Echysis

Shadows creep along the thin wooden planks of my gloomy blue walls, where flat idols stare from their place among the darkness, and floating shelves harbor memorabilia. A dusty black frame hides her face from the light, so those violent eyes can cease their torture and that sweet mouth forever curves upward with a smile. Why didn't she stay? Was it because of me? My brother?

The skeleton of twinkling lights hangs dead above my bed, where Lux's feathered blonde hair used to roll off and touch the floor when she laid on her back. I'd sit in arms reach marveling at her narrow chin and bony cheeks. I miss the purr of her chest beneath my fingertips and the heaviness of her laughter. Does she still think of me?

I thought I could endure her absence, but since my brother's death, I crave her warmth nestled beside me. She said that my grief manifested as obsession. How could my thoughts point towards something pure when his killers were acquitted? They didn't see his layered corn hair become stringy and dull or the toothy grin, which used to crease his cheeks, flip upside-down or his smooth, slender arms thicken with purple ribbons from self-inflicted wounds.

Who could withstand the sight of their brother turning into an abyss? He wouldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. All I wanted was to find a way to close his wounds. Finally, I found the answer twelve hours before the anniversary of his death.

A muffled whine escapes the lump beneath a dingy green sheet on my floor. I watch it bob side-to-side. This is my offering to him—to Caelum. I lean forward causing the old office chair to screech, then I grab hold of the blanket and fling it onto my bed.

Two brown eyes dart around the room until they drift upward and meet mine. I savor the sight of Elio’s skin, which bulges over a scratchy tan rope like strange white bubbles ready to pop. Both arms are secured firmly behind his back with a fair amount of wrapping around the shoulders to keep them in place. His slender, hairy legs pump awkwardly against my fuzzy blue carpet as he struggles to free himself from the knots. Sweat slithers down his face, dripping off the end of his nose, and catching stray curls along his forehead. He reminds me of a worm. A pathetic. Little. Worm.

I cross my legs and lean back, releasing the shrill cry of the chair. A sudden pain stabs at my back. I must've pulled a muscle when I loaded him into Dad's truck. No one saw me, I think. Elio isn't wide, but he's built like a horse—a tight, muscular body and clean yellow skin with an elongated face. What do girls see in him? Maybe it's his boyish shoulders, which enlarge when he flexes, or the whiteness of his smile paired with his thick black hair. I've always been overlooked, but after stripping him bare, I can see that I have far more sex appeal.

Drool spills down Elio's chin as his teeth clamp around a rubber ball gag. Innocence dances beneath his lashes, turning my stomach, and tightening my chest. Half of me wanted to hang him from a tree by the Lethe River, and watch his legs kick out for something to stand on, and hear the sickening squelch of an exhale from his throat, and relish in the stillness afterwards. Unfortunately, Caelum didn't have the luxury of death—not at first.

I lunge forward and snatch a fist full of Elio’s brown curls.

“Don’t you wonder what it felt like?” I hiss.

Elio slobbers unintelligible words through the gag, yet I know what he's saying. It's the same thing he told the courtroom nine months ago. My heart slams into my chest as I yank him around.

“A prank?” I shout.

He whimpers and nods. There's a gleam in his eyes, a hint of knowing what he did was wrong yet lacking tears of remorse. I recognize that look because I too lack remorse. Where my heart used to reside is a pit that I can't seem to fill. Caelum put it into words so perfectly the night before his first attempt. He said, “Ever since that day, I’ve felt numb and I’m scared I'll never feel anything again.”

I found him an hour later, bleeding out on a suicide note, which asked us to be happy for him. When I learned that he'd been cutting himself, I didn't know what to say or how to react. He begged me not to tell Mom and Dad. It was because I kept a secret that he grew bolder. He was confined to a psych ward for several months. I wasn't allowed to see him every day like I wanted, so I met with him once a week. We thought that he was becoming more stable, but he was putting on a show for us—to make us feel better.

