Finding Purgatory (12 page)

“If you want to go—” Ani began, but Tori interrupted.

“Forget about it.” She grabbed up the new laptop, tucking it under her arm. “Thanks for this.”

Without looking back at her sister, she ran upstairs to her room.

Ani had almost thrown the boxes away. It was Jett who had stopped her.

“I haven’t ever looked at these things. They’re just taking up space,” Ani had said when he put the boxes back in their place.

Jett looked sad as he brushed her cheek with a gentle caress. “Someday, you may want to,” he’d said in his reasoning-with-Ani voice. “And if not, maybe Mara would like to see them when she grows up.” At her dubious expression, he’d said, “If it’s the space you’re worried about, we’ll scan all the pictures. That’ll get rid of one box.”

Closing her eyes, Ani shoved the box away.

Jett had never gotten around to scanning all the photos of her family, and he never would. Mara would never grow up and get curious; she would never climb up here to the attic to search through the handful of boxes filled with the items her grandparents had left behind.

Ani slumped against the wall and pressed her hand against her aching chest, breathing slowly through the pain.

All the more reason to get this done, she reasoned as she straightened up. She pulled the first box toward her with an aggressive yank.

This was the right thing to do anyway. It was good Jett had convinced her not to toss the boxes. She didn’t have the right. She’d gotten used to thinking about Tori as that three-year-old little girl. Little children didn’t make big decisions. But in reality, Tori should have had as much say over what happened to their parents’ albums and knickknacks as Ani did.

Shaking off the remnants of her sudden grief, Ani reopened the box. She hesitated, but not many people could resist opening a photo album once it was right in front of them.

It had been so many years since Ani had even thought of these pictures. It was possible she had never looked at them. She’d never had the desire to before. That was part of what had her so irritated as she’d climbed up into the attic. The past was better left where it was. Her parents had died fifteen years ago. There wasn’t any point in dwelling on the life she’d lost.

The first album she picked up was a baby scrapbook of sorts, filled with her firsts—pictures, handprints, a lock of hair. It was bizarre to see how young her parents were. Just babies.

It was amazing and sad to note the difference between them and Tori. Though she was only a year or two older than they had been, Tori had an ancient, tired aura about her. In their first official photo with their newborn daughter, her parents looked like they were twelve years old and scared shitless, their eyes comically wide behind twin thick-framed glasses.

Ani put the first album back in the box and picked up the second.

Her parents’ marriage certificate was on the first page of this one. Ani traced her finger over their names, Eric Kane and Chelsea Martinez. The picture on the next page was of the three of them smiling. Happy. She’d been eight by the time her parents finally got around to getting married. It had been Chelsea’s grandmother’s dying wish to see her granddaughter legally bound to Eric.

Ani’s chest ached, and she had to take deep breaths to feel steadier. She didn’t realize how quiet the attic had gotten when her sister’s voice startled her.

“Ani. Ani, where the hell are you?”

Tori didn’t sound happy. The frantic edge to her voice had Ani up and scrambling down the ladder as quickly as she could go. “What is it?” she called. She stopped short when she looked over the banister. Her sister was at the bottom of the stairs, pacing.

The second Ani laid eyes on her sister, she could tell something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Tori was agitated, but that wasn’t what had Ani concerned. Tori’s skin looked drained and sickly. She was covered in a sheen of sweat, her hair damp with it.

“This is fucked-up, Ani. This is so fucked-up.” Tori wasn’t looking at her, but she was shaking her head as she paced.

“Honey, how are you feeling?” Ani asked as she hurried down the steps. She reached for her sister, but Tori twisted out of her grip. She stumbled, and Ani almost reached for her again to steady her.

“Really fucking creeped out, that’s how.” Tori was glaring, but Ani was much more worried at the way she swayed, unsteady on her feet. “How the hell could you not tell me they died here?” As she spoke, she waved her arms. The way she teetered, Ani was terrified she was going to fall.

It took Ani a few seconds to process what her sister had said. There was something physically wrong with the girl, but she was raving about something else. “What?”

