Path of Destruction (9 page)

“I see where Ella Jane gets her imagination, sir,” was all he managed before getting in his Jeep and pulling out of the driveway.

A
fter hashing out the details of his punishment on the first day of school, Cooper had made it through the rest of the week by keeping his head down. There was the occasional asshole trying to prove his badassery by moo-ing or making some dumb comment about hicks going back where they belonged. Since he was pretty sure two altercations during the first week of school would result in the revocation of the deal he’d made with Vice Principal Gleeson, he kept his reactions to surly stares and jaw flexing.

By Friday, the restraint had added up. By the time school ended, he needed a stiff drink. But he only had beer in his cooler back at his loft, so it would have to do. Cooper ordered his brothers a pizza, waited until it arrived, and drove out to the pier.

Afterwards, he would go check on Ella Jane and find out what had made her ditch on the first day, whose ass needed kicking, and what happened between her and Prescott. But for now, he just wanted to get away—away from a wrecked farm, away from a school he didn’t belong in or give a shit about, away from those rich bastards and their bullshit—and breathe.

The sun was setting as he walked out onto the pier. It was quiet besides the crack and hiss of his can opening. Staring out onto the even surface of water that shone like glass, he took a deep swallow of beer and wondered why the universe worked the way it did.

He tossed a small rock and watched the ringed ripple dance outward as he polished off the first can. Every summer had been the same. Working, racing, hanging out with Kyle and sometimes Ellie May. But this one had been different. Kyle had kept a girl a secret—one he’d been trying to find the night of the storm. EJ had been spending her time with City Boy and he’d been barely keeping his head above water trying to juggle his jealously, his friendship, and his family issues.

Secrets, he realized as he sat there. Secrets had been all around him. He’d been hiding a pretty big one from his best friend, keeping his true feelings from Ella Jane and Kyle both. His parents had been keeping secrets from him and his brothers.

Secrets ruined everything. They started out small. Then they grew and festered, smothering and ruining.

Ironically enough, the last thing he’d said to his best friend had been the truth. The truth about the way he’d felt about Ella Jane in that moment. The real question was how did he feel about her now? He lifted his fourth beer to his lips, knowing he wouldn’t find the answer in the buzz, but that it would help him to think less.

When your parents were about to lose everything, the girl you loved was a semi-mute mess in love with someone else, and your best friend was dead, thinking was the enemy. Coop didn’t want to think anymore—didn’t want to feel.

The presence of someone behind him made his shoulders stiffen. Turning, he half-expected to see Kyle’s ghost behind him. They’d spent so much time over the years fishing off this same pier, he could practically feel him—could practically hear his voice.

“You’re going to look out for her when I’m gone, right? You’re the only one I actually trust.”

Ella Jane walked towards him, her body trembling with barely contained sobs. Facing the water, he took another drink before speaking to her. They didn’t call it liquid courage for nothing. She must have been feeling it too. She grabbed a beer from his six-pack, cracked it open, and downed half of it before he had a chance to tell her to slow down. He couldn’t say much. He liked the numb feeling the alcohol delivered. Even if it was only temporary. He’d let her have her beer or two if it meant she’d get a moment of peace from the turmoil of their reality.

“Hell of a first week, Ellie May.”

“P-please don’t call me that anymore.” Her voice was shakier than her legs had been when she collapsed beside him and took another drink.

“Want to talk about it?”

Or why, after two weeks of radio silence, you speak to Pretty Boy instead of me?

“No,” she whispered, surprising him by leaning on his side.

“Okay.” Wrapping his arms around her, he finished his beer. “Okay, Ellie—Ella Jane.” He gave her a squeeze, freeing the sobs she’d been holding back. “It’s going to be okay.”

He didn’t think about kissing her or how his feelings for her had seamlessly shifted him back into the big brother role he’d hoped to escape. All he thought of was that, right now, in that moment, she needed to be held.

He would hold her, stroke her hair, and soothe her until she ran out of tears—no matter how long that took.

F
or Kyle’s funeral, the director had requested pictures, trophies, memorabilia her brother had collected and any other mementos of significance. It had filled two tables and a five-tier bookshelf. After the funeral, all of that had gone into a curio cabinet at the bottom of the stairs.

Every morning, Ella Jane came downstairs to her parents’ hushed voices and a dozen pictures of her dead brother.

She lived in a tomb that now housed a shrine.

At the dinner table each night, her parents forced a conversation while EJ stared at the ghost smiling at her from the empty chair. At bedtime, her mother’s sobs could be heard through the walls. Her dad slept on the couch. Ella Jane lay awake and stared at the ceiling, at the walls, and sometimes at the photo albums that contained pictures of a life she couldn’t remember. When she was three, for Halloween, she’d apparently been Robin to Kyle’s Batman. When she was five she’d been the Tinker Bell to his Peter Pan.

Eleven years later, she had no idea who she was without him.

The only escape was a school where everyone represented everything she felt was wrong with the world.

Of all the girls her brother could’ve hooked up with over the summer, it would have to be the one she liked the least. Well, except for Streaks in pre calc. Thankfully, Ella Jane had managed to switch to the fifth-period class with Mrs. Griffin instead. Much less melodrama and barking. And the best and worst part, no Hayden Prescott.

