Divide (5 page)

Holland

When the phone rang Sunday afternoon, I knew who waited on the other end before I even picked up. Something tugged at my heart, pushing me to answer the call, something I couldn’t ignore, even if my mind told me to ignore it.

I shook my head, irritated that my brother obviously gave my number out.

I picked up the phone, ignoring the odd feeling that tugged at my chest. That would have to be addressed at some point, but so would the ever-evolving grayness in my eyes, the feeling of spinning out of control that I often fought, and frankly, I hadn’t a clue how to go about analyzing any of it.

“Hello?” I crossed my fingers, hoping that I’d waited long enough to answer, and that by the sixth ring, the caller had given up.

“Hello. May I speak with Holland, please?”

No such luck.
Ugh.
Just as polite on the phone as he was in person.

“This is she.”

“Hey Holland, this is Mick Stevenson—Rosemarie’s brother?”

“Are you asking me if you’re Rosemarie’s brother?” I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Wow. Ah, no. I’m definitely Ro’s brother. No doubt about that.”

I took a seat on the chaise lounge in the living room, waiting for Mick to continue.

“I hope you don’t mind, but your brother gave my sister your number, and—”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that.”

“Do you mind?”

Yes.
“No.”

“So, well, I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re pretty amazing, and I—”

“Let me stop you there, Mick. I appreciate the compliment, I do, but I have to be honest with you: I’m not on the market.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“You have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Hmm. You’re celibate?”

“Oh my God! Um,
no
. But that’s not your business!” I giggled again, in spite of myself.

“You hate men?”

“No!” I stretched my legs out and leaned back into the seat, surprised as my body relaxed. My smile grew. Damn. I’d have to hang up soon. “I don’t hate men, Mick, but thanks for asking. I’m not…looking for a boyfriend, okay?”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his retort. I settled further into the chaise cushions, cursing myself for not hanging up, and knowing I wouldn’t be saying goodbye to Mick any time soon.

I threw my arm across my eyes.

I was screwed.

Mick

Ro spent most of Saturday with Holland’s brother, fueling my irritation. How could she so easily start something with Cameron when Holland was the one in trouble, the one who needed us? I needed Ro’s help in this! I’d paced most of the afternoon, probably wearing a path in the carpet, and working off of less than three hours of sleep. I’d done nothing but toss and turn after the cab dropped me off around three this morning, so the exhaustion wasn’t helping.

When Ro walked in the door late Saturday night, I just about flew out of my desk chair to meet her.

“Whoa! What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Where have you been?”

She cowered slightly, and I backed up a step. I sucked in a deep breath. I wasn’t really mad at my sister; I was mad that I’d somehow scared Holland off last night, or that my plan was ruined. I’d spent years creating the steps, the vision of how I would save her…

After she came out of the bathroom at Denny’s, she wouldn’t meet my eyes, and she didn’t say more than a few words to me on the way home—just enough to give me directions to her house, and a curt
goodnight
. While I waited for a cab, I debated knocking on her door. Or finding her window and flinging pebbles at it. Or…well, had it been earlier, I would have just knocked and asked her what I’d done to upset her.

I couldn’t figure out what I’d done to make her shut down like that. All because I’d called it a date? Could that really be the issue? Or was it that I told her I believed she didn’t burn down her ex’s home?

“I was out with Cam, Mick. I told you that. Didn’t you see my note?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Wait a minute,” Ro said as she slung her backpack down by the front door and plopped on the couch. “What are you mad about? That I’m hanging out with him? He’s really cool, Mick.”

“Yes. No. I mean, yes. Ah!” I sat down across from her in the old brown Lazy-Boy and ran my hands over my face. My blood ran hot in my veins. I inhaled a deep breath, then brought my hands to my lap, and my gaze to my sister. “No, Ro. I’m not mad that you’re hanging out with him. I mean, of course I want you to be happy, kid. This isn’t a protective older brother thing, honestly. It’s just…” I ran my hand over my head, trying to make sense of my chaotic thoughts. The plan
had
to work. Holland’s life depended on it. “I’m just so worried. I don’t have a lot of time, and Holland seems to hate me—”

“Oh, please. Let me stop you there. There’s no way she hates you. I saw the way she watched you last night. And apparently she
hates
pool—like, we’re way past the normal hatred of a sport—so the fact that she played pool with you says a lot. Girls don’t just do that.”