“I had to find out on the fucking Internet your husband, your kid, and some stupid prick murderer died in this house? In this house. Where I live. That’s sick, Ani. That’s so sick. How could you not—” She clapped her hand over her mouth and bolted for the bathroom.

Ani waited until she heard the toilet flush before she knocked on the door. Tori didn’t answer. At the sound of her quiet weeping, Ani pushed the door open.

“I thought this shit was supposed to stop after the first trimester,” Tori said with a rasp. She looked terrible. Her head rested on her arm on the lip of the commode, and Ani could see the way she trembled.

“Well, sometimes you get very lucky and it lasts longer.” Ani stooped, wrapped her arms around her sister, and pulled her up. “Come on, honey. I’ve got you.”

It was a testament to how sick Tori felt that she didn’t pull away. She got up on shaky legs, leaning against Ani. “Seriously. Why the hell didn’t you tell me they were murdered? Murdered. In this house?”

“Have you eaten anything all day?”

Her sister groaned. “Every time I try, I . . .” She waved vaguely in the direction of the toilet. “I can’t be here,” she said as Ani led her out of the bathroom and up the stairs. “It’s too messed up. It’s disgusting. Where did they die? Where?”

“Not in your room,” Ani said as she pulled her along. “Come on. You look like you’re about to fall over. Just lie down.” She pulled back the blankets on Tori’s bed. “A little sleep will help, and I’ll see if I can find something easy to eat.”

Tori lay down, but she grabbed at Ani’s arm before she could leave. “Seriously. Where?”

“What does it—”

“
Where
? It matters to me.”

Ani looked away. It felt like her ribs were contracting, squeezing the hell out of her lungs. “The entryway. And h-he killed himself on the stairs.”

“Christ.” Tori covered her face with her hands and groaned.

“Get some sleep.” To her own ears, Ani’s voice sounded dead. “We’ll talk about it when you’re feeling better.”

Chapter 11: What You Want and What You Need

I
t had taken Ani days to convince Tori she needed to call her doctor in the first place.

“That’s what the doctor is there for,” she had said. “This is your first baby. She’s expecting you to call over things like heartburn. This is a big concern, Tori. If you’re so sick, you and the baby aren’t getting enough nourishment.”

“I know how this works. Pregnancy is supposed to be miserable. There’s supposed to be a lot of barf involved. This is the part where you’re supposed to say, ‘If you didn’t want to barf a lot, you shouldn’t have let that boy get anywhere near you.’ ”

The fact that she’d gotten sick with the flu at the same time her morning sickness came back didn’t help, but puking was par for the course for both conditions. No. Tori had refused. No, no, no. But then anything she ate and drank came right back up until she was dry heaving. She’d missed a week of school, and when her weight loss had become visible, Ani put her foot down.

“If you make me, I will carry you out of here. Don’t think I can’t. You’re as weak as a kitten right now.”

More than a little scared at that point, Tori had agreed.

Severe hyperemesis and dehydration—that was the diagnosis. The doctor told her to come in, took one look at her, and had her on an IV in minutes. The next couple of days passed in a medicated blur as Tori slept off the remainder of the flu and recuperated from the aftereffects of dehydration.

It wasn’t easy to discern dreams from reality, so when she woke up after yet another nap, it took her some time to realize someone was holding her hand. Whoever it was ran a thumb over across her knuckles, and Tori, overemotional as she’d been the last few days, wanted to weep at the soft, affectionate gesture.

“Tor?”

She sucked in a breath, startled into full consciousness at the sound of his voice. Opening her eyes, she found Raphe by her bedside. It was his hand around hers. “What are you doing here?” He couldn’t be here. Everything hinged on this one point. She yanked away from his grip.

“Where else would I be? Especially now that I know.”

She turned her head away from him. “Know what?”

“I don’t understand how you could keep this from me.” His tone was even, but she could hear the hurt in his voice, the anger under the surface.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play stupid.” There was never any bullshitting Raphe. “This is why you’ve been avoiding me.”

“No it isn’t. This isn’t any of your business.”

“How can you say that?” He put his hand on her arm again.

“Don’t touch me.” Tori pulled back with a glare. “I didn’t tell you about it because it isn’t yours, okay?”