“I guess that's what this is then,” I whisper to Elio. “An innocent prank.”

Elio starts to mumble, making me more frustrated so I pull the gag from his mouth.

“It was four years ago,” he whines. “We were just stupid teenagers.”

The lines on his cheeks remind me of Caelum's swollen wrists. If that hunter hadn't been by the river, then Caelum would have been missing for days before we found him. His body would have bloated, face unrecognizable, skin bleached to white—maybe even green. Bile jumps out of my esophagus and I cover my mouth.

“Let me go," Elio pleads.

My nails scrape my lips as my fingers curl, then I punch him. The smack of my knuckles against his cheek doesn't feel hard enough, so I do it again until his left eye is swollen and his lips split open. My fist shakes as I draw back for another strike. Blood trickles down my wrist like fingers locking me in place, then I hear Caelum’s quiet voice ask me to wait. I strain against the ghostly force and my desire to kill wanes. I let go of Elio’s hair, dropping him onto his chest, and knocking his chin against the floor.

Elio cries, spits out two teeth, and feels the wounds in his mouth with his tongue. His eyes finally meet mine, then he blubbers, “I wasn't found guilty for Caelum's death.”

I don't care what the judge said—Caelum was dead for seven minutes. My feet shuffle across the room, finding their way back to my desk, and my body settles into the worn leather of my office chair. All I see are flashes of Caelum's frail body slapping against jagged rocks as the current sucked him further downstream, where water flooded his screams as he gargled my name until there was nothing left to breathe, but the cruel flow of an icy stream.

Tears find their way down my cheeks. I cover my face. Why wasn't I there? Why didn't I walk him home from school? He was just eleven years old. He had no concept of right and wrong aside from the feeling in his gut telling him when danger lurked too close. If I had been there, he'd still be alive. If I hadn't chosen my friends, I could have stopped it.

“It's not too late to let me go,” Elio states. “You can still do the right thing.”

The tears catch in my eyes as my focus drifts back to his ugly, half-beaten face.

“I won't tell anyone about what happened,” he promises. “I can… I can tell them I got beaten by a thug. You have my wallet—my clothes. They'll believe it!”

I peer through my fingers and utter, “I’m going to kill you.”

This shuts him up. I can see the realization grow on his face. He must've thought that if I were going to make a move, then I'd have done it before now. Dad told me not to retaliate until we were sure no one was watching us anymore. I've spent months plotting this revenge, and there isn't a thing Elio can say or do which will change my mind.

A twinkle of hope cascades in Elio's eyes as he says, “What if I go to the judge? I can tell him that I knew what I was doing and I deserve to be punished for it.”

He's already forgotten about the humiliation my family endured.

At first, everyone was on our side. They wanted justice for Caelum. We wanted life-sentences for Elio and his friends. Then, his father, Eon, launched a smear campaign against us. He unearthed our family history; my father's past addiction, my mother's hospitalization, and my detention record. And Caelum? They spun this narrative that he was unloved, lacked support, and was a boy who couldn't handle a simple prank. All the while, a squad of Chena’s sixteen-year-old prides were painted as the town's troubled youth who acted on poor judgement.

“It's too late for that,” I retort.

Elio shakes his head and wrestles with the restraints. Why doesn't he shed a tear? Either he isn't sorry, which makes me feel justified in killing him, or he thinks I'm bluffing. My hands fall to my knees, leaving behind an aching smile that stretches up my cheeks.

“Don't do this,” he begs. “We can work something out.”

“No, we can't.”

“I can give you money.” His eyes flick around my room. “So you can buy a new house and start a new life.”

“No.”

“What about your tuition? Huh? I can help pay for your school. Where are you going? A community college?”

“Elio,” I sigh. “You can't stop this.”

He bangs his head on the floor and screams, “No! Let me go!”

