Saturday morning

Sara shakes me awake. “Grace, Emily’s missing.”

Groggily, I get up and rub my eyes open. “What are you talking about? I was with her last night.”

“Soran broke up with her. No one can find her. Her phone’s off. Andrew and Jerrica have been looking everywhere.”

“Wait, what happened?” I groan and mix in a yawn. I struggle to find my glasses.

“We don’t know. Soran took the first flight back to New York this morning. He isn’t answering his phone.”

But Jerrica knows. Why hasn’t she told anybody?

“Okay, okay. I’ll get it. Do you think she’s fine?”

“I don’t know,” her voice trembles.

There’s only one place Emily would have gone to. It’s obvious but nobody knows that place moved. I keep calling Cody as I walk through the forest. I go to voicemail each time. I didn’t think all of this would happen this quick, if at all.

Now that’s power.

Power that came out of me. Power like this thunderous rain. The ground is being flooded. Everything is being drowned. The mud is difficult to walk in. It gets inside my socks and up my leg.

Emily is sitting down, soaked, outside against the treehouse cabin. The door is locked. She has no way in. She’s playing with a flower that was plucked out of the muddy ground. My presence is known but ignored until I get close.

“Everyone’s looking for you, y’know?”

“Let them,” Emily plucks away a petal.

“Emily, what happened?”

Her eyes move away from the blue flower and up to mine. “Did you know Soran was going to propose to me?” Emily looks back down at her flower, plucking another petal away. “I found the engagement ring by accident a few days ago.”

“Then why…”

Emily shakes her head. “I cheated on Soran. With Cody.”

That’s what I thought.

“Honestly? I deserve it. I came back to this town. I thought it would be fine. I thought I had escaped how it takes everything away from you. Turns out I’ll never learn my lesson.”

I try to sit down in front of her, but Emily yells at me to stop.

“This fucking town is evil. It corrodes any good thing that it gets its hands on. You’re punished from attempting to ever leave. It rots you down until you’re as filthy as everything in it. This town needs to burn to the ground.”

“You can’t blame an idea for your actions.”

“You’re right, I can’t. But I can blame you.” Emily gets up. She slaps me. “What were you hoping to accomplish? You got what you wanted, so what happens now? Are you happy?”

I take a step back. “What are you talking about? Why did you slap me?”

“Don’t play dumb, Grace. You knew exactly what you were doing! Cody and I were both doing just fine until you came along with your little scheme.”

“Fuck off, I didn’t force you to fuck him.”

Emily laughs. “I can’t believe you became such a little rat. For all you’d changed, you truly did become just like Elizabeth and in all the worse ways.

My palm stings before I figure out I slapped her too.

“Yeah? Well maybe you deserve this. You fucked me up just as much when you did it to her. This is your fault.”

“You’re a fucking bitch!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Fucking cry about it.”

“Both of you, stop it,” Cody says from behind. He gets in between Emily and me. “We both fucked up, Emily. Don’t blame Grace.”

“Of course you’re defending her, you little weasel. That’s all you've ever been. I can’t believe I let her get in my head.”

“Grace, you should go,” Cody says. He’s fiercely calm.

“But I…”

“This is between me and Emily. Go, Grace!”

Now he’s not.

I don’t dare to look back when I leave the area as fast as I can. I don’t dare let my grin from fading.

Word quickly gets out about what happened. At first, that’s all it was, words. Then Emily began to disclose how it happened and how I was involved. Sara doesn’t ease from trying to call me. Jerrica sent me a message with the desire to get me to talk to her as quickly as she can. Cody left a voicemail.

“This isn’t like you Grace. You would never do this,” he sighed. “I’m not mad. Just call me when you can, okay?”

I made a mess of things.

Not just with Cody and Emily. Everyone.

It doesn’t take long for everyone to talk to each other about how I’ve been acting. It can’t be avoided any more. Everything else failed but those failures can’t be ignored now. I can’t be ignored.

Yuele is asking me to sell him coke.

And my mom is asking me to come home so we can talk.

