Chapter Text
Day 1 of Suspension
I spent the entire morning in the cramped bathroom of cabin 12. I carefully peel away the old gauze and stare at the ruin of my left hand. The knuckle is ugly. But in a cool way. The skin split wide open and angry red.
I cleaned the wound really carefully. Sure, it stings. It’s nothing, though, if I compare it to a series of shitshow that has happened to me lately. Then I apply a fresh layer after applying what looks like an ointment and dry it.
I strap the splint back on too. It’s supposed to protect the wound, but seriously, it just serves as a bulky reminder of how quickly a Tuesday afternoon can be that… interesting.
The rest of the morning is a thrilling cycle of academic obligation. I sit on the edge of the mattress and plow through the assignments my teachers emailed me. I’m working with my right hand while my left one rests like a dead weight up on the stacked pillow.
Once I’m done, I leave the cabin to wander the resort grounds.
The silence here is deafening. It isn’t the holiday season but Saratoga shouldn’t feel this dead. The entire property is eerie. This place is wrapped in a profound stillness that makes my own footsteps sound too loud. There’s no one around. The only signs of life are Brad and two massive, bearded guys who look like they rolled straight out of a construction site. They’re conferring near the main lodge.
I wait out of sight, lingering by the gravel path until the two men finally climb into a truck and roll away. I run over to Brad the moment the dust settles.
“Are you selling the resort?”
Brad lets out a sharp and sudden laugh. Instead of answering, he turns his tablet toward me and taps the screen. It displays a digital blueprint. Ish. I see a sleek and modern building site covered in clean lines and expensive-looking wooden accents. It looks nothing like the weather fading place we are currently standing in.
Brad’s chest puffing out slightly with unearned confidence. “We’re going to renovate. The whole thing. It begins next week.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach. I know our financial situation. Not that specific, to be exact. But I’m not that dumb to understand that we don’t have this kind of cash lying around.
“With what money?” I ask, keeping my voice flat and nonchalant.
He grimaces slightly as waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t think about it. I have good faith on this one. Just trust me, okay?”
I look at him. Even though I’m just a teenager who supposedly doesn’t understand how the real world works, I feel like I know exactly what this is.
Gun to my head, this isn’t a business strategy. This is a… I don’t know. Desperate and reckless gamble.
However, Brad is the only person who has never doubted me. He’s my biggest supporter no matter how wrong and fucked up I am. He’s the only person who stands in my corner when everyone else is retreating. Doubting him back feels like a sin.
So I push those thoughts away.
“I’m trusting you.” Then I look around the empty gravel lot as a realization hits me. “Wait a second. Is that why there are no guests here?”
He rubs the back of his neck. His bravado dipped for a split second. “We haven’t had any guests for weeks, actually. So I just decided to close the resort early to get a head start.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good move or a terrible one.”
“Yeah. Me too,” Brad barks out another laugh. “Anyway, Em and Ellie are moving here. Like, permanently.”
I roll my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “Ugh, great. The classic tragedy that glues a broken family together.”
My voice might carry all the cynicism I can muster. Without him knowing, beneath the practiced sarcasm is a rare spark of genuine warmth flares up. It’s there and I keep it buried deep.
Emily and Ellie are coming. Emily is, without a doubt, one of my favorite people in the world.
***
Day 2 of Suspension
I’m hauling heavy and dust-caked decorations out of the resort lobby. I shoving them into this gigantic cardboard box with SELL aggressively sharpied across the side when the front doors slide open. Emily and Ellie are finally here!
The moment Emily sees me, she drops her bags and lunges forward for a hug. Instinct kicks in before I can stop it. My left arm shoots straight up into the air. My bandaged knuckle hovering like an antenna above her shoulder to keep her from crushing it.
“Oh my god, I missed you,” Em says while kissing the top of my head.
This is why I hate hugging or any other kind of physical interaction with people I care about the most. A sudden and overwhelming wave of relief crashes over me. Now my chest feels tight and I refuse to let a single crack show in my armor.
I pull back and let my left arm drop carefully to my side. My voice comes out in its usual flat and indifferent register.
“Yeah, thanks. Whatever.”
Before Em can call me out on it, Brad walks in behind her. Balanced on his hip is Ellie.
