The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2)

Sage

“You heard about what she did, right? That’s the reason we have a new principal this year. She was humping her way through sophomore year!” Mary tosses her arms into the air, a perfect pout on her lips, letting her glue stick fall out of her hands and onto the floor of my room.

“Meanwhile, I’m over here busting my cute ass. I’m taking every single advanced placement they allow, running two clubs, not to mention cheer. I should be student body president dammit!”

For the past two weeks, all I’ve heard from her is how Stacy rigged the votes last year, how she slept with the principal—I think yesterday it was a teacher. It’s starting to sound like nails on a chalkboard, and if I’m not careful, blood is gonna start leaking from my eardrums.

“As if it matters, Mary.” Liz’s blonde pony sways behind her as she focuses hard on the television, some soccer game going on behind our friend’s personal crisis. “It’s student body president. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Oh my God, Lizzy I know you didn’t just say that to me. The girl who cried for three days after winning a state-qualifying game ’cause you didn’t score?”

The never-ending game of who can out-petty who. The direction this is headed is south at eighty miles an hour. I’m tired of hearing it—if she keeps dwelling, it’ll become her catalyst this year.

“Can you pull it together for five seconds?” I say, looking over at them, popping my fruit-flavored gum. “You’re a fucking Turgid, for fuck’s sake. You wipe your tan ass with hundred dollar bills. Suck it up.”

Tough love isn’t always popular, but it prepares you for the life you are set to lead in a town like this.

They should know better.

I know Mary wants to snap back at me, bite with some snarky remark that she hasn’t even come up with yet, but she won’t. Because as mean as she gets, she knows I can always get worse.

Because I’m Sage Donahue.

Rich bitch was pumped straight into my umbilical cord in the womb. I’m the cheer captain and everyone’s favorite sweetheart.

Man-eater.

Heartless.

I’d become everything I needed to survive the standards of Ponderosa Springs and then some.

Lizzy Flannigan and Mary Turgid have been the perfect set of friends for the world I live in. Superficial to the core, but great for projecting a certain image.

Most little girls look for friends who have similar tastes. They enjoy the same dolls or like playing dress-up, but when you are groomed to have an eye for how others perceive you, you search out those with the most to lose.

My mother taught me early that your image is everything. Your reputation here will make or break you anywhere. You do what needs to be done, no matter the consequence.

You smile, no matter what they do to you. No matter the pain that is inflicted, because no one cares.

Not even the woman who gave birth to me.

I’ve become very good at keeping my inner self hidden from those around me, only allowing them to see what I want them to, making myself just trustworthy enough that I’ve become a collector of sorts.

A connoisseur of secrets, bones buried beneath the floorboards of people’s closets. I have dirt on nearly everyone here, and they know if they cross me, it would take no time for me to shine a light on them.

In seventh grade, Lizzy came over bawling, pouring her guts out about how her dad is a massive alcoholic who spends too much extra time on his business trips, making sure to stop at all the illicit clubs on the way back. She was so red-faced, so frustrated that her mother would just sit there, knowing all of this, aware of every single indiscretion, and never mumbled a single word.

She vowed that night to never let a man disrespect her, refusing to marry someone who stomped on her like that. Which I personally don’t think is a problem because I also happen to know Lizzy isn’t into men at all.

During a drunken sleepover, while Mary was passed out, Liz felt like sharing more secrets. I respected her for being able to say it, and I hated that she knew she had to hide it. But here, she’d be crucified.

And Mary? Oh, Mary.

She’s smart as a tack, will probably be a neuroscientist one day, if she can pass the drug tests. Because the last time I checked, it’s frowned upon to have Adderall in your system when you’re not prescribed it.

The entirety of her life, she’s cared about her grades, holding her intelligence higher than anything else about her. If that was ever threatened? I felt sorry for the person doing the threatening. Freshman year, she got a C on a math test. Not a big deal for some, but to her? To her parents? It might as well have been an expulsion from school.

So when her eyes refused to stay open from the hours of studying, she found her golden ticket. Now, she disappears during free periods to meet the sketchy dealers beneath the bleachers of the football field.

We all have weights on our shoulders here, each of us lying beneath our own pendulum that sways closer and closer each time we slip up.

It’s the reason they’ll never try to dethrone me as Miss Ponderosa Springs. They’re terrified I’ll spill their secrets. Because the Sage they know will be merciless when it comes to getting what I want.

There is a power in that. Knowing everyone’s secrets, all their truths.

