I see my hand reach out toward Daniel as if it’s not even attached to me. My whole arm is shaking, and Daniel looks like he’s about to crumble.
“Look, Dan,” I say as he stands back up. My voice doesn’t even sound like my own, and before I can get any words out, he launches himself at me.
“You fucking liar,” he screams, grabbing my coat and pulling me closer to him.
For the briefest second, his anger doesn’t register and I think he’s going to hug me. Even when he starts hitting me, I can’t quite make sense of it. Because it’s not just anger. It’s something that seems like… grief. But Daniel doesn’t care about me. I can’t believe he even cares enough to hit me. Sure, he gets angry and wants to fight when I start shit with him. But I didn’t even do anything.
I only realize Daniel’s crying when I hit the dirt and he lands on top of me, his tears dropping onto my face as he punches me. He’s practically screaming. I shake off my surprise enough get in a few hits, but he is powered by some kind of unholy rage. For the first time, I see that all those feelings that make him so easy to read, when pushed further, have power.
He slams my shoulders to the ground and chokes me with his forearm. I jab him in the kidney, the mouth, the stomach. And then we’re just wrestling. I’m trying to get Daniel off me without hurting him too bad, but he’s trying to do real damage. His fist slams into my mouth just before he’s pulled off me, still screaming that I’m a liar.
It’s Rex dragging Daniel backward, holding him tight as Daniel shakes with anger.
I pull myself up and blood splatters the dirt floor when I spit. I concentrate on it so I don’t have to look at Daniel’s face. At my little brother’s face so contorted with grief that I know I’ve made a huge miscalculation in thinking he didn’t care.
“I—I—please, Danny,” I say. I haven’t called him that since he was a kid. Since I was the one he’d come to in the middle of the night when nightmares about Mom’s death woke him. Since we’d sing along to the radio together and I’d walk him to school. Since he used to look up at me with something like admiration, the only person to ever look at me like that.
“Don’t fucking call me that, you fucking liar,” Daniel yells, his voice just a scratch, and the only thing that keeps him from launching himself at me again is Rex holding him back.
“But,” I try, “can I—”
“How could you?” Daniel croaks out. Tears are running down his cheeks and his eyelashes are spiky with moisture, just like they were when he was that little boy. He’s looking at me like he used to when I stomped on his sandcastles at the beach. Anger, shock, betrayal.
I’m underwater again. I can’t breathe, and this time, I don’t want to. Then his face changes to the expression I’m more familiar with. Scorn. He just shakes his head at me like I’m nothing. Like I’ve failed to live up to his standards so completely that he can’t even think what to do with me.
He turns to leave and a new panic grips me.
“Dan,” I choke out. “Don’t tell Brian and Sam. Please. Please,” I whisper. Tears are running down my face, and I can’t even lift my hand to wipe them away. For a second when he turns around, something nasty flickers in Daniel’s eyes, and I feel a flash of relief. Relief that Daniel’s as petty as I thought. Relief that if he hurts me, then it means, for once, maybe I’m not the worst one.
Relief that the choice is being taken out of my hands.
But then he takes a deep breath and his shoulders droop, the victim once again. He nods once and closes his eyes like maybe he can forget I ever existed. Rex follows him out, as close on his heels as a shadow.
“Oh god,” I choke. I stumble to the doorway of the shed and gag, throwing up the toast Rafe made for me this morning. Then I’m just dry heaving and gagging.
The world has narrowed to a single drop of blood that fell on the dirt from my nose as I puked. It’s an ocean, trying to swallow me up. And I want to let it.
“I wish I was dead,” I whisper, too soft for anyone to hear, and Rafe’s hands on me falter.
Chapter 11
THE GRAY of the ocean is one shade darker than the sky. The waves roll in, crash, and pull back in an endless rhythm. It’s like as long as the outside is moving, then things inside me can stay still. The sound of the ocean is so constant that everything we say sounds softer here, makes me feel tipsy or sun-drunk.
We’re in Ocean City, on the Maryland coast. I hardly remember getting here. After the funeral, Rafe packed a bag for me, grabbed Shelby’s litter box, and put us in the car. Then he just drove and I slept.