Free Havoc by Stella Rhys Page B

sacrifice my mother’s love for my sister’s health.
    Not that we didn’t become a family again, when the cancer returned a few years ago.  My mom started calling again, picking me up to go to the hospital.  When it became clear that Elle was struggling to hold on, she took my emotional support.  She even held my hand one night, for an entire hour.
    But then Elle died, we were all a mess and my mother cruelly blamed me.
    She reminded me of the job she’d been fired from for being too dazed at the office, distracted by the worry I put her through as such a bad child.  If she’d never been fired from that job, she would’ve climbed the ranks over the years and been paid enough to get Elle the best doctors in the country.  Everything would have been different if I hadn’t been expelled that week when Percocets fell out of my bag.  “ I could’ve done more for her but you wasted my energy.  I wish He took you instead but who can blame him for wanting Elle.”
    The last words she spoke to me.
    They pierced my heart again when I said them aloud in the car – the explanation Abram had asked for.  He was quiet for a solid minute when I finally finished.  I noticed his grip on the wheel had changed over the course of my story.  When he started, it was a lazy forearm draped over the top.  Now, his long fingers were wrapped tight around the leather.  “I’m sure you know it wasn’t your fault,” he finally said.
    “I do,” I replied, trying to sound light.  I did know that.  But it didn’t stop me from wishing that I could’ve died instead.  It didn’t stop me from picturing the girl Elle fantasized about being, and how that girl would’ve grown into a wonderful woman that the world deserved to meet.  She would’ve gotten a job to serve others, loved all the right people and made differences I never could.  My mom actually hadn’t been wrong.  Between the two of us, it should have been me.  Elle was just a better person.  So I considered a morbid fantasy of killing myself to bring her back.  Pills would be appropriate but my mind always gave me a gun.  I figured if I prayed to the universe hard enough, it could happen – she’d return or at least reincarnate somewhere close to my parents.  And if she didn’t, well, at least I wouldn’t be around to know.
    Those were my dark thoughts.  They came less frequently these days so I tried to give Abram the censored version, leaving out the suicide part so he wouldn’t think I was crazy.  Still, when I was done, he wore a deep frown on that torturously handsome face.  “Everyone changes as they get older,” he said.  “She would’ve grown up to be just as good a person as she was before she died, but she would’ve made mistakes too.  We just idealize people who went too early.  I know.”
    I saw the glint of pain in Abram’s eyes – the way he quickly furrowed his brows to get rid of whatever thought he was having.  I wanted to ask him then about his brother but suddenly, my phone rang.  Startled, I answered the call just to stop it from buzzing.  “Hello?”
    “Isla?”
    Damn it .  Holly.  “Hi.”  My stiff tone had Abram eyeing me.
    “Isla.  Hi.  Um… are you in Long Island? Your mom just called me asking if it was me who was with you.  At the cemetery.”  She went on before I could answer.  “Isla, if you’re here you might as well meet me.  We clearly have a lot to talk about and I do have your jacket.  Evan gave it to me to give to you.”
    I winced at the sound of his name off her lips.  “I don’t know if now’s the best time – ”
    “If you’re at the cemetery, you’re twenty minutes from my house.  You’re already here, Isla, just come meet me at our usual place.  Please.  I know you think you hate me right now but I also know you’re alone and that you need your best friend.  If for nothing else, you should want to meet me for the jacket.  Don’t pretend you don’t want it back.”
    I