Even more power in knowing not a single soul knows any of mine.

The more secrets I have on everyone else, the less likely they are to find out mine. And mine are going to stay buried.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She sighs, smiling tightly. “Just a mini freak-out. It’s just nerve-racking,” She picks up her glue stick and continues to stick plastic letters to the thin white piece of cardboard, internally plotting on how to kill me somehow. “Not knowing if I’ll get into Hollow Heights.”

I scoff. “Then you go to any other Ivy League college in the country. It’s not the only one in the world, Mary.”

“You know just as well as I do you could major in janitorial activities there and come out making six figures. Getting in is everything, Sage.”

I feel as if I have to physically reach up and grab my eyeballs to keep them from rolling.

Money, money, money.

That’s everyone’s favorite pastime here. It’s all they care about.

They eat, shit, breathe it.

Money will fix everything because it buys silence.

“Yeah, yeah, Hollow Heights this, Hollow Heights that. Doesn’t anyone want to see the sun? Is everyone just so content living in a place that is always gray and wet?” I complain, rolling off my bed and towards my adjoining bathroom.

I twirl my finger around a few loose curls in my hair, then open the drawer, grab my favorite balm, and tap it to my lips. Even though it’s evening, my makeup is still perfectly in place, the pitch-black winged eyeliner creating the seamless Marilyn Monroe bedroom eyes. The red matte color sits on my lips, warming my skin. It all sits there, producing a well-polished mask.

To the girls, I look conceited as I gaze into the mirror at my reflection, but it’s only to see if I can find any cracks in the in the façade.

“Bitch, please, your ginger ass will burn the minute you step out of Oregon,” Lizzy jokes, making me grin to myself in the mirror.

“Your point?” I turn to them, placing my hand on my hip. “Red is my signature color, after all,” I say, adding a wink for good measure.

We all share a laugh, a fake laugh full of plastic. And the sound echoes so deep inside my chest that I begin to wonder if it truly is as hollow inside as people believe it to be.

There is a loud hum from the engines of high-end sports cars. They purr and rumble outside the French doors of my room that make even Liz pull her eyes from the plasma screen on the wall.

Mary’s eyes light up. “Looks like your delinquent side is home,” she giggles, hopping off the ground and bolting to the doors. She cracks them just enough to hear what’s going on below, peering through the panels to see. “And she brought her friends,” she singsongs.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket, checking the time. “Whoa, they can tell time. She’s not late for curfew tonight.”

This never fails to happen, and it never fails to annoy me.

A constant reminder of all the things I’ve stayed away from, the things I was forced to avoid. All the freedoms Rosemary has, because I’m the one underneath the microscope.

I’m the one trying to keep it together. To not fall apart.

Liz moves to the window next to Mary, and because I’m shamefully nosey, I follow, peering over their shoulders to look down below at my front yard and the three expensive vehicles that have parked in a straight line outside our curb.

“Damn,” Mary whispers as we watch my sister slip out of the passenger seat, waiting for Silas as he rounds the front of his Dodge Challenger and comes to her side. He wraps his arm around her shoulder, guiding her towards our front door.

“It’s seriously unfair how hot he is,” she whines, admiring Silas Hawthorne’s golden skin that is flawless any time of day, but at night in that white t-shirt, it’s to die for.

“That man needs a warning label,” Lizzy adds, her eyes quickly darting to me as if to make sure I won’t call her out.

“More like a straitjacket,” I mutter, flipping my hair over my shoulder in annoyance.

You see, this happens every time they show up to drop Rosemary off. Like a pack of starving dogs, there is never just one of them. They all gather like strays for scraps. However, my friends can’t help but stand at this window just itching to get a glimpse at Ponderosa Springs’ criminally insane and psychotically hot. Of course, we wouldn’t be caught dead talking to them in person both for their reckless attitudes and because being seen with any of them is a black mark on anyone’s reputation for the entirety of your life here.

It’s social fucking suicide.

They aren’t the boys you bring home to mommy and daddy. They are fun to look at, but under no circumstances do you touch.

Kind of like the way you’d admire wild animals in nature. You look, you appreciate, you leave them alone. You’re not supposed to take them home and keep them as pets. Yet, my twin sister doesn’t mind getting mauled by one of them when they snap because everyone knows you can never truly domesticate some creatures.

We can barely hear what they are saying to each other at the front door, but it’s been over ten minutes, and I’m getting bored. As many times as Rose has tried to explain it, I’ll never understand why him.