I don’t have to think about any of that. I get to ignore all of that because I still have to babysit Helen today. I can escape.

But there’s a knock on the door. It’s Freyja. Helen stands besides me as I answer.

“What are you doing here?”

“Sara asked me to come. She’s busy with Emily right now.”

“Not here to tell me that’s my fault, are you?”

Freyja shakes her head. “I’m stopping by to make sure you’re okay. You haven’t been yourself lately. We’re all worried.”

Helen is tugging down on my shirt. She can see what I’m able to see too. Freyja is heartbroken.

“I’m not sorry if that’s what you’re here for. I’m tired of walking on eggshells and being a pushover.”

“Grace…”

“Don’t do this. Don’t you see what you’ve been becoming?”

“Yeah. Elizabeth. But wouldn’t you want that because you were in love with her? So much so that you let her treat you like she did.”

“I know you don’t mean that.”

“Fuck off, Fey. I’m so fucking tired of wanting everyone’s approval.”

I shut the door, almost slamming it.

“Why did she look at you like that?” Helen asks.

“Like what?”

“You hurt her.”

“Don’t worry about it, go play on your Ipad or something.”

Helen agrees and runs up to her room while I stay downstairs. I turn off my phone to stop all the notifications from bothering me. I don’t even want to look at them. It’s much easier to do bumps of cocaine and get lost watching TV.

Helen runs back downstairs and starts jolting my arm after a few hours.

“C’mon! I want to do something else.”

“Leave me alone, Helen. I’m not in the mood.”

Helen tries to pull the TV remote off my hand. “This is boring. I want you to teach me more stuff. Micheal is finally starting to notice me.”

“Oh, how so?”

“Well he’s texting me. He doesn’t text anybody. At least teach me how to put on make-up.”

“This again? Why are you so eager?”

“So I can be pretty like you. Being a kid sucks. I can’t wait to grow up and be just like you and then everyone will be my friend!”

I smack Helen’s hand away. “I said no!”

The little girl winces away, grabbing her hands together. Her sad and pouty little face doesn’t work on me. “Why did you yell at me?” She whimpers.

Weird is happening again.

It’s coming from nothing.

It’s telling me:

No, not her.

My eyes widen. Something inside me snaps. It cracks. It should hurt, but it doesn’t. It just takes my breath away.

Helen is whimpering, preventing herself from crying. It’s breaking me. Helen hasn’t done anything to deserve me snapping at her. She’s just a child. She’s innocent. I’m supposed to be someone she can look up to. I’m supposed to be a good role model. My cruelty is not hers to witness. My eyes haven’t moved. They haven’t blinked. They become dry. I’m afraid of what I'll see if I look away. I’m afraid that'll change from Helen. I’m afraid I’ll see my reflection.

Oh God.

What have I done?

I forgot. How could I ever forget? How could I ever be jealous? How could I resent her? Helen has done nothing wrong. How could I ever be angry at her? Emily is right. No one can ever escape this town. I couldn’t, just like Elizabeth couldn’t. The only way out is to be saved before it becomes too late. Helen is still a child. She can still be saved. I was supposed to help her and not bring her down to the rest of us. It’s always been a cycle of grief and anger.

I, too, am part of that vicious cycle. I’m a slave to it. I was not given a choice in being a part of this insufferable cycle. Life is ultimately meaningless if all I’m doing is dragging others into the pit of misery. It was an illusion thinking I wasn’t.

This. Was. Never. Me.

I want freedom from all of this. I want to be myself again. Please, just let me go home. I don’t want to be like this. I lost everything that was real about me. I made myself believe that whatever was left was fake pretending it was not. I’m not supposed to hurt others. I want to make others happy, not suffer. I don’t want to be angry anymore. I don’t want to hate myself anymore.

Just what have I done in my anger? Sara and Freyja haven’t done anything to me. Andrew and Jerrica haven’t done anything to me. Emily and Cody haven’t done anything to me. My friends haven’t done anything to me. Yuele hasn’t done anything. It’s just been me. It’s always been me and my pathetic insecurity.