“Well, I may have scared her off.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know. I told her I didn’t think she’d tried to kill her ex.”

“So? That seems like a good thing, right? What else?”

“I called it a date.”

“Oh, geez, Mick. Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you that’s ridiculous, but after talking to Cam about her…I don’t know, she seems pretty anti-dating. I guess that Rod guy really messed her up.”

“There’s that, and the fact that she probably has no idea what’s happening to her right now, only that something is.” I rubbed my hands down my face. “So, tell me—from a chick’s point of view—how do I get her to go on another date with me, if she refuses to date?”

“That’s easy. I know exactly what to say to get into her head.”

“Get into her head? Don’t scare her again like you did when you first approached her.”

“Mick!” Ro threw a hand to her chest in mock shock. “I’m hurt! How could you say something like that?” She laughed and continued. “I didn’t scare her; she just thought I was a freak. Which I am. Proudly.”

Ro’s smile was contagious, and before long, I grinned back at her.

“You’re
my
freak, and I love you.”

“I know. But do you want to love me even more? Because if you do, I might have seven digits for you. Seven
special
digits.”

Ro held out a folded piece of lined paper, which I assumed contained Holland’s phone number. I grabbed at the scrap of paper, but she pulled it out of my reach.

“Nope! Not so fast! How much do you love me? Is it like,
pat-on-the-back
love, or
make-me-a-Mick’s-famous-grilled-cheese
love?”

“I’ll make you a grilled cheese. All you have to do is ask.”

“Awesome. I’m starving!” She handed me the paper and flopped back down on the couch, stretching her legs out in front of her. She reached for the remote, turning the TV on and flipping through the guide.

“Doesn’t your new boyfriend feed you?”

“First of all, he’s not my boyfriend…
yet
…and second of all, we weren’t thinking about food, if you catch my drift.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at me, and I would have laughed if I were anyone but her older brother.

“Don’t make me have to pummel this guy, Ro. Keep little bits of info like that to yourself from now on, please.”

“Oh, fine, Grandpa. But it’s not like I’m a little kid, you know.”

“Uh-huh. So, what are you going to say to Holland?”

“Please. Like I would tell you? These are top secret girl secrets, Mick. Sorry.”

I shook my head, then set off to the kitchen to make Ro’s dinner, stuffing the paper in my back pocket. I didn’t want to call Holland too late tonight, so I’d wait until tomorrow. Maybe she’d be done hating me by then.

Walking up to a house I didn’t recognize, I was suddenly aware of being watched. The weight of unseen eyes weighed on me as I slunk through the bushes, but when I stopped to look around, I saw nothing.

I crept up to the house and stood as rigidly flat as I could, trying to blend into the shadows cast on the wall. I looked around again, but still, it seemed I was alone. The streets were empty, and all the windows in the neighboring homes were dark.

I tilted my head toward the moon, still high in the sky. No one would be out at this hour, and anyone inside should be sound asleep. Somehow, I knew there were only two people inside, and that the others were away, but I don’t know how this information came to me. I didn’t even know where I was, or who this house belonged to.

I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing the cool air to brush my face. I inhaled the salty ocean breeze and let it fill my lungs.

I used to love this place. But it didn’t feel like home any longer.

Wait, what? Where had that thought come from? How could I love this place when I didn’t know where I was?

Breathing in the all-too-familiar sea breeze, that same feeling of familiarity washed over me. Home. Safety. And then…the strongest of the feelings…betrayal. So strong it was almost palpable.

How a place so foreign to me, could bring on such intense emotions, I had no idea.

I glanced down and picked up a bulky gasoline container by my feet. My hands moved of their own accord, opening the container and tilting it over, allowing the gasoline to flow from inside.

