Warning Signs (Broken Promises #2) (13 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I was standing in the white room with the hourglass filled with black sand and the large ticking clock, wondering where I would go next. When I heard the giggles of two little girls, I knew where I was headed.

“We meet again,” Mackynsie said with a hint of surprise.

I looked at my best friend. So beautiful and forever young. I only wished I could say that she had never known the true pain of the world we lived in. But she did, though it didn’t seem to affect her the way it did me. She extended her hand to me and leaned back as if to say we were going somewhere on an adventure like we used to do as children.

“Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” I asked her.

“We are going to your next obstacle.”

“What will I face?”

“You’re looking at what you’ll be facing right now.” She gave me a tender smile, taking my hand in hers. I followed her through the portal into the next dimension where the memories of our friendship played out. I saw us running through the playground, chasing each other and rolling around in the dirt. We didn’t mind so much about getting dirty. Her parents and my brother did, though. At the end of the day, we were happy kids.

I watched us grow up, and I saw the progression of our friendship that never completely fell apart.

“What happened to us?” I asked her as I watched our sixteen-year-old selves arguing over the phone.

“I was jealous, you were depressed and angry, and that made me angry. Because to me you had everything: freedom, money, no rules to follow but your own. You had a brother who cared for you and I had no one. I tried to move on from you, and you followed me. It pissed me off because I had found something that I was good at without you, but you came and made me look inferior.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t do that. Rosewood School was yours. It was before I came and it still was even after you were gone. I am not you, Mackynsie. No one can be you.”

Looking at me with an expressionless face, she said, “You became me after I died. You became someone you hated, and that someone was me.”

“Don’t say that, I—”

“It’s the truth! You hated what I had become and what was going on within the Royal Hierarchy. You wanted out but I refused to let you go. I held you hostage and when I died, you took my place and you were held hostage by the death grip of Crosley. You changed so much. You became the person I had become. Rosewood destroyed us.”

Her last words were quiet as a whisper.

“How can something like that—”

“High school is Hell on Earth. Especially when you feel like no one understands you.”

“You understood me.”

“I tolerated you because we were meant to be friends until the end of time.”

I looked at her sharply. “You
tolerated
me?”

“Yeah. You were different and so was I. I was a fool to think we could stay friends forever. If you thought we could make it to forever and beyond, you’re just as much a fool as I was.”

“Why bother tolerating me when you had so many other friends you could be with?”

“Because you had no one, and they weren’t my friends, you were.”

“So what, I was a charity case?”

“No. You didn’t make yourself that. But I envied you, and I wanted what you had. I wanted to be you, because I didn’t think you had a horrible life. But I’ve seen everything now, and I was so wrong.”

Shaking my head, I watched the rest of our memories unfold.

“Do you forgive me?” she asked.

“There’s nothing to forgive. I wasn’t the one who was wronged. You were.”

“I’m the reason you’re dead, Mackie. If it weren’t for me—”

“If it weren’t for you, we’d be in a worse place than this.”

With a wave of her hand, a new scene unfolded before us.

“What’s this?” I asked, not recognizing it as something from my memory.

“This is what would have happened if you hadn’t gotten drunk that night.”

I realized then where we were, in one of the bedrooms of the house from the fall break party we attended together for the last time. I saw her and Crosley in a familiar position. A gun was pointed at her head while she sat half naked on the end of the bed.

“Do it,” he demanded.

I watched with a sick feeling in my stomach. He forced her to go down on him, pressing the gun to her head. She wasn’t going to allow this to go much further though. She bit down, and he screamed in pain and shot her in the head. Everyone in the party had heard it, even over the loud music. Crosley’s friends that were guarding the door tried to keep the sober version of me out, but after a few one-two punches I was inside, screaming to the heavens at the sight before me. Crosley was bleeding from the bite, and Mackynsie had fallen to the floor, obviously dead.

“You killed her! You fucking bastard, you killed her!”

He then shot me dead. Every person who confronted him got a bullet in their brains. He killed almost everyone before the cops finally checked on us due to a noise complaint.

“You see, if you hadn’t saved me, more innocent people would have died. You would have died.”

“I thought I was supposed to die anyways?”

“Like I said, someone was watching over you.”

“Who was it?”

She shrugged. “No idea. But as I died, I was in a similar state like you are now. I saw this white cloak over you, and it covered you almost completely. It glowed so brightly I thought it was starting to become daylight. It brightened up everything around us. I don’t know who put it there, but it was because of that that you were spared.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Nothing here does. We go on because once our time runs out, or when we finally give up, we find all the answers we had been searching so tirelessly for.”