Em smiles while looking between us. “Your niece misses you too.”
That’s the final straw. My defense mechanism completely fails. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, a genuine bright smile breaks across my face. I can’t even try to hide.
I cross the lobby toward them, immediately leaning down to inspect little Ellie. I forgot everything and went straight into my favorite activity I do with my niece. Mocking her.
I reach out and laugh as I flick the enormous bows tied into Ellie’s hair. “Oh my god! You look super ugly with those pigtails!”
“Hey!” Brad gasps, feigning deep offense and placing a protective hand over Ellie’s ears. “Don’t listen to your mean aunt, Ellie. And don’t teach her your bad manners.”
“Ouch. That actually hurts.”
He glances at me. His expression softened. “Do you want to carry her?”
I immediately take a step back. I don’t trust my good hand. Let alone my ruined one. Especially with a toddler.
“Oh, fuck no,” I chuckle. “I mean, just no. Straight no. How old is she right now anyway?”
“She’s four and a half,” Brad says proudly.
I shake my head in disbelief while looking at the tiny human. “Damn. This little thing grows up really fast after rips Em’s labia.”
The light mood shifts right away. Surprisingly not from my favorite fun fact of the human reproduction cycle.
Em steps closer. Her expression turned tentative. “Do you want to join us to have dinner with Mom tonight?”
I don’t answer. I don’t even look at Em. I just shift my gaze directly to Brad. Consider it as a silent and desperate plea passing between us.
Brad catches it instantly. He gives me a quick and understanding nod. I thought he was about to say something useful. Instead, he shifts Ellie on his hip.
“Shoot! I forgot Ellie’s diaper bag,” he says before disappearing through the front doors.
Em sighs. “I don’t know if you want to hear this but Brad took us straight to the house after picking us up from the airport. Mom wasn’t home unfortunately. We called her, but she didn’t pick up. Maybe she was out with her friends or something. So we decided we’ll try going back there tonight.”
I stare at the SELL box. “Brad said I need a break from Mom.”
From my peripheral view, I can see the immediate flash of sympathy in her eyes. She senses the discomfort, the heavy, the ugly truth that hangs between us.
Em is not stupid. She knows exactly how Mom operates. She knows that Mom completely checked out the moment the step-dad passed. Hell, Mom never even bothered to clarify the open secret about I’m the product of an affair she had with her younger lover.
Instead of facing it, Mom just chose to… actively erase me.
It started small. She’d leave the house before the sun was up and come back long after I was asleep. Then it escalated. She stopped answering my texts. Stopped picking up my phone calls too. It got to the point where I would sit in the resort for hours because I wanted to see her in the flesh. Only for her to make one of her employees break the news that she was too busy to talk to her own daughter.
Reading the history written in my silence, Em expression hardens.
“That man,” Em mutters while shaking her head. “You know what? Go get your jacket. We’re going to McDonald’s and you can get whatever you want for dinner.”
I blink at her. “But you just had a super long flight.”
“Let’s go, sweetie,” Em insists, pointing a finger at me as she heads toward the door. “Hurry up! Before I change my mind.”
***
Day 3 of Suspension
My knuckle is a complete disaster. All the work I did with the sheets earlier today managed to get dirt and dust caked into the wound. So we spent a good twenty minutes silently doing sterile ritual of cleaning and reapplying the splint.
The air in the room is suffocatingly heavy. Both Brad and Emily are so tense it’s making my skin crawl.
“What?” I finally snap. “Are you guys separating or something?”
Neither of them laughs. They don’t even give me a pity smile. The humor falls flat and dies in the space between us.
“Where’s your phone?” Brad asks.
“In the room I’m staying in,” I say, frowning. “It’s charging. Why?”
Brad and Em trade a look. It’s that exact knowing look that usually precedes something terrible. They look like they want to bolt but they don’t move an inch.
Brad sighs before squaring his shoulders.
“I’m going to tell you something and I need you to stay still. Don’t interrupt until I or Em finish. Can you do that?”
I can feel the shift in the room. The air feels thin. So I nod and keep my mouth shut.
“We, uh, we decided to save the resort. That part you already know,” Brad begins. “Em and I are fully responsible for this place now. We secured an investor. The bank finally approved the loan. And, as you know, the renovation starts next week. So we can be ready for the holiday season in June.”
