The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2)

Sage

I used to get so annoyed in middle school when people would ask stupid questions about myself and Rose. Yes, we’re twins, but that doesn’t mean I can read her mind.

The constant Where’s your twin? Always referred to as “the twins,” even when you are by yourself.

It wasn’t until high school that we became our own people, she was traveling in one direction and I headed towards the top of the food chain. We were no longer referred to as “the twins.” Just Rosemary and Sage.

And there were times, like right now, when the moon was high and the dark covered my bedroom that I missed being attached to her. I missed being close to her in public, always being seen as one half of a whole.

Like clockwork, Rose’s soft cries of sadness had woken me up. This happens almost every other night, and I’m not surprised to see the green glow of my clock reads 3:34. I let out a sigh as I sit up, stretching my arms, my script for The Crucible sliding off my bed as I move. With practiced footwork, I navigate my room without having to click the light on, opening my door and heading to the room directly beside mine.

I’d once heard our bedrooms are direct reflections of who we are on the inside, and if that’s true, my twin sister and I are just as different as people think us to be.

Hers has band posters, potted plants, lots of black-colored clothing, and a night-light that projects stars on the ceiling, while mine is pink, organized, with lots of natural light and a fluffy white rug on the floor.

Parts of me that I keep locked away don’t want to accept that we had fallen so far apart from one another.

Her voice reminds me of my reason for even coming inside here in the first place.

With ease, I move to her bed, slipping into the space next to her. The soft cotton sheets wrap me up, the smell of smoke and cologne stuck to the bed from Silas’s hoodie she’s wearing.

Using the tips of my fingers, I smooth the frown on her face, relaxing the muscles on her forehead. Dragging them down her nose, soothing her awake, I let her know that whatever monster she’s running from in her head, he isn’t real.

She moves with my touch, consciousness on the verge of taking over.

“It’s just a dream, Ro, you’re okay,” I whisper, waiting for her to realize that she is in fact trapped in a nightmare and that at any moment she can leave that place.

Which she does after a few more minutes of drawing on her face with my finger. She eventually allows her eyes to flutter open, taking a moment to adjust to reality.

“Did I wake—” She gets caught in a yawn. “—you up?”

I shake my head. “No, I was on the way to the bathroom and heard you rolling around,” I lie.

Grabbing the top portion of her comforter, she throws it over both of our heads. We’re encased in the darkness beneath her blanket, and I’m transformed back to a time when we were little girls and refused to sleep in separate beds. When I wasn’t jaded and the world was still full of possibilities. And it is, just not here, not in this town. At night when our parents were asleep, we’d crawl beneath the blankets and tell each other stories or dreams.

Below these blankets, I can take off the mask and be that little girl again. No looking over my shoulder to see who is watching, no insults to cut others down so I remain on top. I have nothing to fear right now.

“What was the nightmare about?”

“Same thing as always. Dark hallways, strange voices.”

There are times I’m so envious of how gentle and open Rose is. There are other times that I hate myself for trying to pick that apart because I’m jealous.

Jealous that I’m the one bad things happened to.

Jealous that she still has the ability to care for others. To see the good in them.

While I’m soaking in a vat of black tar that won’t seem to let me go.

“I’m sorry for being mean the other day and at the diner,” I whisper, tucking my hands beneath my head as I look over at her. The light from her stars creeps through the spaces on her blanket, giving us minimal light.

Rose smiles, and my heart aches a bit at how generous and kind she is. How easily she forgives. It’s my biggest concern with her and Silas. What if one of them hurt her? What if he hurts her? And she just keeps letting him because when Rosemary loves someone or something, she loves it so hard and it doesn’t matter how they treat her.

Our parents are the perfect example.

“It’s alright, Sage,” she responds. “I know it’s because you feel like you have to be mean to get out of this place without getting hurt. I just…I don’t know why. You used to be so happy and free, then one day you just changed. Why won’t you tell me what happened to you?”

“Can we not talk about me? I cannot express to you how badly I don’t want to talk about myself right now.”

“I miss talking about you. The old you. Ya know, the one that didn’t care if she was prom queen or what the world thought of her? The one who carried around tattered scripts and pretended she was Meryl Streep receiving an Oscar. Do you remember her?”

I remember her, and one day, I’ll be that girl again. The day I leave this place, I’ll go back to my old self, and everything will be as it was. She just doesn’t understand that if I’m here, in this toxic waste of a town, it will eat me alive.

I will be completely consumed by the soot, drowned in the black tar of misery that is seeping through the cracks here.