I wasn't allowed to speak during the trial, but when Elio's father blamed my parents for Caelum's suicide, all I could think about was the rope so purposefully woven around Caelum's wrists, and those which bound his legs. I hunched over and vomited in the stands. As a bailiff escorted me out of the courtroom, I saw the corner of Elio's lips turn upward. Eon mumbled to him, then Elio's smile faded and he turned away. I hadn't made it to the toilet before Mom's defeated wail carried through the courthouse and Dad called out my name. That was the day I desired to take justice into my own hands.

Starting with Elio first made sense because he was the one who came up with the idea to throw Caelum in the Lethe. Baskos had the idea of tying Caelum to the tree limb with a rope from his father's tool shop. Agele followed along. Hearing them talk about how much they hated Caelum for always picking on them or getting them into trouble at school made me realize that they had been planning this for some time. Caelum wasn't their target, he was convenient. They wanted to do something bad, and I have no doubt that Elio's prestige gave them a sense of safety, which was proven when they were acquitted.

The familiar sputter of an engine carries through my grimy window. I glance outside as Dad carefully backs his dull red pickup into the garage. It's time. Voices fill the house, then a set of dreadful footsteps approach my room. My teeth scrape together as I massage my jaw. Elio wiggles himself to my bedroom door, bangs his head against it, and shouts for help. The door creaks open and Mom's wet eyes peer down at him. A soulless look sweeps across her face. She doesn't care that Elio's is tied up in my room.

Her eyes flick to mine and her broken voice cuts through Elio's desperate cries. “Your father backed his truck into the garage. We can move him there and cover him with a tarp.”

“And the log?” I ask.

Mom's cheeks wrinkle with a grin as she replies, “He found a good one.”

I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. It's been one year since Caelum took his life, four years since he drowned, and nine months since the judge acquitted Elio. We've waited for this moment for so long. Mom has slept in Caelum's bed every night, my father has gone back to drinking, and I got a job at the deli chopping meat while fantasizing about slitting Elio's throat.

My eyes shoot open, then I push myself up and inch towards Elio. He doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to tie him to a log and toss him in the Lethe—just like he did to Caelum. No one will hear him scream. No one will watch him drown. When they find his body, they'll come for us and I'll plead guilty. It'll be a bitter victory. I want to see the terror in his mother's eyes when the monster who murdered her son struts by. I imagine the anger contorting Eon’s face when I describe the careless way I watched Elio hit the water and left before he floated downstream.

I lean down, then tug on the rope causing Elio to shout. My fingers dig into his cheeks, keeping his mouth open as Mom forces the gag inside.

My lips press against his ear and I whisper, “It's a short drive to the river. Try not to think about yourself along the way.”

Elio wiggles about, making pathetic noises, and wagging his head. Dad helps me carry him to the truck, where we toss him into the bed and secure a tarp over him. We pile tools and sacks of soil on top of him. Once he's rendered invisible, we stand around with blank stares.

“He's going to put up a fight,” Mom chimes.

“I've been working out, “ I state.

“I've got my rifle if he gets away, “Dad adds.

We load into the truck, then drive to the spot where it happened. Mrs. Winters is walking her long-haired poodle that looks like a mop with an expensive perm. Mr. Hanes is on another shirtless jog. The Espinoza family is having a yard sale. Where do they find all that stuff?

I lean against the door and rest my head on my arms, breathing in the cool rush of air. Yellow houses appear sickly pale, traffic lights and stop signs have no color—even the sounds are warped. Birds screech in anger, car exhausts roar like lions, and the whistling of wind filters through my ears like the fast current of an open stream.

If Caelum were here, he'd point out interesting lawn decorations or ask if the snow cone stand is open. I'd put in headphones while Mom talks to Dad about plans for dinner. People’s faces would blur as we passed. Flags would wave in front of businesses we’ll never go in. Streets wouldn't seem so crowded because no one would be paying attention. Yet, all I can do is pick out the faces I recognize and lose track of time as I follow the slow flight of bugs beside us.

Will killing Elio ease my pain?