I blink, waiting for the punchline. I have a dozen questions already. Who is the investor? What bank is crazy enough to give us money? Can the constructor dude do the whole renovation thing within months?
I swallow them down. This, objectively, has nothing to do with me. I’m just the kid in the corner. With little Ellie.
“And the reason I’ve been keeping you here,” Brad continues. “So I can keep an eye on you. Look, I’m not good at this and this is not me weaponizing incompetence because I can hear your voice mocking me in my head right now. I’m trying my best here. Em and I have been discussing other solutions for your situation.”
“My situation?” I ask, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
Brad gives me a look. Sharp, warning, and final. Enough to make me clamp my jaw shut.
“We know you’re struggling,” he says. “And we’re trying to help.”
Emily slides a glossy and expensive looking brochure across the table. I picked it up right away. It’s Eva Carlston Academy.
I don’t look at it thoroughly. The defensive wall in chest crumbles and is now replaced by a surge of white-hot panic. My vision is tunneling. I feel like I’m vibrating out of my skin.
“Are you… are you sending me into exile because I’m a bastard?” I laugh hysterically. “Because I ruined your perfect little family timeline? Are you fucking insane?! Utah?! What? You want me to be a Mormon too now? You want me wearing the apron and carrying a bucket full of fresh and unfiltered cow milk? Get my brain washed, too?!”
Em doesn’t look offended. But she does look exhausted.
“No,” she says firmly. “It’s a secular academy. Look at the facilities. Small classrooms. Equine therapy. An incredible culinary program.”
“Am I being sent away because I’m a reminder of everything you want to forget?!”
“No, sweetie. God, no.”
Brad tries to reach for my hand but I pull back.
“We’re helping you,” he says. “Look around. This town is toxic. The gossip is suffocating. And Mom–”
He pauses. His hand reached for Em blindly.
“Mom is struggling too. We can’t keep eyes on you and you can’t be here while we’re tearing this place down to the studs. Em and I are going to be living in the dirt for months. We aren’t exiling you. We’re giving you a clean slate.”
“Clean slate my ass. Why the rush?” I press, my voice rising. “The semester isn’t even over. Can I even enroll in another school this late?”
“Standard public school? No,” Brad explains. “But for a private crisis academy? Yes. They specialize in mid-semester intake. I have to stick to the timeline, peanut. Or else the back pulls the loan. Em and I are working on it. Don’t worry about the logistics.”
I stare at the brochure. Fuck. I pointed at it dramatically.
“This place looks expensive. We’re broke. How are you even paying for this?”
“Don’t think about the money,” he says, his tone brooking no argument. “That’s my job to fix. All I need right now is for you to cooperate. Can you do that for me? Please, peanut?”
I’m reeling. The floor feels like it’s tilted to a very weird angle. I don’t have the capacity to process this. Let alone agree to it.
“Can I… can I think about it?”
Brad glances at Em. She gives him a small and encouraging nod. He exhales. The tension in his shoulders dropped an inch.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Take your time.”
***
Weekend
I can’t sleep. I spend the hours before dawn cramming essentials into my backpack. Clean gauze, medical tape, a single bottle of water, the antibiotic pills, the ointment tube, and that glossy Utah brochure.
I look at my phone sitting on the nightstand. Its screen is dark and demanding. I decided to leave it behind. If they want to play the clean slate game, they can start by not tracking me.
Outside, the air is freezing. It takes me a few clumsy minutes to yank my yellow raincoat over my layers and tie my shoes. My immobilized left hand is completely useless for the task.
I leave the resort before the sky even thinks about turning gray. My boots crunching rhythmically against the ground. The walk back to the house takes about twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. I don’t know. I don’t count.
When I get to the porch, I reach under the ugly concrete goose statue. I find the spare key and slide through the front door without making a sound.
The first place I check is the garage. The step-dad’s car is gone. Figures. Sold it already. Probably to help fund Brand’s grand renovation or pay the tax.
My bike is still parked in the corner. That ridiculous purple thing with a basket on the front looks fabulous. But the second I look at it, reality hits. I can’t ride a bike with one hand strapped into a split.
