The Oath We Give (The Hollow Boys Book 5)

silas

“Silas, when we figure out where we’re going, can we have a garden?”

“Sure.” 

“I wanna grow carnations.” 

“Carnations?” 

“And peonies!” 

“Okay.”

“Say you swear.”

We figured out where we were going, but the only garden Rosemary Donahue has now are the flowers I have delivered monthly to her tombstone. 

It’s been a while since I last stood here. I run my hand along the top of her grave. The stone is weathered, the letters of her name eroded, a painful reminder of the time that’s passed. 

Pink carnations. 

“Hey, Rosie girl.” 

The warm breeze greets me. A gentle caress of natural air, a hello from beyond the veil of the living. Death and mourning are different for all, but for some reason, I’ve always felt like she’s here with me when I visit. 

“You’ve been gone four years now. Doesn’t seem real, does it?” 

A familiar feeling gnaws at my gut. My ribs are tightly bound, only allowing me to take tiny, quick breaths. It’s the paper cut along sensitive skin, an unwanted reminder.

It feels like nothing but guilt. 

Greedy, time-consuming guilt. 

I am alive, and she isn’t. 

I wasn’t there when she needed me. I could not save her. 

If we switched positions, like the many times I begged for, Rosemary’s life would be in full color. She would have made the most of every breath, every day. Turned even the worst moments into something beautiful, because that’s what she did. 

She was a beautiful existence. 

The space inside me, the one reserved for Rosie, aches. It’s not a choice; it’s an unwavering fact. She took with her a piece of me that no one will ever have again. It’s hers to keep—I’d never take it away from her. 

It took time to realize that moving on, grieving, didn’t take away the love I had for her. I thought if I stayed angry, if I hurt the people that hurt her, it would bring me peace. Chasing revenge only opened up more doors to pain. 

I’m not proud of what I did in my mourning, of how I let my self-hatred control me. While the people involved with Rosemary’s death deserved their fate for what they’d done to not only Rosie but all the other girls they’d taken, there’s still a lot I regret. 

Mostly, not realizing sooner that healing from her loss wasn’t me trying to forget her. It was a way of honoring her. A way of maybe helping her find peace in the afterlife, knowing I’m okay here without her. 

I had this dream after I was released from the ward, the night after Lyra killed Conner Godfrey. 

I was watching Rosemary being pulled in two different directions. I could see her existing in this in-between place of solid white nothingness, one arm reaching toward Earth and the other being tugged in the opposite direction. 

She was stuck, unable to pass over because of me. She could not let go of her mortal body because she was worried for me. 

I was causing her pain by trying to heal my guilt. It was a harsh truth, knowing I’d told myself all of this was for Rosemary, to avenge her death, when in reality, it was just me trying to make amends for not being there for her when she died. 

My eyes find the ground that she is entombed by. It’s far too harsh to hold a girl who was too kind and far too gentle.

“When I tell you this, I hope it makes sense. I hope you’re not upset and you know this time I’m doing this for the right reasons.” 

There is another breeze, stronger this time, knocking the hood off my head. I shake my head, running a palm across the top of my buzzed hair. She hated when I tried to hide in my hoodies. 

In the beginning, breathing hurt without her. Waking up, knowing she’d never open her eyes again, made it physically impossible to inhale and exhale. Like oxygen was a reminder that I was alive and she was not. 

I sometimes hate that it’s easier now. 

That time has, in fact, made the loss of her hurt less. 

It’s also made it more difficult to remember. I recall who she was as a person, what she looked like, and some of the things she’d said. She’s about as real as the voices that come and go in my head. The ones that sometimes take shape and throw themselves along the wall in forms of shadows. 

It’s the little things I’ve lost along the way in healing. 

Dropping pieces of her laugh, leaving them behind. Forgetting the smell of her perfume, losing the sound of her voice in my ear. 

It doesn’t hurt, and sometimes I wish it did. 

With pain comes remembrance. The throb and ache of loss is a constant reminder of the person who no longer exists. When you hurt, you remember everything so clearly because the pain forces you to. 

When you stop hurting, you forget. 

The wound slowly stops oozing, skin pulling together and creating a scar. One that sometimes itches or pricks, reminding you it’s there, but in the day to day, you barely know it’s there. 

Rosemary Donahue deserved someone who would hurt for her for lifetimes. 

Two years ago, just before the boys and I parted ways, I stood in front of this very grave and made her a promise. I swore I’d leave Stephen in the past, letting him wither away in a jail cell to pay for his sins.