“She’s dead, okay? Why can’t you just let it fucking be, Rose,” I snap with unnecessary anger that was never meant to be directed at her. It had always been towards the ones who turned me into this.

In these moments of hostility, I hate myself more for wishing it were her that went through what I did. That I was the one who lived without a care in the world. The one who hadn’t been jaded.

And those thoughts keep me awake at night. Make me hate myself even more. Because I never, ever want my sister to go through what I did.

“Let’s talk about you, okay? How are you? Are you doing alright? Your piece looks like it’s finally coming together.”

When I say “coming together,” I mean “I have no idea what you are trying to create, but I support you either way.” Rosemary has a thing for sculptures made from broken glass, any kind, but half the time I have no idea what the hell they are supposed to be.

“I—” she starts. “I’m alright. The sculptures are fine. Silas and I are arguing a lot lately though.”

My eyebrows shoot up in alarm. “Why? What did he do?”

“Calm down. He didn’t do anything wrong.” She breathes out. “I swear you just look for reasons to hate him.”

“Well, he doesn’t make it hard to do.”

“We are fighting because I don’t want him to go to Hollow Heights. I want him to leave. All the boys are headed to the East Coast, and I want that for him. You know Mom and Dad will stroke out before I go to school anywhere else, but I don’t want him to stay here.”

They’re going to do more than stroke out when they find out I’m not going to that hellhole, even if they don’t give me money for college. I’ve come to terms that I will live in a box before I go there.

“Long-distance isn’t an option?” I offer, even though I want to say, “Tell him to kick fucking rocks.” I know she loves him, and I don’t want to see her hurt. Ever. Even when I’m the one doing the damage.

“He doesn’t want to do that when he knows we could just be together, but I’m afraid he’ll hate me when we are older. What if we break up? Then he stayed here for no reason.” Even in the dim lighting, I can see the tears slipping down her cheeks, and her voice is wet. “I love him, Sage. I love him so much it physically takes my breath away, and I can’t have him hate me.”

With ease, I reach over, wiping her tears with my thumb. “No tears for boys. We are too pretty for that.”

She laughs wistfully. “Not funny. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me to leave him.”

I bite my bottom lip. “Wellll,” I drawl out.

“Sage!” she scolds, laughing louder, “I know you find it hard to believe, but Silas makes me happy.”

I refrain from rolling my eyes. She’d been saying that since they met in middle school, always trying to convince me of how tame he was, how sweet he could be. So much so that it was easy for her to overlook all the other hell they caused.

“It’s not about you being happy. It’s about you being safe.”

“You sure it’s not about my reputation?”

I click my tongue. “Your reputation is a part of being safe. What are you going to do when Silas says the wrong thing to someone? What are you going to do when that loud-ass Rook pushes someone too far?”

My mind sends me flashes of Rook’s face as he stared directly at Easton with a look so full of fury that for a second I was afraid he’d catch fire. His green eyes had become a forest fire, the tops of stunning pines torched by raging orange flames.

I’d never seen anything like it.

Rosemary grins. “I think he might like you.”

I recoil, not expecting that from her. “I was seconds away from breaking a nail off in his eye. I was going to waste a perfectly curated set of acrylics for a Hollow Boy. We were fighting, Ro. Or did you just not see that part?”

The blush that warms my face irritates me.

Rook Van Doren does not get to make me blush. Just like he doesn’t get to make me angry. He doesn’t get to see anything other than what I show him.

Rook Van Doren does not affect me.

“There isn’t a difference for him. Flirting, fighting. It’s all the same for RVD.”

I shouldn’t care, and I don’t.

This is just a chance to gather more secrets, to uncover more dirt on the boys that are a mystery to everyone. The perfect people to have leverage on.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just refer to him by his initials. So what does that even mean? This is not kindergarten where boys are mean to us if they like us.”

She rolls over to her back with a sigh. “He’s the one I know least about. I know his mom died, and his relationship with his father is awful. But what I can tell you, from what I’ve seen over all these years, is he enjoys lighting things on fire, and his emotions are all the same. Rook Van Doren does not give attention to things he deems boring. If he notices you, if you interest him, you’ll know it.” She glances over at me. “And I’d say he noticed you.”

“Yeah, well, he can point his attention elsewhere. I have no urge to come into contact with him ever again.”

We fall into a pleasant silence, the comfort of being next to one another soothing not only her but me as well. Underneath this blanket, I think of what my life will be like years down the road, after I graduate this year.

Just one more school year, Sage. Keep it together for one more year.

And it’ll be your best performance yet.