“Fuck.”
I go back inside the house. Hunger is starting to gnaw at my stomach. So I headed toward the kitchen.
I freeze when I pass the living room. Mom is asleep on the couch. The TV buzzing with static in front of her. She looks like she’s having the time of her life, honestly. She’s still wearing one of her favorite party dresses. Her heels are still on her feet and her makeup is smeared across her face in dark and ugly smudges. Classic.
I don’t feel guilty when I open her purse. I go through her wallet and take every single dollar bill inside. I take two packages of condoms and a pack of so-called herbal cigarettes too.
On my way out, I stopped by the kitchen and cellar. I shoving a bag of expensive grapes and a bottle of wine into my backpack until the zipper threatens to pop.
Then, I started waking again. Where? I have absolutely no fucking clue.
The thought of heading toward high school crosses my mind for a split second. I kill it instantly. I don’t need the pity, and I definitely don’t need the looks. The most important thing is it’s Saturday and no one's there.
By the time I hit the main strip of town, the sun still hasn’t risen and the stores are completely dark. The only beacon of life is the 24-hour diner.
I step inside and order a dozen glazed donuts. The old lady behind the counter stares at me. Her eyes linger on my face like she’s trying to place a bad smell.
“Yup, I’m Eleanor’s affair child,” I say, tossing the stolen cash onto the counter.
The lady doesn’t even blink. “I know. I was just wondering what you’re doing out here so early.”
I don’t answer. I just shrug, tell her to keep the change, and walk back out into the cold.
When the sun finally breaks over the horizon, the initial adrenaline wears off and boredom sets in. I keep walking toward the outer edge of town while eating a donut while trying to awkwardly balance the cardboard box against my chest with my left arm.
That’s when I passed the rusty sign for the cemetery.
“Fuck it,” I mutter. “Why not?”
I get lost the moment I set my foot in there. I spend two hours wandering the rows and reading every single tombstone, trying to find the step-dad’s plot.
Yes, I can’t remember where they put him. And yes, it’s frustrating. But it’s not like I have a busy schedule today. So I take my sweet, sweet time. I do it while eating donuts and grapes. Reading the corny, deep, and try-hard messages families leave for their dead. It almost makes me wish I’d brought a notebook and pen to write them down. Or at least my phone so I could take a few photos.
The sun is directly overhead when I finally stumble upon his name. It’s hot and annoying. It doesn’t matter anyway. The ground still feels freezing.
I set the donut box on the grass next to the headstone. Then I shrug off my heavy backpack and drop it beside them.
For a long time, I just stood there. My eyes glued to his last name. Williams. I try to force myself to feel something. Grief. Anger. Anything. Seems like my internal monitor is completely flat. If anything, I’m just incredibly thirsty.
I crouch down and pull the wine bottle out of my bag. It takes me a humiliating ten seconds of picking at the foil to realize I don’t have a corkscrew.
“Fuck,” I mutter out loud.
I throw the bottle onto the grass in disgust and collapse next to it. Staring up at the sky, I try to make myself cry. I just want to see if I can. But the tears won’t come. So I just lie there in the dirt.
I carefully move my left hand to rest on my chest. I can hear the doctor’s voice in the back of my head about keeping it clean. I’m not in the mood to change this gauze again if it gets muddy.
Staring into the empty blue above me, the filter drops and I start venting to the grass.
“Why didn’t you just tell your wife to terminate the pregnancy?” I ask the stone. “What was wrong with you? Why did you take her back when she literally betrayed you? If I’m supposed to be the innocent one here, why the fuck am I the one dealing with all of this right now?”
I gasped for air. My chest heaving from how the anger is suddenly hitting me. I sit up, looking around the quiet plots for something, anything, to take it out on.
Before I can think it through, I’m on my feet. I kick the bottom of his tombstone. Lightly at first. Just testing the impact against my shoes. Then I start swinging my leg harder. Frantic and furious until my voice cracks into an ugly scream.
“First, you didn’t even want me but still welcomed me into your house! Fuck! You fed me and raised me! And now your wife doesn’t want me. She’s made that crystal clear. Now Brad and Em don’t want me either! What did I do to deserve this?! I’m not ready for this adult type of bullshit! I’m too young for this shit!”