Actually, no, that’s a lie.

It’s because he’s the one person she’s not supposed to choose, and she has always tried to do the exact opposite of what is expected of her, in turn making my life a living hell. My parents had given up on her, decided she wasn’t worth molding, so years ago, their attention shifted directly onto me.

I am their crown jewel.

The honking of a horn snaps my attention away like a rubber band against wet skin. I see Thatcher’s platinum-blond hair from a mile away, even in the dark. It’s a girl’s dream to have hair that natural blond color.

“Rosie, darling, if I promise to have him back in one piece, will you please return our friend for the night?” His voice is swift and clean like a scalpel against skin, slicing through the wind.

I hear soft laughter from my sister, and it’s almost strange because it’s like hearing my own real laugh, something that hasn’t come from my throat in a very long time.

“I saw on a crime documentary that psychopathy is genetic,” Lizzy says as we all watch him.

“The psycho gene is just a myth—it’s never been scientifically proven. It’s about your environment, the way you were brought up, and some mental behavior, but you can’t pass it on to your children,” Mary adds.

“And what do you think his environment was like, Mary? Hugs and family game nights?” I say, “Everyone knows Thatcher Pierson will be turning into daddy dearest soon enough. I’m just waiting to see if anyone catches him sparkling in the sun.”

They laugh loudly at my comment, knowing I’m right. I don’t believe serial killers pass anything on to their children besides trauma. But I know what’s it like to be raised like you’re a monster. Eventually, you give in and turn into one.

The windows of the next car in line roll down, allowing me to catch a glimpse of Alistair Caldwell in his driver’s seat.

“Shame he hates the world so much. He would have made the perfect trophy boyfriend,” I say with a shake of my head. I mean, his family owns most of the town—we would have been great if he wasn’t five shades of fucked-up.

“Because Easton Sinclair isn’t already perfect? Do you see the girls that swarm him like flies, ready to take him right off your hands?”

“Like you, Mary?” I arch a well-manicured eyebrow at her, and she turns her flushed face, trying to think of a way to backtrack and deny.

It’s not lost on me that Mary has been thirsting over Easton since preschool, and the moment we split, she’ll be there, legs spread, ready to pick up the pieces. Not like I care—Easton is there for the same reason they are.

Placeholders until I graduate.

“Kidding,” I add at the end, smirking a bit.

Then, like the explosion he is, Rook Van Doren slides his lean body through Alistair’s passenger window, hanging outside of the car as he sits on the doorframe, grinning widely, a match dangling from his pink lips.

“Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?” he chides. “You’ll see him tomorrow. We got some sketchy shit we need to take care of tonight.” His jokester voice rings in the air as he drums his hands on the roof of the car. There isn’t a single thing he takes seriously.

“Yeah, jackass, that’s definitely going to comfort her tonight,” Silas’s voice calls back.

“Sorry, was I supposed to lie? It’s not like we’re going to bake cupcakes.”

The streetlights bounce off his pale skin, the yellowish-orange glow warming his face. Industrial flames glow around him. Those pretty-boy features make him look so unassuming, that sorta wild hair and brazen look that reminds me of wild mustangs. Free, reckless, dangerous. I’ve heard at least five girls complain about how jealous they are of his long eyelashes that frame his hellfire eyes.

I’ve never seen them up close, but that’s what everyone calls them.

Hazel on anyone else, but his? They scorch you.

Something that I’ve always admired and simultaneously drives me up the wall about Rook is how unpredictable he is.

You never knew what you’ll get from him. A smile, a Molotov cocktail, a knife in the back, a laugh. The only boy in their group that you can’t prepare for is him. Everyone knows Thatcher is supremely intelligent and that, if given the opportunity, he might lock you in his basement and play Dr. Hannibal with your body parts.

God, and if you weren’t aware of Alistair’s anger issues, climb out from under the gigantic fucking rock you’re sleeping under and look at him. He’s practically bathing in wrath-scented cologne.

And of course, everyone is aware that Silas is the quiet one. The schizo doesn’t say much because he is too busy inside his own head.

He’s the one my sister was able to crack.

But Rook, he’s identical to the element he so fondly associates himself with. Nothing he does is deliberate; it’s always on a whim, probably based on whatever feels right at the moment for him. The boy has never thought twice about anything.

I admire it because he has the balls to do it. I find it stupid because he’s going to wind up getting himself killed, and being that crazy is only fun when you have the money and power to avoid the consequences.