The wide-eyed, stricken look on his handsome face made her look away again. “You’re lying.” He didn’t sound as sure of that as he might have wanted.

“You’re upsetting me. I’m sitting here in a hospital bed, and you’re upsetting me. Do the words
delicate condition
mean nothing to you?”

To her surprise, one corner of his mouth lifted at her words. “I don’t think anything about you could be delicate.”

Tori’s lips turned up and down as she fought a smile. Damn him. He’d always had the ability to make her smile when she was at her lowest or angriest. Right then, she resented it.

And adored it.

“But you’re right,” he said, his tone a bit lighter. “I shouldn’t be antagonizing you.” He paused. “If not me, whose is it?”

The hurt in his voice almost broke her. The truth was right on the tip of her tongue. Of course it was his baby. But then she was angry all over again. Angry at him for his soft, tender words in her ear. Angry because he made her stupid, too stupid. He was a charmer, and she didn’t want to believe him again. “You don’t know him. What does it matter?”

“Well, is he treating you right? He should be here.”

“Ha. Look, we were dumb kids who did a dumb thing.” This, at least, was the truth. “I’m taking care of it. My sister is going to take the baby, and that’s good.”

“Is that what you really want?”

Tori chuffed. She rubbed her fingers against her blanket. It was a stupid question. What she really wanted was for this not to have happened. There was no good option. She hated being pregnant, but she didn’t regret not going through with an abortion. She wasn’t at all sure about trusting Ani, but she wouldn’t consider letting a complete stranger adopt the baby. Ani owed her, and she knew it. Maybe it wasn’t much, but it was more assurance than she’d have with a stranger.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again instead of answering.

His features lightened, his lips tugging up at the corners. “You asked for me. I was glad.”

Tori’s head snapped up. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You asked for me. That was what your sister said. She said you even gave her my number.”

With a groan, Tori banged her head back against the pillow. “It was the drugs. I don’t want you here.”

He paused, his smile falling. “Why are you doing this, Tor? The least you could do is tell me what happened. At Christmas—”

“Christmas was a mistake.” Christmas was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

“So you keep saying. But I don’t believe you.”

“What a typical guy response. Like you’re God’s gift to women.”

“Cut it out.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his words were final. His tone gentled, and when he spoke again, there was a note of pleading to it. “Tell me what this is about.”

Tori looked away, biting the inside of her cheek.

He sighed. “If you tell me you don’t feel about me the way I feel about you, then I might recover one day.” He was joking again, but there was a hint of seriousness to his tone that killed her. “If you tell me you’re so mad at me, you’ll never speak to me again, then I will call you a liar to your face Victoria Eleanor Kane.”

She tried to hide a smile as she turned back to him. “I don’t hate you.”

Raphe grinned. “I know.”

Putting on a more serious face, he reached for her, resting his hand over hers. “Would things be better between us if we pretend Christmas didn’t happen? Go back to the way things were before? I just want to be your friend.”

Tori hesitated, torn. Her first instinct was to argue. Being friends with Raphe was what had gotten her here in the first place. He’d gotten too close, become too important.

And please. After what he’d pulled, he couldn’t expect her to believe the “just friends” line. Raphe might have been her friend, but he was also a guy. What he really wanted was another chance to get back in her pants. She wasn’t going to be naive about it.

Yes, they could talk. More than talk. Tori enjoyed conversations with him, and Raphe was one of very few people on the planet who could make her laugh. They’d met when she was fifteen. He was nineteen, and he hadn’t tried anything for years, but he’d always had this way of touching her. Little brushes of his fingers against her arm to get her attention. His hand on the small of her back. When he thought she was being silly and he teased her, he would rap his knuckles against her forehead.

After years of innocent friendship, shortly before Christmas, he’d told her he loved her. He was the first person since that other boy who’d said those words to her.

She should have known better. Of all people, Tori shouldn’t have let herself believe.

Just when she’d gotten herself good and indignant again, Raphe jutted out his lower lip. His eyes were wide, innocent, and pleading. He looked like a little boy when he did that. An adorable little boy.