Page 79 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
She cataloged each one in silence, taking in the corded muscles and stains of battle, mismatched eyes lingering on my tattoo before she flicked them up to my face. Something gnawed at my stomach when I realized she liked what she saw.
“Why doesn’t Reed know?” she croaked.
“He does. Now.”
And the chip on his shoulder hunched his back as soon as he’d found out. He didn’t realize how good he had it. Ma, Dad, and I let him be the golden boy. For as long as Dad lived, we never let the problems touch Reed.
He never had to pick up food at the grocery store with Dad, wondering if he had to explain to Ma how Dad dropped dead in the feminine hygiene aisle.
He never had to give up a scholarship from an Ivy League school, knowing it was too far to visit and help Dad if something ever happened.
He never had to give up his body, submitting it to a battering of fists—and knives when some overprivileged asshole bet on the wrong side.
Reed remained pristine as a sacrificial virgin, a purity we all fought to maintain at all costs. So, he could be pissed at all of us, but his anger rested on a cracked foundation.
“He kept it a secret from me?” Oddly, Emery didn’t sound hurt. It made me study her closely, lured by the idea of peeking inside her head.
“No.” My fingers itched for a joint, something it hadn’t done since high school. “Ma and I didn't tell him anything until after the funeral.” Actually, Ma had told him. Reed still hated me for the cotillion. “Dad didn’t want him to know. Reed would have quit football and used the gear and registration fee to pay for Dad’s meds.”
“He should have.”
An instant response, absent of hesitation.
It made me hate her a bit less, which transferred my irritation onto myself.
I wondered what she’d say if she knew Gideon had known. He’d offered to use his connections to get Dad into a trial. My parents didn’t give two shits about pride. They cared about their kids, staying out of trouble, and spending as much time with each other as they could. Nothing else.
The drug trial helped until the Winthrop Scandal broke, and the lead researcher booted Dad from the trial in retaliation. Like my parents, he’d invested all his savings in Winthrop Textiles. Like my parents, he lost it all. Unlike my parents, he lashed out.
“Dad didn’t want him to,” I finally said.
“Is that why Reed hates you? Because you three kept that from him?”
It struck me as an odd place to have this conversation, but I kept my face level with hers, even when the idea of water dripping down her bare flesh enticed me. “Part of it, but he was mad before that.”
Since the night of the cotillion when he’d almost gotten arrested, to be specific.
“Hank died of a heart attack… because he stopped taking his meds?”
“He couldn’t afford them after he and Ma lost their jobs for your parents and their savings.”
After he’d been cut off from the trial drugs, Dad was a ticking time bomb. He didn’t have three thousand a month for the other drugs. I had a plan, but I’d been too slow. Reed left for college, and I’d moved back to a shitty one-bedroom apartment in Eastridge and let my parents take the room.
“I'm sorry.” A strand of hair dropped over her eye, but she didn’t move. Surprise sliced across her face. It didn’t set well with me.
Always a great actress. From pretending to be Virginia’s bitch to stabbing my family in the back, you deserve an Oscar.
“Emery,” I warned.
More than anything, I hated apologies.
The thing about apologies is, they come after the fuck-up.
It’s like saying, “I
admit it. I fucked you over, and now you have to forgive me for it.”
Why would I?
