Page 53 of Wicked Dares
We gather around to play the game, and the next clue that I’m completely offmy gamepresents itself when I lose in the first round.
Feeling sorry for me, Louise gives me another chance.
But I fail miserably the next two rounds. I decide to take myself out of the game so they can enjoy it. I’m not in the mood.
Instead, I wander upstairs back to my old bedroom.
The silence up here carries that stale trace of the past, like the room’s been holding its breath for years, always waiting for me to return. Sometimes that’s at Thanksgiving or Christmas.
The faint scent of cedar still clings to the furniture from when I was last in here.
Dad and Louise kept everything the same, so the room is pretty much just as I left it when I moved out for college. I left a few things here to make it look as if I could slip back into my old life.
There are a couple of books on the shelf. The bed is neatly spread. My clothes and shoes are in the wardrobe, all waiting in case I ever need them.
This room has always been a refuge for me, a place I would escape to, especially when my mother was on the warpath.
After my parents’ divorce, the room felt lighter. Still a solace but something more soothing.
The divorce was so horrendous, Dad sent us to England to live with our grandparents for a couple of years. When we returned, he was already married to Louise and they had Adeline.
I call it the missing years.
We didn’t see Dad much during that time, but I felt it was how it needed to be. My mother did so much damage to us that we all needed the break. And it was the kind of move where we didn’t just need to change things around. We needed to get out of the country.
So, when Piper says she wants to focus on her fresh start, I get it. You can always recognize someone trying to outrun a version of their life that hurt them.
In my case, I was just a kid when I needed my fresh start.
You’re not supposed to need a fresh start at nine years old. You’re supposed to have happy memories. And even if your parents aren’t getting along, it shouldn’t come back on you.
That part was separate, though.
My mother and father got on just fine, but my mother hated her children, and she didn’t hesitate to show us her hand.
Knox used to take the punishments for us. Dorian used to take the punishments for him. I was the one who saw things no one else saw.
I was the one who kept things quiet so my older brothers could protect all of us, especially Locke, being the youngest.
Perhaps that’s why I’m so good at pretending now and making things look easier than they really are. I had practice.
One good quality about us is how we’ve each looked out for the other as the years have gone by. Even when it hurt.
“Thought I’d find you up here,” Locke says from behind me.
I face him. He fills the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.
“Just needed a moment to think,” I explain.
He walks into the room and looks around.
“From the look of things, you’ve been thinking all evening. Does Arthur Lockwood have anything to do with this?”
“If I said yes, would you start chewing me out?”
Locke frowns. “Only if there’s something to be said. What’s going on, Levi? This is so unlike you. Have you figured things out yet?”
That’s just the question I didn’t want him to ask me.
