Spectacularly Broken (21 page)

“You’ve never tried.” I didn’t look at him.

“Of course I have,” he said with just the right inflection to make it sound sincere and surprised and putting a little hurt in there for good measure.

“Oh no. You’re not doing this.” I stood. “If you wanna talk, fine. Talk. But don’t act out this Father of the Year bullshit with me. I can
tell
. Don’t you get that? You’re not being sincere; you never are. You’re saying what you think you should be saying. I may be a shitty son, but at least I’m honest.”

He stared at me. I stared back.

He moistened his lips, looking nervous. “I had no idea you felt that way.”

“Of course you didn’t. You’ve never fucking asked.”

He flinched. “Language, Lysander, please.”

“Fuck that.” I glared. “Censoring myself isn’t going to solve anything. Seriously, you want to talk, and the first thing you do is tell me which words I can and can’t use? Brilliant idea, Dad. Thanks.”

“Fine,” he said. “Swear, if it makes you happy. Will you sit back down, please?”

“Why?”

“Because I would like to continue this conversation.”

“All we’ve talked about so far is how you’re under the delusion that you’ve actually made an attempt to understand me. You’ve never fucking tried, not once.”

“I’m trying now.”

I dropped back onto the couch with a deep sigh and propped my feet up on the delicate-looking coffee table. “Fine.”

He leaned forward. I looked at him expectantly.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he confessed.

“Well, I sure as hell don’t either. This was your idea.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “Yes, it was.”

Our eyes locked, mine a challenging stare, his a contemplative one. The minutes ticked by.

“I lost you,” he eventually began. “At some point, just before your teens, I lost you, and I don’t know why. We talked before that.”

“When you were home,” I said coolly.

“That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Yes, Dad, your approach to parenting was bizarrely foiled by the fact that you were never there to do any actual parenting. Who’d have thought?”

“Your sarcasm isn’t helping.”

“Neither is your second attempt at censoring my speech. Stop fucking doing it. I may be sarcastic about it, but at least I’m expressing what I think. D’you ever look at it that way?”

He buried his face in his hands. Some gray hair glinted at his temple as he leaned forward. I’d never noticed any gray hair on him before. He usually dyed it.

“All right. So you’re bitter because I’m away from home a lot. But I’m doing that to make money, Lysander. Even you should be able to understand that concept.”

I crossed my arms. “Did you, at any point in the last nineteen years, ask me whether I’d rather have a father or a mansion? Because I think the answer might really shock you.”

“You’d rather live in poverty? Really? Are you saying less money would magically have curbed all the destructive behavior you’ve displayed over the years?”

The condescending look on his face just plain pissed me off.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” I snarled at him. “Not even fucking close.”

“So the lack of money wouldn’t have made a difference, then.”

“Jesus.” I gripped my head, exasperated. “It’s not about the goddamn money. It’s about you being there.”

“Other kids would be ecstatic to grow up with a little less parental supervision, you know.”

If my hair had been long enough to pull, I would have.

“I fucking give up.” I jumped to my feet. “I don’t know if you’re being deliberately obtuse, or if you’re just that dense, or—”

“Lysander, you’d better stop—”

“Fuck you!” I snarled and stomped off to bed.

* * * *

The room phone rang at just after six in the morning. By the time I’d rolled over far enough to grab it, my father had picked up in the other room. I dropped my hand and my head and tried to go back to sleep.

A knock on the door a couple of minutes later made me abandon the attempt. “Yeah?” I called.

“Finn just called.” My father didn’t enter the room but stood stiffly in the doorway. He was dressed to go out. “He says for us to come back in to see him.”

“What, is this some kind of emergency?”

He hesitated, tilting his head. “Apparently,” he said then.

Shit.

“Is Finn okay?” I asked, bolting out of bed and frantically looking for my jeans.

“He sounded fine. He said he couldn’t explain on the phone. I figured you would know, since you two are so close now.”

“I haven’t the first clue what he might be talking about. I’m not psychic.” I slipped on my black skinny jeans and the first shirt I could find, which happened to be the braided shirt I had created for myself at the tie-dye station. “Let’s go.”