It’s because of him I have to break yet another promise to the girl lying six feet below. 

“I told you I was letting it go, what Stephen did. I promised I’d do better, be better the next time I showed up.” My throat burns with quiet rage, fury I’ve held beneath the surface too well. “But this isn’t revenge, Rose. It’s for the boys, for Sage. Their futures. It’s him or us this time.” 

It isn’t revenge for me this time. It’s my turn to live on the opposite end of the coin. I’m trying to protect the ones I love while a man tries to get back at us for the life we stole from him. 

I hope she knows everything I’m doing from this point forward is not with a vengeful heart. 

Slowly, I move so that I sit against the back of her tombstone. Resting my spine on the stone, I tilt my head up to gaze at the sky. When Rosie and I were in middle school, we’d sit back to back and look up. I’d listen while she made up stories about all the bunnies in the clouds. 

It’s often forgotten that we weren’t just in a relationship. When she died, I lost my friend. 

Rose and I, we experienced a life-altering trauma that no one but us believed. We had faith in each other’s words because we’d gone through it together. That event had bonded us. 

So here, when I come to visit now, I tell her about the good. I talk about Alistair getting married, knowing it would send her over the fucking moon to know the angry man she’d called the “big brother” had finally let someone love him. Even though he’d hate it, I tell her about Thatcher, about Lyra, who I think she would be best friends with. I make sure she knows I’m looking out for Sage, even though Rook is doing a pretty good job all on his own. 

I let her know we are okay, that regardless of the blackmail hanging over our heads, the possibility of us going to jail if it’s released, we are alright. That we did okay without her. 

I tell her the bad. 

That the possibility of her seeing my dad is coming sooner than I’d ever thought. Which leads me into talking about work and Stephen, eventually getting to the part of my white lie of having a girlfriend. She’d laugh if she were here—she would laugh at me for panicking. 

I spill out my guts to a tombstone that has no choice but to listen, and I hope the girl I once knew hears me. 

“Mom will kill me if she finds out I’m lying. I just can’t let Dad die knowing his entire life’s work is being sold. After everything they tried to do for me, Rose, I can’t let it happen.” I swallow the lump of frustration in my throat, letting out a sigh as I slide my palm down my cheek. “And Coraline, she’s…” 

Coraline is what?

Stubborn. Strong-willed. Too fucking hardheaded. A girl I have a strong desire to kiss every time she’s in the room? 

In the silence of this graveyard, I let myself smirk as I shake my head a little.

“Coraline is…Coraline. I don’t know a lot about her other than she’s an artist, and Rook likes her, which isn’t surprising—he’s a fan of anyone who gives Thatcher shit.”

Did I want to shoot Thatch in the foot for how he talked to her? I had the urge, yes. 

Did I also enjoy watching her chew him up and spit him out all on her own? Absolutely. 

She puts on a brave face, but she’s one moment away from shattering to pieces. When we are alone, I see it. I feel it.

I saw it in my kitchen the other night. Saw it when she fell asleep on my couch, curled in a ball, protecting herself even when she’s unconscious.

Stephen hurt her. There is no one who will ever know what happened in that basement besides her and him. She’s so afraid of being seen as a victim that she won’t let herself heal. 

I know what it’s like to feel that trauma, a living, breathing wound. To be attached to anger, the need for revenge. But for Coraline, it’s like her past has consumed her. It’s made her hard, unapproachable, and it drives me insane ’cause I know that’s not who she is. She shows glimpses of it but never the full truth. 

“I think,” I sigh, biting down on the inside of my cheek, “I think I want to know her more. But she isn’t going to make it easy if I try. She’s in pain and fucking prideful. I can see it every time we make eye contact. It’s like an extension of herself—it lives in every room she steps in like a shadow. It’s in her art. It kills me. She knows she could find comfort if she let someone in but refuses.” 

Coraline makes me want to talk. 

Break myself open just so I can have her. Tug on the strings that she has wound so tightly around herself so I can see what’s underneath as she unravels for me. 

There is something in the way she moves, how she talks so brazenly with an underlying fierceness in every word, the way her eyes catch the light and melt like honey when she looks at me. 

That connection between us is palpable, humming through the air, and it’s becoming harder to ignore. Soon, we are going to be under the same roof; then, she won’t have anywhere to hide from me. She’ll be carrying my last name, existing in my space.

We’re about to be bound for at least two years, and she can’t resist me that long. Especially if I apply a little pressure. I’ve barely tried.

She’s going to break for me.

I’m not afraid of a curse, especially when they look like Coraline Whittaker.