“It’s not my time. I know that.”

“Then keep fighting, Bea.”

“Forgive.”

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

She nodded and said, “He needs you to forgive.”

“There’s no one to forgive.”

“He needs you to forgive yourself.”

The wheels in my head were spinning—forgive myself?

“Why do I need to forgive myself?” I asked her. I didn’t want to cry. I couldn’t let myself this time. Not with her, definitely not with her.

“Because you deserve to be freed of the guilt you hold inside of you that comes from the self-blaming for my death.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. It’s not your fault.”

“Is there any world in which you could have lived?” I asked her.

“No, not really.”

“You shouldn’t have died.”

“I had been saved from a dull life filled with nothing but empty, broken promises and depression. I asked myself the same thing. What if I had lived? I would have suffered. It was my time.”

“But you were so young. It wasn’t time.”

“They always make you believe because you’re young and beautiful that you’re immune to death. Death doesn’t care how old or pretty you are. All he cares about is time, and when the time on your hourglass has run out, he will take you whether the world is ready or not.” She hugged me. “You have time still. You need to let go of me. Forgive yourself, because you are not to blame. Time is the reason I’m dead. Not you.”

I felt a weird sensation wash over me; I think it was relief.

“Good,” she said.

“You’re not going to disappear, are you?”

Mackynsie shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve got to take you somewhere else.”

She offered me her hand, and we began a journey through time and space—between life and death. When we reached our final destination, I saw an oddly familiar room.

“I hated that quilt,” Mackynsie said with disgust. Looking at the quilt in question, I knew what she was talking about.

“That belonged to Ben,” I said, and before I could comment further, Everett burst through the door along with Ben and Rian.

“Your sister is going to kill us,” Everett said in the middle of a laugh.

“She may, but there’s one thing stopping her.”

“What could possibly stop her?” Rian asked nervously, knowing of my ferocious powers.

When I came to the doorway, I stopped right in the center.

“Let me in!” I demanded.

Ben stood in front of his friends and shook his head. “No, you’re not allowed in here.”

Rian laughed. “Seriously, Bea? That’s all it takes to stop you?”

“Nothing can stop me!” I screeched.

“Then let yourself in.”

You could see my face battling the complexities of breaking the rules and doing what I had been told. I tackled Ben’s leg and took him down, along with the rest of them. Everett laughed, and he seemed so filled with joy in that moment. I almost couldn’t believe I never saw how much he cared for me then.

“Why am I seeing this?” I asked Mackynsie. She gripped my shoulder and turned away. As she left, I saw a figure approaching.

“Mackynsie, don’t leave. I don’t understand!”

Everything was spinning. Or maybe it was the anxiety of not knowing what was going to happen next. In the distance I heard the distinct sound of a clock ticking, and I realized I hadn’t been told how much time I had left.

“What does this mean? Where did you take Mackynsie? What is happening?” I cried out, not knowing if anyone could hear me.

“Love,”
a voice said. It was the same voice, but now I was wondering what it meant by “love.” I found my answer in the ocean of blue eyes and the sandy blond hair. He looked happy, as if there hadn’t been over a dozen bullet holes that took over his body.

I hid my face; I couldn’t let him see me cry. I didn’t want to look at him either. It still hurt too much.

“Bea, please look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I do, I’ll never want to leave.”

“You’ll leave this place, you need to trust me.”

“Everett Thompson, I’ve always trusted you.”

He reached for me, and despite my trust for him, I couldn’t allow him to touch me.

“Afraid to let me touch you?”

“I’m afraid, yes. Because you’re the only person who can make me melt and want to waste away to nothing.”

He laughed. “No, I’m not the only one anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Not what, but who.”

“Then who?”

“Splinter Nightingale.”

I froze, and without thinking, I slapped him right across the face.

“Well, you still know how to hit.”

“Shut up!” I shouted.

“Bea, listen to—”

“No, you can’t talk to me about Splinter.”

“Why? Because you were falling in love with him while you were fighting the urge to fall for me too?”

I shoved him, and he shoved me back. “If you want to fight, I don’t mind fighting you. It doesn’t count so much when you’re dead though. If you want to survive, get yourself together and realize that you love Splinter more than you could have ever loved me.”

“I never could love you. We never had the proper timing.”

