Picturesque

Chapter 31: The Fall

I tried to get away from her finger that was cutting into my chest, right on my skin where the collar of my shirt dipped and exposed me. I wish I had worn a different shirt.

"You," she began, her dignified voice raising in anger, "have come into my home, under the grace and kindness of my husband and myself, and have ravaged my daughter."

My mouth moved to argue, but I couldn't get my throat to open up. It was squeezed shut tight, burning and aching with a hard lump that formed.

"You're a poor, dirty, lowlife nobody who thought you had a free ride to squeeze your way into my family and get what you wanted. My daughter, or was it just our money?"

I shook my head as much as my muscles allowed me. My palms, flat against the door, sweated until they started to slide.

She raised her chin, looking at me like I was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. "You're pathetic." Her fingernail cut harder into my chest, and if I could have made a noise, I would have squeaked from the way I felt my skin break under her nail. It felt like she was going to stab right through and rip my heart out, though it was already shattering and cutting up my insides.

She just stared at me for a moment, taking a good look at me, remembering everything about my appearance as if she needed it as an alibi. I thought she was going to kill me. I could hear Judd and Jo talking outside, the sound of them dragging bags of mulch out of the shed. I could hear Holly rambling about something. They didn't know I was stuck in this room, pinned against the door by Katie, feeling like I needed to say my last prayers.

"You will leave tomorrow," she said, in nearly a whisper. "You will leave tomorrow and never speak to my family again. If you don't..." She came even closer, her nose nearly touching mine. I turned my head away and winced. "I will tell everyone we know that you are a disgusting sodomite. Do you know how many people Martin knows in New Orleans? He would tell that professor who sent you here. He'd tell everybody at the university. Your poor mother would know. You would never work again. Your life, as meaningless as it already is, will be over. And as for Jo, I have enough reasons to cut her off from this family as it is. If you stick around and influence her any longer, I will have no choice but to throw her out."

I could feel wetness where her fingernail was cutting.

"Do you understand?" Her voice was low, menacing. She dug her nail deeper, and finally, I squeaked.

"Yes," I breathed, feeling tears well up in my eyes. She stared at me for a moment longer before she took her finger away. I moved away from her, and she opened the door and left, slamming it shut.

My knees hit the floor, my hand slapping itself to my chest—not because of the little bloody scratch there, but because I thought I was having a heart attack. My heart throbbed so loud that I could hear it in my ears, so I shoved my hands over my ears and crumbled to the floor, feeling a maelstrom of emotions swell up inside me.

One was fear. Fear of how Katie had intimidated me, how she threatened to tell people about me, how she threatened to cut Jo off, which was the one thing that Jo was scared of the most. Another feeling was anger. Anger that she went into my room and looked through my personal journals, anger that she was so prejudiced against me, anger that this had to be the way that things ended.

The biggest thing I felt was grief. Grief because I was cornered, and there was no way to save what I was going to be losing. Grief because Jo was being taken away from me.

A sob escaped my throat, and I pushed my head hard against the floor, hoping it would crack. I couldn't breathe. The tears came quickly now, rushing down my face. My entire body convulsed and ached as I sobbed and cried into the floor, wishing that I would die—wishing that I could turn back time and never write anything in those journals, never let Jo stay the whole night in my bed, never let her kiss me in the first place.

I heard voices outside. Crawling like a pathetic child, I went to the window and looked into the backyard. Katie was down there now, pulling Jo to the side away from Holly and Judd who were playing with some rakes, pretending to swordfight. Katie was speaking to Jo, and I could see Jo's face drop. She stepped away from Katie, covering her mouth with her hand. Katie reached for her, but Jo ran, sprinting wildly into the trees until I couldn't see her anymore. Katie turned and just simply walked back to the house while Holly and Judd stayed blissfully unaware, still poking each other with the rakes.

I knew from the way their brief conversation went that Katie had told Jo about the journals. Or maybe she just told her that she knew, and that I was going away now. Maybe she told her she was cutting her off.

My heart ached at the thought of Jo losing her entire family over me. As dysfunctional as it could be, this was her family. This family was her only lifeline. I was stupid to promise her that we would get an apartment together. I wouldn't make enough money teaching to support the both of us. People would start to find out about two unmarried women living together. We could've ended up like Greg.

I was crying so hard that I was choking on my own tears. I slid down to the floor under the window, curling my knees to my chest. I'm not sure how much time passed before I fell asleep, but when I woke up in the same position, it was dark. My face felt puffy and sticky from the crying. I thought maybe it really was just a bad dream, but I looked over at the desk and saw the picture and the journal sitting on top where Katie put them, the top drawer still open.

I needed to find Jo. I needed to make sure that she was okay, to make sure that she understood what was happening. Standing up wobbly, I placed my hand on the windowsill to steady myself and looked out at the moonlit yard.

To my surprise, I saw something white in one of the trees way in the backyard. It was the tree above the bench. Jo was sitting way up in it.