Exploited
Page 9

“I can’t come right now,” I told him. I prepared for the blowback.
“You ungrateful little shit. How can you live with yourself after you’ve abandoned your mother when she was so fragile? You’ve put this family through hell and this is the thanks we get?” my dad roared into the phone.
“Will Mom be all right?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Mom’s suicide attempts weren’t serious enough to put her life in jeopardy. Her therapist had told me that she had no desire to die.
I knew exactly what this latest round of pill popping was.
Punishment.
Because I had moved away.
What I couldn’t tell my father was that if I hadn’t left, I would have ended up next to Dillon in the ground. I had been suffocating.
“She’ll be fine. No thanks to you,” Dad huffed, and despite my vow to not let my parents rope me in with guilt, I felt myself being pulled in again. Against my better judgment.
Against what was best for me.
“I can drive up on Friday after work—”
“Well, that’s not good enough!” I cringed at the rage in my father’s voice. Even though he was two hundred miles away, I still braced myself for the blow.
The one that was meant to maim.
“We lost the best son. The good son. Now look what we’re left with,” my dad muttered just loud enough for me to hear him clearly.
I was all too familiar with my father’s disappointment and regret where I was concerned.
“I’ll come up on Friday,” I told him again.
“We wouldn’t want to put you out,” Dad remarked drily, his anger abating just a bit. The truth was he couldn’t handle my mother on his own. He needed me. Even if he wished he didn’t.
“You’re not. I can leave straight from work. Maybe get off an hour or two early.” There went my fucking weekend.
“Fine,” Dad snapped. “We’ll see you then.”
Then he hung up. And I was left feeling like I had been beaten up and thrown away.
I put my phone down and stared at the pile of papers I had planned to read before bed. The words swam in front of my eyes and I closed the file, my head no longer focused on the elusive hacker and the unsolvable case.
Talking to my parents always threw me. It took me hours to feel okay again. It was hard to remember a time when my family had been healthy and functional. Once I had been able to talk to my dad on the phone and not feel bad afterward.
Once my mother had been happy and whole. She hadn’t spent her time dwelling on a tragedy she could never change. She wouldn’t have contemplated using my twisted emotions to make me feel even worse.
Once we had been a family that loved and supported each other.
I hadn’t thought that Dillon would be the one to unravel it completely. I had thought we were strong enough to get through the horror of what had happened—together.
But as time wore on, my memories of a “better time” were becoming harder and harder to recall.
Now all that was left was a suffocating need to escape.
And the realization that no matter how hard I tried, my parents and I were trapped in an unending cycle of grief, guilt, and bitter resentment.
Tigger meowed noisily at my feet, indicating it was time that I fed him. On autopilot I filled his food bowl and walked into the living room.
Coming to Richmond had felt like the right plan. I had needed a new start. I had also needed distance. But with the way things had been going so far, I wasn’t entirely sure I had made the right decision.
I thought about Hannah, the woman I had met that morning. I was supposed to meet her again tomorrow. I thought briefly about standing her up.
I wasn’t in a position to start anything with anyone. My disastrous situation with Madison was proof that I was a fucking mess when it came to women.
What would be the point of leading her on when I knew that, in the end, one—or both—of us would end up hurt or disappointed?
But there was something about this new woman that had me discarding all of my hesitations. Call it instinct, but I wanted to see where things headed.
I had built my career on reading situations. On following my nose down the rabbit hole and coming out on the other side. And something inside me told me not to dismiss Hannah.
That she might be exactly what I was looking for.
I thought about her easy smile. How quickly I had engaged in simple, uncomplicated conversation.
Maybe a date or two would be all right.
Just to see…
I closed the case file and shoved it back in my bag, my eyes feeling heavy. I had a brief moment of hope. Perhaps I’d finally be able to fall asleep without tossing and turning for hours.
Maybe, just maybe, I could find rest without the nightmares.
Without the guilt that raged and raged.
I turned off all the lights and went into the bathroom. I washed up. Brushed my teeth. Changed into my pajamas. Each step carried out exactly as I did it each and every night. No deviation.
A therapist I had seen briefly when my insomnia had reached critical levels had suggested that a nightly routine would get my mind ready for sleep. In much the same way mothers bathed and read to their toddlers before tucking them in, I tried to find ways to unwind. Simple things that I could focus on instead.
It never worked.
As on every night for the last twelve months, as I lay in bed, my eyes on the ceiling above me, my mind drifted to Dillon.
The last conversation we had before he died.
The promises I had made but never kept.
My grief was my consistent companion.
I loved my brother, but I wished that for one night I could forget.
But memories weren’t forgiving.
And they wouldn’t let me go.
Chapter 4

Hannah
“Hey, sis. Sorry I haven’t been by in a while.” I pulled up a chair beside Charlotte’s bed and tried to get comfortable. It was hard, though. The coarse material of the seat scratched against the backs of my legs, making me feel itchy. This was the last place I wanted to be. I hated the sounds and smells of the residential facility where Charlotte lived. It was nothing more than a glorified hospital, and I hated that this was where she would spend the rest of her days.
Charlotte was sitting up in her bed, her eyes fixed on me as I fidgeted in the chair. Drool collected at the corner of her mouth and I leaned over and wiped it away with a tissue.