“Well…” He looked back at the giant hourglass, then back to me. “We’ve got time now.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I imagined a beautiful, peaceful place to spend time with Everett. We lay together with our heads on the top of a picnic bench in the middle of a starlit sky. There was nothing but us, this bench, and the sky stretching for miles. Though we didn’t talk for a while, I was running out of time. I could hear the clock ticking in the distance, and looming nearby was the hourglass. The sand glowed like a star, and I saw how much was left from the top half, and how much had been emptied into the bottom.

“Love,”
the voice said.

“Who is that? Do you know?”

Everett shrugged. “I don’t know who it is, or if it’s even a who. That isn’t what we need to be talking about though.”

“You want to talk about Splinter.”

“No, actually I want to talk about us.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes, but I know that’s not what you really want.”

I sighed, and so did he.

“Bea, why can’t you let him in?”

“Because I—”

“If you’re going to say every person you let in dies on you, save it.”

I sat up in shock. “Then what do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say you’re afraid. Because that’s the truth; you’re afraid of losing people you love. Bea, everyone is a victim of death and time. Just because a few people you have loved were taken from you doesn’t mean others will meet the same fate.”

“What if they do?”

“They won’t.”

“What if you hadn’t been taken from me? That was my fault. I put you in the middle of things and you died for me.”

“You didn’t ask me to die for you. I did it anyways.”

“But what if you hadn’t? What if I hadn’t gotten you into that mess?”

“You mean what if you had never agreed to meet me that night?”

“Yes.” With a wave of his hand, a new scene unfolded before me. “You’re about to find out.”

Everything unfolded before me. I died, and so did Ben. The band broke up; Everett suffered from depression, addiction, and the desire to die. He tried to love again, but he didn’t. At least not for long. He went down the rabbit hole and never came back up. He suffered until he decided to end his own suffering. He looked at all of the memories he had made with people he had lost and swallowed a bullet.

“I was a drug addict, Bea. It runs in my family. Everyone has some sort of vice. I had been real good at avoiding it, but I had fallen from grace. The first party of the tour I took a taste of something I didn’t know if I couldn’t let go of. Soon enough, if things had been different, I wouldn’t have stopped. I wouldn’t have stopped for anyone.”

“I would have been the end of your happiness.”

“Yeah, you would have if you hadn’t met with me that night.”

“So you want me to believe that it’s okay that you died because if you hadn’t I would have broken your heart?”

“You had already broken my heart. If you had chosen a different path, things would have ended differently for both of us.”

I tried to understand all of this while I tried to figure out why the voice with no body kept repeating itself:
Love, love, love.

“What am I supposed to love?” I asked Everett after hearing the voice go on forever.

“You’re supposed to love me.”

I laughed. “I
do
love you. I just…I don’t know how to love you the way I’m supposed to.”

“You do know how. You pretend you don’t so you won’t get hurt.”

Tears ran down my face. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Why would I go?”

“Every time I make it through an obstacle, the people I’ve dealt with disappear.”

“Except for me. Bea, we’re running out of time.”

The ticking of the clock became louder, and the pile of sand grew larger in the bottom of the hourglass.

“We’ve got to get a move on.”

“But I’m not ready!”

“You are. You just need to remember the one thing that was left unsaid,” Everett said.

I shook my head.

“Bea, stop this,” Mackynsie said.

“Go away, Mackynsie!” I glared at her for she was breaking into something that was meant for only me. “Please go! You don’t need to guide me or follow me around. I’ve gone long enough without you!”

I was angry, but I didn’t know why.

“Bea—”

“GO!”

She disappeared. I kissed Everett’s lips, and it didn’t feel the same. I can’t explain how it felt. But it wasn’t him, not really.

“Bea, tell me what I never got to hear.”

“I can’t. It’s not true.”

“It is, and you know it.”

With tears in my eyes, and with my body shaking like a leaf in the wind, I tried to form the words I knew I needed to say to him, yet I knew it would be the ones that took him away from me forever.

“I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I’ll never leave you. I’ll always be near.”

“It’s not the same, you know that.”

“It may not be, but it is enough.”

“Is it really?”

He nodded, and I turned away to hide my tears. I let go of him, and he allowed me some room to breathe.

“I love you, Everett Thompson.”

With that, he was gone. Everything turned back to the stark white room with the large ticking clock and the black sand hourglass. I couldn’t move on. I wasn’t ready. I banged against every wall there was, throwing myself against them to release the pain of heartbreak. It wasn’t enough, so I screamed. I screamed until I lost my voice. I didn’t know what was next. I couldn’t possibly know.