After school, she kept finding herself avoiding going home. She’d tell herself she wasn’t going, that it wasn’t safe for her to keep staying there so late alone. But day after day, she’d ended up at the ridge.

So much had happened there. He’d died on that ridge, and she thought she’d never want to go back. Yet…somehow, she couldn’t seem to
stop
going back.

She sat on the ground leaning against to tire of Kyle’s truck and staring at the train tracks below. She didn’t know why she kept coming back here. It didn’t change anything. Every time she left, everything was still the same. Kyle was gone. Summer still felt like a dream that belonged to someone else.

She could still see it, playing in a slow, torturous montage behind her eyes every time she closed them. The memories were as clear as the pictures her mother had strung along the walls at his funeral.

The day Kyle had received his letter from OSU, hugging by the mailbox, crying alone in her room when she learned that their dad had left them right after, her brother’s arms around her, telling her it would be okay. Him horsing around with Coop, watching closely as her crush on his best friend grew. Nodding toward him as he reminded her that there were other fish in the sea besides Hayden Prescott.

He knew.

She felt immature and stupid for not realizing sooner. Kyle hadn’t been as blind to her crush on Cooper as he’d pretended to be.

She pulled her knees to her chest to keep her torn heart from falling out of it. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t give to be able to talk to him. To ask him how she was supposed to move on, how she was supposed to keep breathing and eating and living without him around.

He was everywhere, and nowhere at the same time.

If she stayed still long enough, the pain would come. Raining down on her, pressing against her chest and holding her under. It was always there, silently carving out her insides until there was nothing left. But when she was still, when it was silent, the carving claws gripped her tightly and forced all the things she’d tried not to think into her head.

He’s gone forever. He won’t ever laugh with you, yell at you, or hold you when you cry again.

He’s not coming home for Christmas.

He won’t be at your wedding.

He won’t know your children. They won’t know Uncle Kyle.

All that’s left of him are memories.

And the worst one, the one that struck just as the tears were falling down her face.

It’s all your fault.

E
lla Jane didn’t know how long she’d been crying, but the sun was setting, so at least an hour or so. Tears clung to her eyelashes and she focused on rubbing away the evidence before heading home. Her head throbbed and she thought the rumble was coming from inside her skull at first.

She stood, stretching her legs and rubbing away the grass that came with her. The train blew its horn and she froze, transfixed by the sight of it as its giant metal face appeared between the trees.

Run
, a voice in her head commanded.

She wanted to. She’d been tear-stained and water-logged for so long that running alongside the train might be just what she needed to remind her of what it always had. This wasn’t forever. She wouldn’t feel this way forever. There was more to life, or there would be one day at least.

But something deep down that she was trying hard to fight wanted her to run for another reason.

If she moved her feet right now, if she ran full speed, she could get ahead of it. The horn would blow and the light would blind her and then…

All of this, the pain, the guilt, the constant ache knowing her brother was gone forever, would just end. Probably in less than a second and she knew she mostly likely wouldn’t feel a thing.

Here one second and gone the next, just like him.

He’s gone forever. You can’t get him back.

Couldn’t she?

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered to the setting sun.

It didn’t feel like running at all. It felt like flying, like she was being pushed and then lifted from the ground. The ridge blurred beside her, grass and trees and dirt. Just like the night she’d tried so hard to save him.

Her legs had a life of their own, propelled forward by the possibility of actually reaching him this time, of finding a way to reach him, wherever he was. The wind caressed her skin as the metal slamming down onto wooden tracks jarred her bones. She was close, so close.

Her teeth slammed together as the train pounded down the tracks beside her. He called her name so she ran faster. His face appeared so clearly that she reached out to touch it.

“Jesus Christ, Ella Jane. Have you lost your fucking mind?”

After all this time, all her brother could do was scream at her?

“Kyle,” she began, but his arms were too tight around her midsection for her to get any more words out.

He squeezed, pulling her farther from the train. A scream ripped from her chest and escaped her mouth. It was lost in another blast of the horn.

“What are the hell are you doing?”

Her body hit the ground with a thud that thundered through her back.

“Answer me! What were you doing?”

She opened her eyes and saw that the boy above her wasn’t her brother at all. The train blew loudly past Hayden Prescott, who was glaring at her with murder in his eyes.

“You scared me to death! Talk to me, dammit!”

She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t find the air she needed to speak. It had been knocked out of her during their fall.

“Why would you do that? Do you know how fucking selfish that is?” He was bordering on hysterical, but she didn’t know what to say to make it better. “What if I hadn’t been here? What if I hadn’t come to—oh my God.
Oh God
.” He squeezed his eyes shut tight and shook his head before pushing up off her.

She stood on less than steady legs. “Hayden, wait.”

There was nothing to hold on to for support as the reality of what she’d been about to do hit her full force.

He turned and gave her the fiercest glare he ever had. “Fine. I will wait, because I’m going to make sure you get your crazy ass in your truck and go the hell home.”