We spent the car ride in silence, and I couldn’t help but create increasingly worrying scenarios in my head that might have warranted Finn calling us back to the hospital so early. We entered through the emergency-room entrance and quickly made our way up to Finn’s room.

Janice and Lane were sitting on chairs, which made my mood sink even deeper. I could have done without seeing
that
cousin.

“Hey, Lane,” I greeted him airily. “How’s the chlamydia?”

He glared at me. When I turned to look at Finn, I realized that Lexa was sitting by his bedside. “So what the hell is going on?” I asked Finn, who was chewing on his lip.

“I wanted to tell you in person,” he started, “’cause I’m thinking you might freak out a little.”

I came closer. “Okay.”

“Cai’s missing.”

I closed my eyes at the sharp lance of pain that shot right through the center line of my torso when I heard his name.

“What do you mean, ‘missing’? You told me he went back home.”

“He did.” Lexa wasn’t speaking loudly, but she was speaking, which was impressive enough since there were strangers in the room. “His parents called the manor a couple of hours ago. They asked Margaret if he might have made his way back here somehow, or if he made any friends that could have picked him up. He’s been missing for over forty hours.”

My knees went weak. I sat abruptly.

Oh my fucking God, this was all my fault.

Shit.

“Lysander?” My father sounded lost.

Cai was missing.

It was my fault. My goddamn fault.

I felt so very, very miserable.

“Dad?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah?”

“I need to go to Salt Lake City.”

Lane snorted. “What, you think your pansy ass is gonna ride in there and save the day?”

My hands clenched into fists, but I didn’t do him the favor of getting upset at his idiotic comment. I’d heard worse.

“Oh, buttercup.” I yawned and spared him a look of pity. “Just go step on a Lego. I have things to do.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Cai’s family lived in Riverton, which I somewhat idiotically referred to as “the ghetto” before Jarett informed me it actually looked like a fairly typical middle-class suburban neighborhood.

“But the grass is all brown.” I pointed. “And there’s all these trailers and weird outlandish fences.”

“I think they used to grow cattle here,” was all he said.

After that exchange, I kept quiet and pointed where my phone’s GPS was telling us to go. Because I’d made it very clear that driving a rental was not my idea of fun, Jarett had volunteered to take the wheel. I hadn’t planned on him coming with me, but when we had gone to wheedle Cai’s exact address out of Margaret, he’d been there, looking worried. Nicky had been too, but he hadn’t gotten his parents on the phone in time to sign off on a random trip across state lines.

I was just glad I wasn’t all by myself.

“So, um, Lysander,” Jarett had started out not long after we had left the manor together.

“Yeah.” I smiled ruefully. “You pissed off about it?”

Jarett shook his head. “It’s actually kind of cool. Can I ask you something, though?”

“Sure.”

“When we did all those group exercises with green group, were you telling the truth? Like for the
Brave
exercise?”

“Yes,” I said firmly.

“Okay,” he said and seemed pleased by that answer. Then he grinned. “It explains a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Your dishwashing tantrum comes to mind.”

Now, though, he was looking worried once more, the closer we got to our destination.

“You really think we’ll be any help?”

“We have to be.” I stared at my phone, pointing left. “I have to fix this. It’s my fault.”

“You really believe that?”

I nodded and pointed straight after he took the turn. We had come to a short cul-de-sac. Jarett slowed and parked the car by the curb, releasing his seat belt before he squinted at the note card on which Margaret had written the address.

“That’s it, I think.” He pointed.

I turned my head and stared at a house painted a light cream color, with white shutters, porch, and garage door. It looked quaint and…normal. I found myself wondering what it would have been like growing up in a house like this one.

I tried to brace myself before ringing the doorbell, but my brain failed to take into account that the people living in this house were Cai’s parents. The woman who opened the door looked remarkably like him. I could see where he had gotten his eyes, his bone structure. I tried not to be thrown off by that but failed miserably.

“Hello.” She took us in. Her eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, her dark blond hair unbrushed. She was slight, almost frail. My heart immediately sank to somewhere near my kneecaps. This family had been through so much. “Are you…?”