“Love,”
the voice said.

“Shut
UP!
” I screamed. “Shut up, shut up,
SHUT UP!”

I tried to throw randomly appearing objects at the ceiling; they disappeared and reappeared. I was lost. I hated time and I hated death. Both were cruel, and they were to blame for my losses.
I didn’t want to go on like this…I
couldn’t
go on like this. Soon enough I had calmed to hiccups, and in the distance I heard screaming. It sounded like a girl. I followed the sounds of screaming until I approached a little girl. From behind, she looked like I did as a child.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

When she turned around, I realized why she looked at me. She
was
me
.

I sat with her in her bloody dress, rolling a ball back and forth. I didn’t know why she was here, though I didn’t want to make her talk. Was this the last test?

“Love.”

“Do you love me?” she asked out of the blue.

She looked up at me, and I sighed. “Of course I do.”

“But you hate yourself.”

Her words stung. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Then you must hate me too.” She began to cry.

“I don’t hate you! I told you I love you.”

Mackynsie sat down next to me. “Bea, if you hate who you are, you hate all of who you are. Child, adolescent, adult—you hate all of it without thinking of it. It’s how it works.”

“How what works?”

“Your life.”

I looked at the tinier version of me and to Mackynsie and back again. “This is the last obstacle isn’t it?” I asked.

They both nodded.

“Love yourself entirely, and become enlightened and at peace,” Mackynsie said and disappeared again. I was left alone with the little girl, the little girl I used to be.

I didn’t know how to love myself, so I sat with her until the voice said,
“Time is running out. You must complete the course, or you will cease to live.”

“Ben needs you,” the tiny version of me said.

“How so?”

She waved her tiny arm and continued to play by herself while I looked at the view of my body still and barely alive in the hospital.

“He loves you so much. If you die, he may never love again.”

“Why is that?”

“Same reason you refuse to love Splinter.”

“No,” I said. “He can’t do that to himself.”

“You do it to yourself every day!” she screamed. She resumed her playtime, and I watched my brother hang onto my body as life slipped away from me.

“Beatrice,” I said to the little girl.

“Yes?”

“If I love myself, will I live?”

“Probably. If you fight enough, sure.”

I sat down next to her again and sighed. “What do you like about yourself?” I asked her.

“My eyes. They’re not the same as other eyes.”

A smile crept up on my face. “What else?”

“My hair. Everyone wants my hair.”

With a laugh, I agreed with her. “Yes, our eyes and our hair are to die for.”

“You’re very pretty,” she told me.

“I am.”

“Are you okay if I leave?” she asked. “It’s time for my nap.”

“Sure. I’ll figure things out on my own now.”

She skipped off, and once again I fell into a mess of tears. So many things made me who I was, and I wasn’t sure I could love every bit of it. How could you love yourself when you’re entirely flawed and have rough edges?

“Honesty.”

Was this the answer? Being honest with yourself made it easier to love who you were?

“Bravery.”

The voice continued to list things out every time I asked myself a question.

“Loyalty, selflessness, kindness…”

It went on and on, and I realized these weren’t just a normal list of traits; they were what made me who I was. I
was
honest, I
was
brave, I
was
loyal and selfless and kind. At least, I could be.

“Enough,”
they said.

I cried, because I
was
enough. I was enough, I was enough,
I was enough.
I had to keep telling myself that, and as I looked to my brother, I knew I had to live not for him, but for me. I needed to be happy; I needed to be enough reason to keep on living.

“You’re almost out of time.”

I looked at the hour glass and saw how much sand was depositing into the bottom. There was barely enough left to keep me here.

“I am enough,” I spoke into the void. “I am enough, and I don’t need a reason better than that to live. That is a good damned reason to live. I am enough, and I will not stop until I can say I have lived happily and fully. I will get what I deserve—I am enough!”

The sand ran out, and the clock stopped ticking. The stark white turned into pure black, and I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know if I was dead, alive, or a bit of both.

“Well done. Now go on, wake up.”

I tried to wake up, but I couldn’t. I heard my heart rate flat line and the machine monitoring me screeched.

“No, no! I did it! I did everything I was supposed to!”

I couldn’t see what was happening around me. I felt electric shocks to my heart, and it made me feel faint. With every shock, the fainter I felt. They shocked my heart until I felt nothing, heard nothing, and saw nothing but light above me.