Chapter Six - The Silent Ruin

Natalie's POV

Home wasn't home anymore.

Every creak groaned too loudly. Every shadow was hungry and breathing and starving to devour me whole.

Eddie gripped tightly, his hand wrapped around my elbow as if he feared I'd collapse at any moment. Maybe I would. Maybe I already had.

Victoria's heels clicked up behind us. Ankle-high and irritated, as if she was on her own schedule with every breath I drew.

"Come on, come on," she snarled. "You look dazed staggering around like that."

Eddie scanned around him, his voice level. "She left the hospital an hour ago, Victoria. Maybe calm down for once."

She snorted, cooling her indignation on her diamond cuff. "Calm down? Do you have any idea how much this little soap opera of hers cost? The Lawsons are in their Complete and Utter Panic stage. The tabloids won't leave her alone. She's turned a simple engagement into a bloody circus."

I gazed directly ahead of me and remained silent. "Circus" recurred in my mind, round and round, that it no longer seemed a word at all.

We went into the big living room. Victoria had made her way to the fireplace, her drumming fingers starting to wander on the scarlet nails on the red marble mantelpiece. "Sit," she said to me.

I was lying on the couch when Eddie slipped a hard, soft hand underneath me. I wrapped my hands in my lap. They were so small, so fragile.

Victoria. Walked back and forth. "I warned you about this, Natalie. About him. About what happens when you are not careful."

My voice was broken, splintered. "I was not being careless. It was an accident."

"Oh, please." She laughed, the laughter sounded evil. "An accident? Oh, convenient. One little tragedy and poof, you're in the clear, aren't you?"

Eddie pulled his head back towards Victoria. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Victoria provided him with a slow, sarcastic stare. "It means that she always had a knack for drama. Don't you realize what's happening here? Don't you realize that she would have known that if she had let that baby die, the Lawsons would sympathize with her instead of mud-sling against her?"

Eddie clenched his teeth. "You're unbelievable."

She smiled. "You're still standing here, aren't you?

My stomach twisted, but my speech was not ruffled. "You think I lost my baby for attention?"

"I think," she enunciated carefully, "you'll do whatever it takes not to have to clean up after yourself."

A fury boiled inside me. Not anguish. Not rage. That slow, poisonous burn that had been accumulating since Jake departed that hospital room.

Eddie's words snapped with rage, his voice increasing. "She almost died! You cold-blooded—"

My arm tightened around his into a fist, and he stopped talking.

"She's not worth it," I said quietly.

Victoria tilted her head. "Let her speak. Always so cool, always so reserved. Like that grants her a holier-than-thou stance." Her lip curled into disgust. "You're confusing quiet with inner strength, Natalie? It doesn't. It makes you pathetic and weak."

Eddie's eyes flashed into hers, his voice cold as a coffin. "You just keep talking to her like that, and I swear to God, Victoria—"

She interrupted him, her eyes blazing. "What? You'll hit me? Go ahead. Run it in the paper tomorrow — 'Natalie Hayes' gay best friend attacks her stepmother in family house.' That will just make it worse."

Eddie's fists were balled. "You're a terrible woman."

She smiled. "And you're her little protector. Loyal. Sympathetic. Reliable."

The air was dense, stifling. I felt like I was listening underwater, their voices dull, the light agonizing.

I seared with my chest for keeping it all in. The sobs. The screams. The pain.

At last, I spoke. My voice was low but clear.

"Enough."

Victoria blinked with shock.

I hard-glared at her.

"Cuss at me till the cows come home. But never refer to my baby as like it was a performance."

Her mouth dropped open. Then closed.

For once today, she was speechless.

Eddie's hand hovered over my shoulder, as if he wanted to reassure me, but didn't dare.

Victoria's face turned icy again. "You ought to be in bed," she snapped, flicking an imaginary crumb from her sleeve. "You look awful."

She spun on her heel and vanished, without even a backward glance.

The moment she was gone, Eddie exhaled. "Jesus Christ. That woman's—"

"I know," I whsispered.

He crouched down next to me, his voice soft. "Nat, you don't need to spend the night here. Just come home with me. I'll cook, you sleep, and you won't have anything on your mind about that snake looming over you."

I shook my head. "I cannot. If I leave now, she will make it worse than this."

Eddie exhaled and shoved his hair back across his forehead. "You're too damn sane for a woman losing her mind."

"Maybe that's the secret," I was gasping. "If I don't say anything, maybe it won't hurt."

He stood up and extended his hand. "Come on. I'll take you upstairs."

The climb seemed to take forever.

Every step rang out, every breath slamming against my ribcage. Eddie climbed up beside me, silently.

I pushed open the door to my room, and the lights were off.

The room was just the way I'd left it, makeup remaining on makeup table, picture of Jake and me remaining on bedside table. I felt ill at the sight of it.

Eddie set my bag down on the ground. "Would you like me to hang around for a while?"

I nodded like a moron. "For a while."

He settled back against the headboard, arms around himself, and I changed into one of my nice shirts. There was a thick silence there, and it was a good sort of thick.

"I don't get her," he said finally. "You'd do that to your own kid."

"She's not my mother," I said bluntly, sitting down next to him. "She plays mom."

Eddie did glance my way, really looked at me. "You don't have to be the quiet one, Nat."

"I'm not quiet," I clenched. "I'm breaking through."

He nodded, sensing more than I was. "You'll be okay. You always are."

I didn't respond. I just continued to stare out the window, garden lights glowing softly out there, and think, I used to dream of fleeing this house. Now I have to feel something again.

Eddie got up, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Try and sleep. I'll be downstairs if you want me."

When he'd left, the room was too big again.

Silence returned.

And when at last I was in bed, staring at the ceiling, the tears seeped in, not bursting, not splintering, but quietly, slowly, burning.

For Victoria had been mistaken.

I had not been trying to escape.

I was already stuck.