White Noise

27

"Mom?"

It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of her bedroom.

A familiar, almost translucent, pale face practically sparkled under the bright impact of the hallway light expanding across the room as I drew the door open further.

She looked morbidly peaceful. Scarily still. It was only the soft movement of the crumpled comforter laying on top of her that let me know she was still breathing.

Alive. Thank God.

But certainly not living.

And Caroline made sure to remind me of that this morning.

"Are you mad at me?" I finally summoned the courage to ask her after she made an almost inaudible grumble about her having to work after school on a Friday.

"Why would I be mad," she deadpanned, her voice dripping with taunting indifference.

"Because you sound mad."

"Well, I'm not," my little sister replied sharply, rolling through a stop sign a little too fervently.

I physically bit my tongue so as to not reprimand her.

Even with her license now, it was almost instinct. After all, I had been the one to teach her how to drive. If something happened, it would be my fault.

Instead, I simply looked over at her, examining her profile. The morning light shining through the windshield cast a sort of warm glow on her golden hair and highlighted the speckles of amber in her jade irises. And, even in that tense moment, she was undeniably beautiful. She was absolutely stunning.

In that moment, she looked so much like our mom.

But she wasn't just the little girl at my bedroom door. She wasn't the teenage girl crying in my arms last summer when her boyfriend dumped her.

She was stronger. She was composed and capable. She was truly independent. All the things I tried to be every day. All the time.

All the things our mom tried to be every day. All the time.

But she was actually doing it. And still looked that beautiful.

And I might've told her just that if her lips weren't pressed so firmly together. If her eyes weren't tilted down at the corners, wrinkled with emotion. I knew my sister well enough to know that giving her a compliment right now the essentially the equivalent of giving her a hand grenade.

"Care," I finally managed to say. "You don't have to work. We can figure it out. Mom—"

She scoffed, those speckles of amber long gone as her green eyes snapped to mine, darkening. "Mom didn't go to work yesterday. Didn't even get out of bed. But, why would you know that. You're never home anymore anyway."

I opened my mouth to retaliate, only for the words to die on my tongue as the validity of her statement sunk in.

After school, I was with JD.

Always.

Doing homework. Watching TV. Driving around. Meeting up with Mac or Haley or Travis and Victoria to hang out, which often turned into them smoking. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember the last time I was home before 7pm.

"Caroli—"

"Don't apologize," she cut me off, pulling into a parking spot at school and swiftly turning off the engine. Before I could even come up with a response that seemed remotely worthy, she'd grabbed her backpack from the backseat and gave me one final glance. Her tone was sour and, yet, sisterly, "I just hope he's as good to you as you say he is."

My phone blared loudly in my back pocket, causing me to close my mom's bedroom door shut so hastily I winced at the jarring sound. I raced down the hall to my own room, hoping I hadn't woken her up before pulling my phone out, answering it without checking the Caller ID, because I already knew who it was.

"Hey," I breathed.

"Hi, baby."

Even though I wanted to, and even he wasn't around, I didn't dare roll my eyes.

"I'll be there in about 15."

He was picking me up to go to Haley's bonfire. "Okay," I replied, moving toward the outfit I already had laid out on my bed—the one of three I'd texted JD earlier. The one he said he liked.

"What's wrong?" The way his voice lowered sparked the clear image of his eyebrows threading together, his ocean blue eyes narrowing in interrogation.

"Nothing," I squeaked quickly. "I—"

"Catherine."

My name. My full first name. Coming from him, it sounded like both a challenge and a prayer. "I—"

"You." The firmness of his voice had my breath, already stuck in the back of my throat, dropping into my stomach as I sunk onto my mattress. "I will be there in fifteen minutes."

He hung up.

And I wasn't quite sure what happened in those fifteen minutes. Other than the fact that he let himself into my house, climbed the staircase and entered my room, only to find me crying silent tears, trying desperately to wipe them away as they fell.

It was only when his arms, warm and familiar, wrapped around me that I finally felt the racing of my heartbeat calm and the tensing of my muscles ease. My tears weakened and I melted into him, losing all control from the comfort of his touch.

He held me tightly, pulling me onto his lap with conviction as he sat on the edge of my bed. Placing a gentle kiss on the corner of my mouth, he asked me a question without even making a sound.

"I think I'm a bad daughter," I answered him.

He stared at me. Those cobalt blue eyes I've been losing myself in for weeks now darkened until my blood ran cold. Dark enough that I wanted to fidget, squirm, move away until they lightened again. Because I hated being the reason they shadowed that way. "You think."

I lost a tear, and JD swiped it away so sharply I almost flinched at the quickness of his movement. At first. But his attention to detail, his attention to me.

My heart swelled.

"Katie. I'm going to tell you something right now. Something you need to remember."

The edges of his irises sparkled again, a glimmer of brightness that drew me in like a drug I wanted—needed.

"You notice the little things. You notice things most people don't. You feel things most people can't. It's your greatest feature, and your greatest fault."

His hand moved to brush a dark strand of hair out of my face and behind my ear, taking a moment to twirl the end around his finger as his eyes sunk into mine, so clean and sharp a stinging sensation shot down my spine.

"You are an incredible daughter. You are a caring sister. You are the kindest person I know."

Before I could even begin to process his words, his lips were on mine, his fingers wrapping around my chin to pull me in deeper, to hold me close. Until my mind was jumbled and my limbs were loose.

Until all I could hear was that humming in my back of my ears—that white noise.

I vaguely felt his grip on my chin harden, so when he pulled away our lips remained barely brushing against one another's.

His voice was a fuzzy, dizzying whisper. "Now stop being a whiny fucking bitch and get dressed."