Chapter 8 – Flashback of Sister’s Suffering
Sam's POV
They say memories fade. That grief dulls, softens around the edges, makes things easier with time.
But mine don’t fade. They come sharp, vivid, like cuts across my skin. Especially when I’m alone.
Especially when Declan smirks.
When I hear laughter that’s just a little too loud.
When I smell the cologne some of them wear, that same sharp, musky scent I once smelled clinging to my sister’s sweater.
I can’t escape it.
I close my eyes, and I’m back there.
She was different after that night.
Before, Lily had this brightness. The kind you couldn’t ignore. She laughed too loud at the dumbest jokes. She sang while doing dishes, off-key and dramatic like she was auditioning for Broadway. She’d make up silly rhymes to get me to study, or pull faces just to make me crack when I was in one of my moods.
She was light.
And then she wasn’t.
I remember finding her in the bathroom the first morning after. Sitting on the floor in front of the shower, knees pulled up, hair wet and tangled. She hadn’t even dried herself properly. She was just sitting there, shaking.
Her eyes snapped to mine when I stepped in. Wide. Wild. And then she looked away so fast it was like I wasn’t supposed to see.
“Lily?” I whispered.
“Go, Sam,” she muttered. Her voice was broken glass.
I didn’t. I sat down on the floor beside her, ignoring the damp tiles soaking through my pajama pants.
She didn’t speak. Not for a long time. Her arms were wrapped around herself so tightly I thought she might shatter if I touched her.
Finally, she whispered, “They’ll get away with it.”
My chest seized. “What do you mean? Who—”
Her eyes flicked up to mine again, and for a second I saw it. The terror. The shame. The bone-deep knowing that the world was already tilted against her.
“They’re rich,” she said, voice flat. “And I’m… no one.”
She never said their names. But I didn’t need her to. I knew the boys she hung around sometimes. I knew the rumors about them. I knew the way they looked at girls like we were toys they could pick up and toss aside.
And I hated myself for not stopping her. For not protecting her.
That night, I heard her crying in her room. Quiet. Like she didn’t want me to hear.
But I did.
And I sat there, on the other side of the wall, fists clenched, listening to my sister break apart piece by piece.
Weeks passed, and she tried. God, she tried.
She smiled when our mom asked if she was okay. She laughed when she thought I wasn’t watching. She kept her grades up.
But I could see the cracks.
She flinched at sudden noises. She avoided certain streets. She stopped singing.
Her light was gone.
I remember the day she broke for real.
It was late. I’d come home from the library, books still under my arm, and I heard her voice from the kitchen. I thought she was talking to Mom, but when I stepped in, she was alone.
Alone, whispering to herself.
“No one will believe me. No one cares. They’ll bury it. They’ll bury me.”
She was pacing, hands tugging at her hair, eyes red-rimmed.
“Lily,” I said softly.
She froze. Her gaze snapped to mine, and there it was again—that same wild look I’d seen in the bathroom.
“Sam,” she said. Just my name. But it carried everything. Fear. Anger. Hopelessness.
I dropped my books and rushed to her, but she stumbled back, shaking her head. “Don’t. Don’t touch me. I’m dirty.”
“You’re not—”
“I am!” she screamed, voice cracking. “I can’t wash it off, Sam. No matter how many times I scrub, it’s still there. I feel them on me.”
Her words carved into me, deep and raw.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to fix it. So I just cried with her, standing there in our tiny kitchen, both of us breaking.
The night she died, she was calm.
That’s the part I can’t forgive myself for.
She made us dinner—mac and cheese, her favorite comfort food—and she even made me laugh. For a second, I thought maybe we’d turned a corner. Maybe she was healing.
But when I woke up the next morning, the house was too quiet.
Her room was too quiet.
And I found the note.
Just four words, scribbled in her shaky handwriting.
“I can’t do this.”
I snap back into the present with a jolt. My nails are digging into my palms so hard I’ve drawn blood.
The dorm is loud around me, laughter and footsteps echoing down the hall, but it feels like I’m underwater. My chest aches, my throat burns.
This is why I’m here.
This is why I cut my hair. Why I bind my chest. Why I’ve thrown myself into the lion’s den.
Because Lily deserved justice. And no one gave it to her.
If the world won’t, then I will.
I swear it on her grave.
I wipe at my eyes quickly before anyone can notice.
But when I glance up, Elias is watching me from across the room.
Not smirking. Not curious. Just… watching.
And in that moment, I know—
If I’m not careful, he’ll see through everything.