Chapter 37 Ella

Chapter 37

Ella

All I see is red.

"What have you done ?" our mother screams at the top of her lungs, collapsed on my bedroom floor as sirens screech in the distance.

I'm numb.

I'm split in half.

I'm crippled with shock.

Jonah stares at me, pleads with me, his eyes wild and his shirt sprayed with red mist.

McKay's blood.

No, no, no.

"I love you both so much," he tells me. "Believe that."

He kisses the top of my head as he holds me tighter than ever. Like it's the last time he'll ever hold me.

It is.

"Take care of Mom," he says brokenly.

Men in uniform storm into the room as I'm dry heaving on my bedroom floor.

Jonah goes with them without a fight.

He surrenders.

Wrists cuffed and eyes on me, my brother is guided out of the bedroom while Mom grabs helplessly at his ankle, and he tells her he loves her, that it will be okay.

I look over at her. Sprawled out on the beige carpet. She won't stop screaming.

We've been here before, but her screams don't sound the same.

The night Jonah came home covered in blood after Erin and Tyler were found murdered, she regrouped quickly, offering a trace of hope and composure.

"You didn't do this, Jonah," she said, repeating it over and over. "It's going to be okay. I'll get you out of this. It's a misunderstanding. A horrible tragedy, but I will fix it. I'll fix this, Jonah."

This scream is different. There is no hope seeping from the edges or bleeding within the ragged timbre. This time, there are witnesses to Jonah's crime.

This time, she can't fix it.

Somehow, I manage to drag my way up onto quivering legs that carry me over to the busted window. I glance down at my bloody clothes, the scratches on my skin from broken glass. My hands lift in front of my face, stained dark red. It's a horror movie.

My horror movie.

I raise my eyes slowly to the scene across the street. Police cars everywhere. Ambulances. Chevy stands at the side of the road, arms crossed, a few splotches of blood dappling his gunmetal-gray coveralls. He talks to a police officer as the man in uniform jots down notes.

And then there's Max.

Hunched over on his front stoop, face dropped to his red-slicked hands, his shoulders shaking. My heart crashes down to my feet, leaving more red stains behind.

I want to run to him. Be there for him. Hold him in my arms and rewind the last few months of this horror movie.

But I'm in the starring role—the villain.

And he's the helpless victim.

Max's head lifts as officers surround him and take his statement. I wonder if he felt me the moment before our eyes lock from a few yards away.

Miles away.

He's never been farther from me.

Tears slip down my cheeks as I mouth the words, "I'm sorry."

He shakes his head, his face stricken with more pain than I can process. Then he collapses forward while an officer takes a seat beside him on the stoop.

Just a few months after escaping death row, my brother is going back to prison.

I'll put him there myself if I have to.

***

The hours crawl by, until hours turn into days.

Trips to the police station, interrogations, debilitating grief competing with numbness.

Mom doesn't speak. All she does is cry and cook chicken casseroles. Burnt casseroles. Undercooked casseroles. She makes one every night in silence and I force-feed myself a few bites until my stomach churns with nausea and I drag myself to my room. I count the number of days that pass by the number of casseroles cooked.

Five days.

Five days since Jonah killed McKay.

Ricardo comes over to comfort my grieving mother, and Brynn stops by with sweets to comfort us both.

As for me, each day is a struggle to reconcile the conflicting emotions swirling within me. There's a profound sorrow for Max that cuts deep, leaving behind jagged edges of pain and confusion. Yet, beneath the grief, a simmering anger brews, fueled by the realization that Jonah truly was capable of such violence and darkness.

He always was.

Mixed with the anger is a battling of feelings toward my mother. I grapple with the frustration that she, in her unwavering belief in Jonah's innocence, inadvertently became an accomplice to the nightmare that unfolded. I can't help but feel a pang of resentment, wondering if her blind faith in him clouded her judgment and pulled all of us deeper into this web of heartbreak.

The failed casseroles serve as a reminder of this fractured reality we now inhabit. With each meal, I taste the bitterness as I navigate through the days like a ghost in my own home, all too aware of the daunting task of rebuilding my life once again.

On the fifth night, I startle in bed when I hear a tapping sound at my newly installed bedroom window that Chevy replaced for me.

My heart fumbles.

It can't be …

I slide off the bed and walk over to the window, my heartbeats tangling with raw hope.

But when I look outside, I don't see anything. There's no one there.

Only my hollow reflection stares back at me.