I’m shaking. No. I’m burning through a lifetime of rage in thirty seconds. I drop to my knees, snatch up the heavy wine bottle, and wind up my right arm. I’m more than ready to smash it to pieces against his name and–
I hear a familiar voice calling my name.
I freeze. My right hand is suspended high in the air. Still clutching the neck of the bottle like a club. I look over my shoulder.
Standing a few feet away is Mr. Miller.
He looks completely thrown. His jaw slightly slack. He quickly schools his expression and slips off his sunglasses to reveal a black eye that is finally turning an ugly shade of yellow and green as it heals.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
Flabbergasted, I lower the bottle just a little. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you.”
Silence stretches between us. Looking for me? Why on Earth is my English teacher tracking me down in a graveyard? Is he still seeking some weird or delayed revenge for the fact that I gave him that exact black eye on Tuesday?
Mr. Miller moves with deliberate slowness. He makes it look like he’s approaching a stray animal that might bite. He steps forward, his hands held out in front of him, and gently wraps his fingers around the neck of the wine bottle. He gently slid it out of my grip.
I can tell he has about a million questions right now, but he keeps his mouth shut.
“I was returning the basket your mom sent the other day,” he finally answered my question. “Everyone at your house seemed frantic because you disappeared.”
A gear shifts in my head. “Basket?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, watching me closely. “Your mom sent a basket to my place because she felt terrible and kept apologizing about the incident. You know, pastries, cheese, some medical supplies.”
The information hits my brain and immediately untangles into a very straight and very dangerous line. My thoughts connect the dots with vicious accuracy.
The basket. The apology. Mom knocked out on her favorite dress. The fucking condoms I found in her purse!
A dark and cynical laugh slipping out. My mind jumps straight to the most volatile conclusion possible. This whole time, Mom wasn’t ignoring me because she was paralyzed by grief. She was avoiding me because she’s been too busy sleeping her way through the male population of this town to care. Coping with her dead husband by collecting dicks as trophies. And now she’s apparently moved on to my English teacher.
Wow. Fantastic. I really can’t believe this. Just a seamless transition from one shitshow to the next.
Even though I’m boiling, the logical part of my brain is trying to wave a red flag. Whispering that this is a reckless and unverified conspiracy theory and that I should probably fact-check before I lose it.
But the anger wins.
I reach into my backpack and yank out the glossy Utah brochure. I shove it hard against his chest.
He catches it, staring down at the sleek text. He reads it for a long and quiet moment, saying nothing.
Then he looks back up at me. His eyes searched my face. He looks like he wants to offer some kind of profound teacher-vibe comfort. Instead, he looks down at the brochure again. Then back at me.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks softly.
That’s the breaking point. The tears come out before I can stop them. So humiliating. I wipe them away aggressively with my good hand. I loath the fact that this is the second time this week I’ve broken down with a literal audience standing right in front of me.
“Brad and Em said it’s a clean slate,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word. “From this fucking town.”
Mr. Miller lets out a heavy sigh. His eyes still fixed on the paper in his hands, looking completely lost in his own head.
“How did you even find me?” I snap, desperate to change the subject.
He blinks, snapping out of whatever though he was drowning in. He gestures toward me. Toward the bright and blinding fabric covering my torso.
“I’ve been driving around asking everyone if they’d seen a girl in a yellow coat.”
I let out a sound that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob. I can’t even tell the difference anymore.
His tone dropped into something quiet and serious. “If Brad and Emily think it’s the best option for you, I think it’s best you stick with them.”
I look at the grass. Why do I want him to say something entirely different? Why do I want him to tell me to stay? Why do I want him to wipe my tears again like the other day?
I look up at him. I slowly nod my head. I hate that he’s right after all.
He doesn’t say anything else. He bends down, carefully gathering my discarded backpack and the box of glazed donuts from the dirt.
His voice was gentle as he turned toward the gravel path. “Come on. I’ll get you home.”
“I don’t want to go to the house,” I say, my shoes staying glued to the grass.
He stops and turns back to look at me. “Where do you want to go then?”
“The resort.”
He nods as he adjusts the straps of my bag in his hand. “Okay. I parked my car not far from here. Let’s go.”