Minder

Chapter 14

OLALLIE

First, a splash and then a slammed the door. I peeked out my bedroom door and saw Calhoun standing there listening and watching.

An actual inner battle. Save or be saved.

My brother, her twin, decides to walk away.

We all choose wrong decisions out of frustration, exhaustion, or, worst, love.

“Kalonie, are you well?” From where I stood and where my sister's body laid stiff in the water. There weren’t many waves, and this is one time I wished the silence that surrounded me would vacate, leaving me stranded with screams. “What did you take, foolish girl?” Echoes of my voice barely calmed my fears as I rushed in the waves and flipped her adolescent figure. “Sweetie, I’m going to need you to come back into consciousness, please.” I brushed away her dark ombre strands. My thumbprint pressed tightly to her pulse. Barely a slap back.

I didn’t want to do it. When all I was really known for was the names of past mortals. But I couldn’t bear to sit and watch another bloodline die because of my inaccuracy.

Placing a hand of her heart and one over her head, I began to whisper. “Kalonie, come back. Kalonie, this is home. Don’t be lost; you won’t be found.” I gave my best effort to push any kind of supernatural healing power into her frigid body.

She started fading fast.

Two more bumps to the chest. Kalonie’s eyes opened, alarmed, and she turned over, puking undigested pills.

“What the f**k is going on, Kalonie?” Knox strode with high strength toward Cal and us, cowering slowly after him.

“Dad, I mean Knox, sir. I think she’ll be okay. Maybe it was an accident. It is a possibility.” Trying to defend a girl who glowers at my very breath, why, you ask? Because I grow tired of being an outcast. In weak states, I just want to belong.

“Olallie, this is not the time. Kalonie, what the hell were you thinking? Who gave you all those pills? Trying to kill yourself, darling? Fun fact: you will have to try a lot harder than some prescription pills to off yourself. Because we, Krause’s, we don’t seem to be able to die by overdose. It would have happened to me forty times by now. Ain’t that shitty luck?”

“Dad, that was messed up.” Calhoun stares at his sister with panic.

“Call 911. Get an ambulance. Can you do that, Cal, or did your boyfriend cut off your damn balls too?” Knox makes a joke not too far out of the blue.

“f**k you.” But apparently, Calhoun isn’t ready to come out.

“Awe, there’s my princess wide awake. Hello, welcome back to Earth. How was your trip to outer space?” I don’t know why Knox said it. But it was funny, so I laughed out loud in an entirely unfortunate snorting manner.

Giggles from my mouth bounced around the pool room, reaching back to the ears of everybody present.

“Sorry.” Clear my throat. “That was unladylike. Excuse me. I will go help Calhoun with the ambulance that you requested.”

“You may be excused. And Olallie, thank you for saving her.” Knox was broad, his surge had left him, and aware he almost lost his daughter.

“You’re welcome. I figured we couldn’t afford another loss. We are rapidly dwindling in numbers. Soon, I fear, we may have to convert the backyard to a cemetery.”

This time he laughed along with me.

“Was that your first joke?”

“My apologies, this is a highly inappropriate time to be making such morbid jokes.”

“She’ll be okay. She’s going far away.” Knox says it, but I hesitate to believe anything he says. Every word is guarded by another motive.

“Are you sending her to Texas? If I make a suggestion, request any rooms, not on the second-floor dormitory.”

“Kalonie has graciously earned a spot in a wilderness rehab program, congratulations.”

“Do you believe she is an addict?”

“Not that kind of rehab. Self-rehab. Behavioral health and mental stability. She will have to do a lot of soul searching and self-reliance. It’ll be good for her.”

“Or destroy her?”

“Let’s keep things positive. Grab Kalonie some shoes and a jacket.” Knox tells me, and I rush to grab them by the side of the pool.

“Is that all she is going to require for her stay there?”

“That’s all she’ll need.”

“How long will she be gone?” I might have time to build up defenses to her attacks.

“Three months. We will see where Kalonie is after that. Sorry about her behavior towards you, Olallie.” Knox might pretend he doesn’t see how Kalonie is towards me, but that is more denial than being a dad.

“How did you know?”

“Leonie told me weeks ago.”

“She tells you everything.” They are the best father-daughter duo I have ever seen.

“Yes, mostly.”

“The two of you are very close. Friends even.”

“Yes, probably. Leonie and your mom had a very unique relationship.” Knox crosses into a subject I wasn’t ready for.

“It seems everybody did.”

“Dad, the ambulance pulled up,” Calhoun yells from the front yard.

“Let’s get your sister some much-needed help.” Knox makes a grand show about helping, but Kalonie is released into society in less than 24 hours.

The school week starts the next day, and I find my spot blending into the middle.

“How was your weekend?” Lawson sits on a backward chair; he flips around.

“Good, it was good. I went swimming, not on purpose. Kalonie overdosed and passed out in the pool. He told Calhoun his boyfriend should give him back his balls.” I kept spilling the details like a rainstorm, all starting with one drop and then another.

Silence. I didn’t notice it. Until I turned to see his face. Shock and anger.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t know you would want to know?” It catches me off guard his immediate need to save me.

“Of course, I would. s**t, Olallie, that’s what boyfriends do.” Boyfriend? Lawson takes my hand, holds it. “That’s what I am here for.”

“To mop up water in the hallway?”

“To support and comfort you, anything you need.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize that it was something a person like you did.”

“Olallie, baby, I will invade every picture in your memory from here on out. Your removal of me will only be the result of a lobotomy. Remember what true love is. It can be beautiful, daring, heart-wrenching, but it will take your breath away. Your will to survive, will take away everything you have ever wanted, but it gives you back so much more. It gives us what we need.” With that, he pulled me up and sat underneath me and flexed his arms around my chest, and I found such a warmth in the cavity of his arms that I forgot what safety I searched for.