Chapter 3 Ella

Chapter 3

Ella

"How was school?"

My mother's back is to me as she leans over her computer desk, furiously typing something into a search engine. All she does is work, even though she hasn't nailed down a job yet. Lord knows what she does all day, but it seems to keep her busy.

I drop my backpack by the front door and toe out of my sandals, inhaling a deep breath. The house smells like sugarcane and citrus zest. "So much fun. I learned a lot. Made out with a boy under the bleachers right after I was nominated for queen of the Fall Fling. Then I chased a lifelong dream and joined the cheer squad."

She falters, twisting around in her rolling chair. "Really?"

Flashing her my teeth, I wave my invisible pom-poms in the air, wondering if perhaps I should have joined the drama club. My acting skills seem to be remarkably decent, according to the spark of hope shimmering in my mother's gaze.

But her face falls when I cock my head and give her that "Have you lost it?" look. The one she's all too familiar with. The one that has become my entire personality at this point.

Mom sighs, plucking her wire-rimmed glasses off the bridge of her nose and leaning back. The chair swivels from side to side as two gray-green eyes narrow in my direction. "Ella."

"Mom."

"How was school?" she repeats.

We maintain eye contact for a drumbeat before I pick my bag back up and shuffle past her down the short hallway toward my bedroom without a word. She doesn't need to know that I had detention today, after calling out a teacher on her bullshit. She probably wouldn't care.

"Ella!" Mom hollers after me.

I'm too tired to respond.

Tired of pretending to be happy.

Tired of trying to acclimate to a world that is constantly against me.

Tired of waiting for a little bit of good luck to fall into our laps.

Most of all, I'm tired of missing my big brother while simultaneously hating him for what he did. Loving and hating somebody at the same time has got to be the most exhausting thing in this world.

I waltz into my bedroom and toss my backpack to the floor, then close the door behind me. I don't slam it because I'm not angry.

I'm just tired.

Since I don't hear my mother's footsteps closing in, I plop down in the middle of my room and stare at the faded orange book bag resting between my ankles.

My heart rate kicks up.

When I was eight years old, I asked for one of those Doodle Bears for Christmas. I recall tearing apart silver and gold wrapping paper that glinted like tinsel underneath the grand chandelier in our living room, begging for just one of those boxes to be a Doodle Bear. But that didn't happen. My uncle told me I was spoiled when I exploded into tears beside the multicolored tree and collapsed among a plethora of pricey electronics.

I didn't feel spoiled; I just felt like Santa had forgotten about me.

Jonah found me crying in my bedroom later that night. He was only twelve at the time, but he was wise. There was a time when I thought he was the smartest person in the whole world.

I don't think that anymore…but, at one time, I did.

I remember the way he pulled my brand-new Vera Bradley book bag out of the closet, clutching a Sharpie in his hand, and tossed it on the mattress beside me. The bag was orange, which has always been my favorite color.

"It's not a Doodle Bear, but it'll work," he told me, flicking his copper bangs out of his eyes with a lopsided grin. "Sometimes we just need to improvise."

I didn't know what that word meant, but I nodded anyway.

He uncapped the marker and proceeded to doodle on the burnt-orange fabric. My smile was wide and whimsical as I watched him draw Winnie the Pooh onto the front zipper pocket, along with a cartoon heart on the bear's chest.

It became a tradition after that.

Every day, Jonah would draw a new picture or scrawl a silly word onto my backpack. It's now covered in random images, quotes, doodles, and symbols.

This backpack is my most prized possession. It's the only thing I have left of the boy I used to know.

I'm picking at the zipper slider when my dark cloud of solitude is interrupted by the whoosh of the bedroom door swinging open. Mom spots me seated in the center of the room and props a shoulder against the doorframe, eyeing me with her signature look of motherly worry.

I shoot her a glance before returning my attention to the backpack.

"I made that citrus cake you love," she states.

"Orange or lemon?" I pull to a stand and start flitting around the small bedroom, tidying aimlessly, pretending to be a normal teenager preparing for a normal afternoon of post-school activities.

"Orange."

"Aww, shucks, you know me so well."

She pauses. "Do I?"

My feet slow to a stop and my hand stalls midreach for a book dangling precariously over my bookshelf ledge. There's a fluttery feeling in my chest, but it feels more like an ache. A dull throbbing. I pan my gaze over to my cantaloupe-stained walls and the slew of posters and art pieces taped to the plaster.

Horses. Nature. Stevie Nicks.

An abstract canvas of a citrus tree that Jonah bought for me on my fourteenth birthday.

It was the year before everything changed. A precious memory trapped in time. Jonah had led me into my bedroom, his hands over my eyes like a makeshift blindfold as he muttered, "You needed a color pop in this room."

It was true. At the time, my walls were stark white, making the gift he bought and hung on the far wall even more striking and vibrant.

"Happy birthday," he said, uncovering my eyes.

I squealed with joy, my gaze aimed at the bright canvas, just as it is right now. "Oh, I love it! It's like you plucked a slice of sunshine and hung it on my wall."

"Can't have you living in this drab, sterile room. That's not you."

I nudged him with my elbow. "It's perfect. You always find a way of bringing a little color into my life."

"That's what big brothers are for. Besides, fruit trees are badass. They weather all those storms and still manage to produce the sweetest fruits." He shot me a little smirk. "Hey, that's not a terrible analogy for life."

"Maintain the resilience of a citrus tree," I said, bobbing my head up and down. "Noted."

