Secrets | Watty Awards Winner 2013

Chapter 26

I’m staring into space.

The doctors around me are saying things, but I can’t hear them. They seem so far away.

The doctor nearest to me reaches out to touch my forehead and I flinch at his touch. Before I can stop myself, I reach up and grab his arm, twisting it behind his back.

The other doctors are in uproar. They are all yelling at me to calm down and for their nurses to go grab the sedatives.

“Just calm the fuck down,” I mutter, releasing the doctor’s arm. He yelps and jumps away from me, rubbing his shoulder and upper arm. He gives me a panicked look and I resist the urge to flip him off.

“Ari?”

I look at the man standing in the doorway.

Dad looks pale and drawn. He looks so much older than he really is but I don’t even care. I don’t care about anything anymore. A bomb could detonate in our house at this moment and I wouldn’t give a fuck. I am so sick and angry at the world that I just can’t be bothered about anything anymore.

This world is unfair. There is no justice in it. Innocent people die while the guilty get away with their murders. Even those who are caught go through the whole process of being sentenced and they don’t even get half of what they deserve.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” I cross my arms across my chest, watching as the doctors scuttle out of the room like scared mice.

They are pathetic.

“The doctors say you’re being difficult,” dad says. I shrug.

“Ollie’s funeral is in two days. His parents have requested that you go up and say a little something.” Dad stands next to my bed, looking uncertain.

I look at dad, the muscles in my cheeks and jaw twitching.

“Don’t. You. Dare. Say. His. Name,” I hiss, enunciating each word as clearly as I can. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Dad frowns. “Watch your language, Ari.”

I just give him a flat look before turning my head to stare out the window. The view from my room is stunning. The window gives me a full view of the city but all I can think about is how I want to throw myself out of it.

“Your mother was in the explosion,” dad says and the struggle within me to control my reaction to the news is instantaneous.

What?

“She was waiting for Richard to get out when the bomb detonated,” dad continues, oblivious to the storm raging within me. “I guess she got what was coming to her.”

I sink my top teeth into my bottom lip to stop myself from screaming.

No. No. No.

This had been too easy for her. I had wanted her to spend the rest of her life rotting in a jail cell. I had wanted her to suffer- to feel just a fraction of the pain that she had caused me. Dying in an explosion that she had manufactured was not good enough. She’d probably died instantaneously while Ollie had had bled out in the basement.

This world is screwed up.

“I hate you.”

“What?” Dad’s forehead furrows.

“I fucking hate all of you.”

“Ari, calm down,” dad says. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” There is a hint of desperation in her voice that doesn’t escape me but I ignore it.