ll see who I really am. They’ll see how I’m really grieving. What I really want.
Finally, she pulls back and I let my hand fall onto my chest. Dad moves to the foot of my bed, and for a second, our eyes meet. I see it there…the festering guilt. That maybe he deserves this for what he’s done.
His face mirrors my own. Maybe I deserve this too.
Owen died and I lived. The good son and the bad son, and fate picked wrong.
Or maybe it picked exactly right. Maybe living with the guilt is what we both deserve—him for what he did to Mom, me for what I did to Owen.
