The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (125 page)

             
“Hey, Vi.” Nick's blurry outli
ne was in front of my eyes when I opened them. I felt a cup of water being pressed to my lips and the cold liquid pouring down my throat. My hands flew up to rub my forehead. “You're alright,
liebling
. It's all over now.”

             
“How are you feeling?”

             
Mary Bach
um's voice showed the greatest concern which betrayed her true apathy. Her voice was as welcome as a blow to the head.

             
“You gave us quite a scare, Violet.” She told me. “Drink that water. It will help.”

             
Her clawed hand squeezed my knee. I struggled not t
o push it off, stand up, and begin berating them all for what they had done to Eric. It had been murder. It had been a sin.

             
My heart beat so quickly, I feared they could hear it; if they did, they would know my fear and beneath that, my traitorous intenti
ons. I didn't see Penny or Maura and Nick's eyes were full to the brim with quiet fear to rival my own. Had they inflicted my punishment for fainting onto Maura and Penny?

             
“Be clever, Violet. Play the part.”
Brynna's voice urged me gently in my mind.

             
“I don't do very well around blood.” I explained ruefully. “I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Bachum.”

             
Mary and Rich both laughed softly, assuring me that it was alright. My father joined in after a moment of frowning
at me in disbelief. He was well aware that I had always been the one to dress wounds while Brynna faced away from the injured party, her skin paler than a corpse's.

             
“I know. Believe it or not, a lot of people couldn't handle it in the beginning, so you'r
e not alone.”
Rich said as he beamed at me. “Mary, you even used to cringe a little bit.”
             
“I fainted outright the first time, too.” Mary told me as she shook her head sheepishly.

             
“You did!” Rich snapped his fingers as he remembered. “I felt just awful, V
iolet. I knew that I had better go find a flower patch that night and bring some home for her.”

             
“And he did!” Mary wrapped her arm around his back and smiled up at him in genuine adoration. “It's alright, honey. I understood that it was necessary. And now
, I don't have to look away for a second.” She let go of Rich and grasped my hand. God, that woman was so overly touchy.

             
The lie rose from my stomach into my throat before spewing out of my lips like bile. It tasted even worse, by far.

             
“I understand that
it was necessary, too. I am really sorry that I fainted. Truly, I feel terrible about it. I feel like I distracted people from it.”

             
I wanted the hand of God to reach out and smack me in the mouth like I was a back-talking child. I still don't know how I
found the will to say something so repulsive and untrue.

             
“Please, don't apologize. You and your father, always apologizing. We understand, Violet.” Rich told me and now his hand was resting on my shoulder for an uncomfortable minute. “Now, please, Nick, t
ake your soon-to-be wife back to your house. You remember where it is?”

             
“Yes.” Nick answered instantly before jumping up to take my hand. “I'll take very good care of her.”

             
“Of course you will.” Mary agreed and her eyes were watery at the sight of our yo
ung love. She placed her hand over her heart as she looked between the two of us. Vomit...

             
She kissed my cheek and then his, still beaming like a proud parent watching their children as they went off to prom. Double vomit...

             
Nick and I tried not to run f
rom the building. He kept his arm around my shoulder, steering me to the door and opening it for me like the true gentlemen he was. Once we were out in the frigid night air, we walked calmly for a few steps before upping our pace to a brisk walk. Several t
imes, we glanced over our shoulders to make sure that they weren't following us. Never once did I let go of his hand nor did he ever try to pull it from my grasp.

             
“Oh, my God... oh, my God...” I whispered. Tears were blurring my vision and my nose was run
ning. Snow was beginning to shoot vengefully from the clouds. We were shivering as the freezing cold wind nipped at our exposed skin. Our cheeks were red as the air smacked us for even pretending to feel such great ambivalence to the murder of a man we had
known. Even if we hadn't known him, our little charade was reprehensible. We were cowards, both of us. Had Eric's eyes found me in the crowd of people screaming for his death? Had he seen my remorse? Did it matter?

             
Of course it didn’t. He was dead.

             
I wa
s sobbing quietly as both of my hands held onto Nick's arm now.

             
“Where is it? Where's the house?” I croaked out through my tears.

             
“I don't know. I just said that so we could get out of there!” He told me as he walked us along. The terror in my heart and
the cold around me shook my body into a fit of shivers that gave me the appearance of being in the throes of a seizure. The falling snow and the blazing wind had extinguished the torches that would have lit the way. We were traveling blind; I feared that a
t any moment, we would walk right off the cliff and tumble to the ground so many thousands of feet below. Even the stars were hidden by the clouds in the sky.

             
Nick stopped us so he could shed his hoodie. Beneath it, he was wearing a Black Keys t-shirt. I
remembered that night in the house when we had kissed as their song played smoothly from Teresa's iPod. Sure, the hangover from the Peace Fruit was unpleasant but the night with him had been worth it. My tears fell freely and my cries intensified. He wrapp
ed his jacket around my shoulders and put both of his cold hands on my face. He kissed my forehead tenderly.