“Lysander. And Jarett.” I pointed, then stretched out my hand for her to shake.

“We’re here to offer our help,” Jarett added eagerly.

She nodded once. When I glanced at the hand she had pressed against the door frame, I realized it was shaking. “You’re friends of Cai? Oh, are you two from Oak Hill Manor? Jim said they called us and said someone was coming.” She stepped back and pushed the door wider. “I’m sorry. My mind isn’t on top of things right now. I haven’t slept.”

We followed her deeper into the house. There were male voices in what looked to be the kitchen, but Cai’s mom led us past it. My heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces for her as soon as I caught sight of the pictures in the living room.

Cai. Cassiel. Both of them so happy, so exuberant in every single photograph. My God, how hard it had to be to see that every single day. In one picture, the twins stood arm in arm, and instead of looking at the camera, they were grinning at each other.

The moment I turned back and saw Jarett’s surprised face, I realized I should have prepared him for this. But he managed to bite back his questions for the moment. Instead we sat politely on the couch, answered a few reluctant inquiries about our time at Oak Hill Manor, and were informed about the search efforts.

“We’ve canvassed the neighborhood already, called everyone we know here in Riverton. The police are helping us now, but they said not to get our hopes up. It’s difficult to…” Cai’s mom made a vague hand gesture.

“Can I…” I bit my lip. “Sorry. Can I ask what happened before Cai left?”

“Of course, yes. I keep going over it in my head, wondering if I said anything that might have, well, led to this.” She sighed deeply. “I don’t know, honestly. He was even more quiet than usual when he came home. Didn’t want to talk about anything, but I was hoping he’d just need a little time to himself. Obviously I was wrong.”

I bit harder, until I tasted blood. My throat hurt when I forced a swallow.

“Let me ask Jim if we’ve figured out the next step yet.” Cai’s mom excused herself and hurried out of the room, and Jarett turned to me at once with wide eyes.

“Just to be clear, we only met the one twin, right? Or did they both—”

“One’s dead.”

“Oh. Shit.” He deflated.

“I’m sorry. I probably should have said something before.” God, I was screwing this all up so badly. “It’s just, Cai told me in confidence, and I had no idea how much I could say without, you know…”

“Yeah, no, no, I mean yes,” Jarett said nonsensically. “I mean, I get it. I don’t blame you. It just surprised me.” He rose from the couch and wandered over to the opposite wall, studying the pictures there. “Wow.”

I joined him. The first thing I saw was a picture of the entire family, all four of them wearing life vests and posing before a tumultuous body of water. They were crowded together, sunburned, excited.

I realized then that Cai hadn’t been joking when he had told me he’d played “competitive anything.” There were photographs of the twins playing baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball. They’d done skiing and horseback riding and surfing and archery and every other sport under the sun, from the looks of it. Holy shit.

I passed by the TV and the DVD shelf, trying hard to ignore the collection of Katherine Vega movies that had its place there. On the other side, there were more pictures. I squinted at one of the twins posing with a dog. I was pretty clueless about dog breeds, but the puppy certainly looked adorable, head tilted, tongue lolling.

“They used to volunteer at a pit bull rescue.” Cai’s mother had reentered the room and stepped up to my side now. “Did he tell you that?”

I shook my head. She reached out and brushed a fingertip over the picture. When she spoke again, her voice was thick with emotion. “Cai was always such a great kid. They both were. It’s been difficult to figure out how to help him.”

I kept my eyes on the picture. I thought if I looked at her, I might start crying again, and I’d certainly done enough of that lately.

“Is that Cai?”

“Yes.” She dropped her hand “Cass has—
had
—a freckle next to his eye that Cai doesn’t have. It was a small thing but the best way to tell them apart if you didn’t know them well.”

I still couldn’t stop staring at the picture. “How else were they different?”

“Cai was the more serious of the two, but not by much.” She smiled wistfully. “Cassiel’s voice was a bit higher. His gait was different too. He broke his leg when he was seven. He could use it fine after it healed; he just walked a little differently.”