The psycho.

The vengeful one.

The schizo.

And the devil.

The Hollow Boys.

Irritated and done snooping, I step back from the window. “I’m going to grab something to drink. Try not to cream your panties before I get back.”

Making my way down the steps and through our living room, I hear my mother’s glossy voice echo. My feet slow so she doesn’t hear me coming. I walk until I reach the edge of the kitchen entry, listening to her on the phone.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore, Sherry. I mean, she’s hopeless! She was always rebellious as an infant, but sleeping with Silas Hawthorne? God, I can’t imagine what the people at church think when they see us. He hangs out with a boy the town calls the Antichrist,” she whines emphatically.

My ears ring while she continues. “We’ve tried grounding her, and she just sneaks out. Ugh, and the weight! You should see the weight she has put on since she met him. It’s awful!”

The water starts to bubble at my feet.

A flood warning signals in my head, and I know what’s coming.

If she would just stay away from him like I told her, this wouldn’t be happening. Our own mother wouldn’t be speaking about her daughter like this. The water wouldn’t be rising this quickly, and my lungs wouldn’t be shaking.

“Sage is fine. I mean, at least we have one child who cares about this family’s image. Just as long as she can refrain from screwing it up.” Her footsteps move away from me, telling me she’s heading out the opposite side towards the den.

My heart pounds in my chest, my nails digging into the palm of my hand. Every time Rose screws up, every time she bends the rules, it’s like they push my head further and further beneath the surface.

The drowning is coming. I can feel it.

When awful things happen, some people become dainty, soft wallflowers that grow in the corners, waiting to be plucked by their Prince Charming.

And some people become warriors.

They forge themselves with iron, building layers of armor to protect what remains. They become hard.

Mean.

Angry.

Jealous of the ones who are able to reconstruct themselves without the bitter shards of glass from their trauma.

The front door opens, the wind brushing her dark auburn hair that is several shades darker than my own from her hair dye behind her shoulders. Her smile would light up an actual fucking room if you could convert it into electricity, and that should make me happy.

It doesn’t.

“Huh,” I say, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I thought the trash only came on Tuesdays.”

Rosemary’s eyes raise to find my own. The oversized hoodie that belongs to her boyfriend swallows her small frame. The smile falls, and she sighs.

“Save the bitchy remarks for your friends.” She pulls the hood up, walking into the kitchen to avoid me, but I follow.

I know I should walk away, leave before I say anything worse, but I can’t stop myself.

“Funny. The schizo teaching you how to have a backbone now, or are you just feeling feisty tonight?”

“Don’t call him that,” she says, slamming the refrigerator door. “What is your problem with them anyway? They’ve never even bothered you!”

My tongue becomes swift, sharp, lethal in a matter of moments.

What is my problem? My problem?

“They are scum, Rose. It makes this family look dirty!” I shout back.

“Does Mom have her hand shoved up your boney ass so far that she’s using you as a puppet now? You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”

“Jealous? Me? Of what? Your gang of mentally unstable assholes? Please,” I scoff defensively.

What would I have to be jealous of? I have everything I could possibly imagine.

“Jealous that I have real friends. A real relationship. While you spend your days with fake boyfriends and whack-ass people who would stab you in the back the moment you turned around. All because you’re too afraid to upset Mommy dearest!” she snaps, shaking her head.

“Ya know, maybe I wouldn’t have a problem if you’d stop opening your legs for the freaks of Ponderosa Springs. God, don’t you see the way people look at you? You’re a walking carnie show attraction!” I sneer.

She flinches, biting back like I’d slapped her across the face, sadness filling her eyes. I tell myself she deserves to hurt like I do. Here I am drowning every second I’m living this life, and she hasn’t got a care in the world. Some harsh words won’t kill her.

Rose steps closer to me. “No, that’s your problem, Sage. Maybe if you’d stop caring what people thought of you, you wouldn’t be such a miserable bitch.” Walking straight through me, she nudges me with her shoulder as she passes.

She leaves me there, coming down from my temper trip, my heart aching inside my chest. I fall against the wall, my legs feeling like they might give out, but I refuse to let them.

The ice-cold water is right below my nose, and I try to keep it from seeping into my mouth. I refuse to do this right now.

I inhale and exhale deeply through my nose, continuing the process until my heart rate slows and the water starts to reside.

I repeat over and over again:

I am Sage Donahue.

I have everything.

I will not drown.

I will survive.