NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

go, even though it makes me
uneasy.   If I don’t shield Finn from
distress, he could have an episode.   Obviously I couldn’t shield him from
losing mom, but I do my best to protect him from everything else.   It’s a heavy thing to shoulder, but if
Finn can carry his cross, I can certainly carry mine.   I unfold another sweater, then toss it in the Goodwill pile.  
    “After mine, we’ll have to do yours,” I
point out.   He nods.
    “Yeah. And then maybe we should do
mom’s.”
    I suck in a breath.   While I would like nothing more, just in
the name of moving forward, there’s no way.  
    “Dad would kill us,” I dismiss the idea.
    “True,” Finn acknowledges, handing me a
long sleeve t-shirt for the Keep pile.   “But maybe he needs a nudge.   It’s been two months.   She
doesn’t need her shoes by the backdoor anymore.”
    He’s right.   She doesn’t need them.   Just like she doesn’t need her make-up
laid out by her sink the way she left it, or her last book sitting face down to
mark its page beside her reading chair.   She’ll never finish that book.   But to be fair to my dad, I don’t think I could throw her things out
yet, either.  
    “Still,” I answer.   “It’s his place to decide when it’s
time.   Not ours.   We’re going away.   He’s the one who will be here with the
memories.   Not us.”
    “That’s why I’m worried,” Finn tells me.
“He’s going to be here in this huge house alone.   Well, not alone.   Surrounded by dead bodies and mom’s
memory.   That’s even worse.”
    Knowing how I hate to be alone, and how I
especially hate to be alone in our big house, I shudder.
    “Maybe that’s why he wants to rent out
the Carriage House,” I offer.   “So
he’s not so alone up here.”
    “Maybe.”
    Finn reaches over and flips on some
music, and I let the thumping bass fill the silence while we sort through my
clothes.   Usually, our silence is
comfortable and we don’t need to fill it.   But today, I feel unsettled. Tense. Anxious.
    “Have you been writing lately?” I ask to
make small-talk .   He’s always scribbling in his journal.   And even though I’m the one who’d gotten
it for him for Christmas a couple years ago, he won’t let me read it. Not since
he showed it to me one time and I’d freaked out.  
    “Of course.”
    Of
course. It’s
pretty much all he does.   Poems,
Latin, nonsense… you name it , he
writes it .  
    “Can I read any of it yet?”
    “No.”
    His answer is definite and firm.  
    “Ok.” I don’t argue with that tone of
voice, because honestly, I’m a bit nervous to see what’s in there now anyway.   But he does pause and turn to me.
    “I don’t think I ever said thank you for
not running to mom and dad.   When
you read it that one time, I mean.   It’s just my outlet, Cal. It doesn’t mean anything.”
    His blue eyes pierce me, straight into my
soul.   Because I know I probably should’ve gone to them. And I probably
would’ve, if mom hadn’t died.   But I
didn’t, and everything has been fine since then.  
    Fine.   If I think hard enough on that word, then it will be true.  
    “You’re welcome,” I say softly, trying
not to think of the gibberish I’d read, the scary words, the scary thoughts,
scribbled and crossed out, and scrawled again. Over and over.   Out of all of it, though, one thing
stood out as most troubling. One phrase.   It wasn’t the odd sketches of people with
their eyes and faces and mouths scratched out, it wasn’t the odd and dark
poems, it was one phrase.  
    Put
me out of my misery.  
    Scrawled over and over, filling up two
complete pages.   I’ve watched him
like a hawk ever since.   He smiles
now, encouraging me to forget it, like it’s just his outlet.   He’s fine now.   He’s
fine.   If I had a journal, I’d
scrawl that on the pages, over and
over, to make it true.  
    “Hey, I’m going to go to Group again
today.   Do you want to