             
“You need this.” I gasped out to him as I started to shrug out of his jacket.

             
“No, you do.” He replied softly, pulling the thick sweatshirt back
onto me and zipping it up.
“Listen to me. We're going to be alright, Violet. Look at me.”

             
I raised my eyes to meet his and was stunned to find that in the depths of green, there were flecks of light blue. I remembered pictures of tropical beaches with wav
es of the same color lapping the shores. On my bucket list (which did not regard the things I wished to do before my death, but rather before I got married and had children), I had said that I wanted to see at least five beaches that were as beautiful in r
eal life as they were in their pictures. I knew I never would now, so I cried harder. The snow seemed to thicken even more dangerously.

             
“We're going to get out of here. We're going to get Penny and we're going to run.” He whispered to me.

             
“We don't know
where we are.” I cried. “How are we going to find our way back to them? How will Brynna and Eli ever find us?”

             
“We'll find them.” His beautiful eyes stared intently into mine. In his gaze, I saw another trouble that had little to do with our current predi
cament.

             
“What is it?” I asked him softly.
             

             
“Nothing. Now isn't the time.”

             
“But...”

             
“Another time, Vi.” He stopped, realizing that he might not get another opportunity to tell me whatever it was that he was withholding.

“Just tell me.”

“I shouldn't have
kissed you like that. I shouldn't have done that just for show. That was rude of me.”

             
“No, it wasn't. It was smart. You carried me through that, Nick. I couldn't have lied like that without you helping me.”

             
His soft laugh warmed my ears.

             
“I don't know
if me helping you lie is such a good thing.”

             
“In this case, it was. It saved our lives.”

             
“Either way, that wasn't real. But this is.” He closed the gap between us and his lips were pressed to mine. The cold fled from both of our bodies. The snow around u
s ceased. The torches along the path erupted to life. We pulled away, stunned by the change in the atmosphere.

             
We laughed.

XXX

             
Penny was coloring with worn crayons when we returned. She beamed up at Nick and me.

             
“I can't wait for Brynn to get here. Loo
k! I drew us.”

             
Penny's picture perfectly exemplified her childish innocence; we were all holding hands, standing side by side in the garden that had been in front of Don's house. She had drawn a huge sun and birds flying in the sky. I couldn't help but sm
ile.

             
“Look at James's big muscles!” She squealed happily before laughing half hysterically at her own joke. Nick and I laughed with her while Maura merely smiled.

             
“Can we talk?” Maura asked me softly. I nodded before looking back at Nick.

             
“I've got her.
” Nick told me before I could ask him to watch Penny. “Come on, Penn. We'll draw Violet when she's mad.”

             
Penny giggled and I whacked him lightly in the shoulder before walking out onto the front porch with Maura. There were many steps that led to that por
ch from the ground; it was strange to look down and see the dirt path so far below us. The sight before me was picturesque; a snowy night scene reminiscent of a Robert Frost poem. The mountains in the distance were blurred by the torrent of flakes that dri
fted lazily from the heavens. I remembered Brynna's voice, reading me Frost's best poems before I went to bed. She had always been enamored with his intricate descriptions of things.

             
The sudden urge to cry took me off guard. I swallowed hard, suppressing
the tears before they
could fall. I didn't want to explain to Maura that I was simply missing my older sister. But Brynna's name would not be far from my lips that night because Maura needed to know of the conclusion I had finally reached.

             
“You should
know that Brynna told me everything. I found out about what happened to her.”

             
“Oh, did you?” Maura asked after sitting down on the wooden bench that was carved directly into the house's front wall beneath a window. “I'm surprised she finally spoke of it.
That old secret has been kept locked up tight, I'm afraid.”

             
“You're afraid of that?”

             
“Not fearful, just...”

             
“I know what you mean. I'm just surprised that you find it regrettable that she never talked about it, considering how it makes you look.”
             

             
“And
how does it make me look?”

             
“Like a coward.”
             
“Ouch.” Maura looked up at me and I averted my eyes; there were tears streaming from hers. “As much as it hurts to hear it, you are right. I have spent so much time passing the blame off onto so many others. I
've pointed my finger at Michael, your mother, Brynna, herself... You know what they say about pointing fingers, don't you? Three more are always pointing back. I deserve Brynna's hate.”

             
I sat down beside her and studied her intently. Now, she was the one
looking elsewhere.

             
“How could you have stood by and let him do that to her? She was so young, Maura. Look at what it did to her!”

             
“I know. You don't have to tell me. I am well aware that what happened forever changed her. I've spent a lot of time thinki
ng since we've come here. I mean, of course I have, given that I'm not allowed to have a job that doesn't involve dust rags or pots and pans. Cooking and cleaning are jobs conducted in silence with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company. I've sp
ent a lot of time wondering how she might have turned out if that hadn't happened or if I had stopped him.”