Jonah's smile softened as he pulled me into a side hug. "Exactly."

I rub at my chest with the heel of my palm to soothe the obnoxious pang, then pivot toward my mother, her question still teasing the silence. "You know me as well as I know myself," I tell her. My voice is shaky. It seems the throbbing sensation has made its way from my heart to my words. "Undetermined."

My mother's eyes mist as she drinks in my pain. She sees it, feels it, hears it loud and clear. Inhaling a tapered breath, Mom straightens from the doorframe and folds both arms across her flowery blouse. "I'm trying," she says. "I'm really trying to make a better life for you, Ella."

I purse my lips and study my fingernails. They could use a fresh paint. "‘Better' is subjective."

"No, it's not. Better is always better ."

"Can you go back in time and change the past?" I whisper, still avoiding eye contact. "Can you take that gun out of his hand before he—"

"Don't." Her own voice cracks, and it's more than an ache. More than a throbbing. It sounds like a massacre just took place inside of her. "Don't you dare finish that sentence."

It's true that I wasn't angry before.

But now I am.

I hate, I hate, I hate that I'm not allowed to talk about it. My brother is sitting on death row for murdering two people, and it's real, and it happened, and it's my goddamn reality, but I need to pretend that it was nothing more than a bad dream.

Mom still believes he's innocent, and I'm envious of her. I wish I could believe that. I wish I could simmer in denial and imagine a version of my brother that wasn't covered in the blood of two innocent people.

Bile burns my throat. Nausea churns in my gut.

I want to pound my fists against the wall until my knuckles crack and bleed. I want to scream until my throat is shredded, raw, and blistered. Until I can't speak.

If I can't speak, I can't lie.

And if I can't lie, I won't have to live in this awful purgatory, caught between my mother's nonacceptance and my own devastation.

I see the instant regret on her face, but I don't want her apologies or backpedaling, so I change the subject. "School was fine. We're reading a book called Monster . It's interesting," I explain. Drumming my fingertips along the top of my hand-me-down desk, I glance out the window when I hear the guttural rev of a lawn mower being started.

Max.

He's shirtless, angry-eyed, and already slicked with sweat from the ninety-degree heat.

I pull my attention away from the window and continue speaking. "My math teacher cuts his sandwiches into four pieces, instead of in halves. It's really weird," I tell my mother. "And this girl in P.E. had her period while we were running laps today. Our gym uniform is white." I drag my index finger along the desktop, resting it on the leather cover of a book I bound myself. "And…I miss the horses," I finish quietly. "I miss Phoenix."

I miss everything.

I don't say that part. In fact, I don't tell her anything of real importance. My day sucked, thanks to Andy, Mrs. Caulfield, and Dr Pepper. But telling her that won't change anything; it will only make her day suck, too.

When I swivel toward the window again, I watch as Max dumps an entire bottle of drinking water over his head and shakes his mop of wet hair like a dog in the rain. I'm sure the gesture would cause ovaries around the world to abruptly fertilize, but luckily, mine are immune.

I move away from the window and collapse back down to my butt in the center of the bedroom, tugging my backpack toward me with the heels of my feet.

Mom's eyes follow my movements, filling with a look I recognize. She's about to say something sentimental and I'm not going to appreciate it.

"Who knows, Ella…maybe you'll find happiness here," she murmurs, a wistfulness tingeing her words. "I fell in love here once. Maybe you will, too."

I freeze.

I fiddle with a keychain on my book bag as my eyes skip away from my mother's to focus on the beige carpeting beneath me. This town is where Mom and Dad first met. It's the town my father brought me to during the separation, and now it's the town I'm forced to call home.

When I don't respond, Mom finally releases a sigh. She sighs with sadness, with regret, with knowing. The wistfulness is long gone.

She knows I'll never fall in love. Not after what happened with Dad.

Not after what happened with Jonah.

Sitting cross-legged on my floor, I listen to her footsteps retreat into the hallway as the door softly closes.

Click.

Only then do I glance up, my eyes watering with trapped emotion.

One week before the murders, my brother told me something that has remained lodged in the back of my mind like a pesky headache I can't seem to shake.

He said, "Ella, listen to me, and listen good." His sage-green eyes glittered with affection as he pressed a hand to my shoulder and squeezed. "I don't know much, but I do know this: love conquers all. Love conquers everything . If you're ever feeling low—and I mean, rock-bottom low —remember that, okay? Remember that I love you. Always. And you'll get through it."

Love conquers all.

I'd heard the saying before, but I never gave it much thought. It bled into all the other cliché quotes out there, like, " Take the road less traveled ," or " Life is a journey, not a destination ."

Insipid words for thirsty minds.

Turns out, he was right—love does conquer all. But I don't think he understood what those words truly meant at the time.

Love conquers your common sense, your good reasoning, your sound logic.

Love conquers your heart until it's a mangled, stomped-on, barely beating organ.

Love conquers your carefully assembled dreams and puts them in the hands of someone else.

Love conquers.

Consumes.

Kills.

In my opinion, love is life's most skilled assassin. And that's because it hides in plain sight, well versed in camouflage and deception. It wears the face of that one person you would die for on the front line as you bleed out in the dirt, whispering their name on your final breath.

No .

I will not go out like that.

I will never fall in love. Falling leaves you with broken bones and shattered pieces. Falling leaves you in ruins. And if you're really unlucky, falling leaves you dead.

I don't want to be conquered.

I don't want to be overthrown.

I refuse, I refuse, I refuse …

I refuse to be victim of love again.