I panicked, but I wasn’t able to stop my body from performing these actions.

A wave of calmness hit me, soothing me momentarily, but then I pushed past it, my panic reasserting itself in the forefront of my mind. This was all wrong. Where was I? What was I doing there?

I made my way around the entire house, up onto a wooden porch that wrapped from the front of the house to the back, all the while pouring out a steady flow of gasoline.

I heard the waves crashing on the shore; the rhythmic sounds masking my footsteps and the sound of the flammable liquid hitting the deck.

When I ran out of gasoline, I returned to my first spot and obtained a second large container, resuming where I’d left off.

All the while, I commanded myself to stop, but was unable to do so.

When I was finished, I stuffed the empty gasoline containers into an opening under the patio deck in the back. I have no idea how I knew it was there, yet I’d walked straight to it.

Disoriented and out of place, not recognizing a single object of my surroundings, I was illogically calm and at home. Part of me was soothed by the unmistakable sense of belonging I found here.

I took one last look at the home I’d never seen before, but somehow
knew
, and pulled a lighter from my pocket. After retrieving the lighter, I pulled a picture out of my pocket. The photograph was worn, and showed the telltale signs of having been bent up and crumpled more than once, but I pulled it open to take one final glance. I recognized the blonde girl in the middle, but not the pretty redhead to her left, or the jock on her right. Deep down, something inside me broke at the sight of the three of them together. Familiar and sacred—this threesome—and without a doubt, the hallowed bond had been broken beyond repair.

Next, I pulled a letter from the same pocket and crumpled it up into a long messy torch. I lit the end, noticing the words Best Friends Forever as the fire began eating the paper in my fingers.

I threw the burning paper and the picture into the gasoline and watched as it very slowly ignited into a massive wall of flames. They licked and lapped at the side of the house as waves would caress a boat in the sea. The heat came quickly, my face warming at the sight of it. I closed my eyes.

“Holland! Stop!”

I turned at the sound of the voice—my voice—and faced what looked like me, but couldn’t be me. Shaved head, green eyes—everything matched, but if I was here, how was I also standing just a few feet away and calling Holland’s name?

“Holland,” my mirror image asked, “What have you done?”

He—my double—pointed toward my hands. I followed his gaze, and saw hands that didn’t belong to me. I hadn’t noticed them before.

They were not my hands. They were feminine hands, with shiny pink nails and a raised heart ring on one finger.

“Shit!”

I sat straight up in bed, sweat binding my t-shirt to my skin. I ripped the shirt off, trying to make sense of what happened.

I’d watched her—no, I’d
been
her—as she lit her ex-boyfriend’s beach house on fire. That would explain the comfort and sense of home I’d felt there, when I’d never seen the place before in my life. But wait. I had seen it. In photos. But still, those were Holland’s feelings, not mine.
She
felt at home there.
She
was completely calm while setting fire to a building.

She’d thought—no, she’d known—two people were inside.

Two people.

Her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend.

I jumped out of bed and powered up my laptop. I didn’t have far to search—the beach house fire was still pretty popular as far as news stories go. They hadn’t caught the person who’d started the inferno, but they knew it was arson.

All fingers pointed to Holland.

I clicked on a photo of a side by side, the beach house as it originally stood, next to an image of the charred remains—a blackened footprint on an otherwise pristine beachfront row of homes.

She’d done it. I knew that going into this, regardless of how much I wanted to pretend otherwise. I knew the way the curse would show itself. I knew the darkness inside Holland would act out, unbeknownst to her, hidden crimes she’d never remember committing.

But I hadn’t lied when I told her I knew she didn’t do it. That part was true. She didn’t do it. That Holland wasn’t the
real
Holland. I would never blame her for acts of violence beyond her control. That’s not what the men in my family did.

Our shared dream disturbed me. Even more so than the not really needed, but nonetheless upsetting confirmation that Holland had indeed committed that crime. If I’d just seen Holland’s misdeeds in my sleep, and we’d begun sharing dreams, I was running out of time. She’d change soon. The darkness would take her over, little by little, until her crimes escalated further.