Читать книгу Innocent or Guilty? - A. M. Taylor - Страница 12

We’re three weeks into the trial, and despite everything, the end seems to be in sight. It has felt interminable, these twenty days, each one longer than the last, an entire lifetime rolled up into three weeks. But this is the last day of witness testimonies, and then there will be closing arguments, and then the jury will be told to deliberate on whether or not they think my twin brother is guilty of murder. My chest tightens as I think of it, and I force myself to get out of bed. Every time I wake up now, I think of where Ethan is waking up, and the sheer force of the guilt that he is there, and I am here, propels me out of bed.

The day is bright, clear, crisp. Morning sunshine streaming through my window as I draw the curtains open. It’s the kind of day you want to drink in, to bathe in, sunlight warming skin, cool air burnishing the edges. There are sounds of activity coming from downstairs, my parents already up and about. Mom has stopped sleeping, spending nights holed up in the den, reading over documents, poring over anything and everything that might help out Ethan’s case. Her eyes have become bloodshot, and her skin pale. She hasn’t been in the garden in months. Weeds grow in her vegetable patch, choking the life out of formerly lovingly cared for plants and flowers. Heading downstairs I almost slip on the hardwood floor as a strangled scream comes from the hallway, setting me off running. A loud “FUCK!” follows the scream, followed by a sob of frustration and a slam of the front door.

“Do you know what they’ve done?” Georgia screams at me as I get downstairs, her face an abstract painting of red and white blotches, her eyes wide and wild with anger. “There’s blood on the fucking porch, Olivia, BLOOD. How can people be so fucking disgusting.” She rushes through the hallway, back to the kitchen where Mom is waiting, pulling her into a hug and I watch as my normally calm, quiet older sister shakes with rage in our mother’s arms. Walking away from them I open the front door, always needing to see something to believe it. The whole front porch is covered in a thin slick of bright red blood. In some places, it has run so thin it looks pink against the white of the wooden boards. The sun bounces off it, this glittering red pool of accusation and for a reason I can’t quite fathom, I crouch down to stick my finger in it. The blood on my finger glows up at me malevolently, practically neon, and I stand up too quickly, suddenly feeling lightheaded.

I wash my hands in the downstairs bathroom before heading back into the kitchen to silently grab the mop and bucket. I push blood away from me, watching it spill over the edge of the porch, fertilizing the green, green grass below, and then I wash it all away with water. Every so often I feel eyes on me and look up to stare back at whoever is staring at me. Across the street ten-year-old Billy Strong, who I have spent half his life babysitting, watches me the longest, but he’s not the only one. I wonder which of our neighbors did this, which of my friends potentially. The nausea that rippled through me when I first saw the blood disappears as I clean it all away. The firm feeling of the mop handle gripped in my hands reassures me, and as the blood tumbles to the ground beneath the porch I watch it disappear into the earth with satisfaction. In certain light, a slight pink tinge stains the white porch, but I have made this mess disappear, I have solved a problem, however small, and I decide I like how that feels.

I make coffee and breakfast for my family, preparing us all for the day ahead. We drive over to the courthouse in silence, unable to listen to the radio in case they report on my brother’s trial, and too distracted to pick and choose between music. As we pull into the car park, I yell at Dad to stop but I’m too late and the bucket of blood sloshes its way all across the windshield, with a sickening sound. I strain out of my seatbelt to see who it is, and my stomach rolls over when I recognize the face of Hunter Farley, one of Tyler’s best friends and someone I’ve spent countless hours with at lunch tables and movie theatres and parties.

“MURDERER!” someone shouts as I get out of the car, my heart shuddering to a near stop in terror, before pulling myself together, putting my mask back on and grabbing Georgia’s hand so that we can walk up the courthouse steps together. On the other side of those doors to the courthouse is the Mayor and her family, waiting for us to arrive as they have done every day since the trial began. Every day they have stared us down as we walk past them and into the court room. Burning their own version of justice into our skin and the back of our heads as they follow our every move.

But what I’m really bracing myself for on the other side of those doors is Ethan. Because every day that we walk through those doors holds the potential to be the last that we see him as he really is, as Ethan Hall, twin, brother, son, rather than Ethan Hall, convicted murderer. I take a deep breath and hear and feel Georgia do the same as we push the heavy wooden doors open at the same time and confront those waiting eyes.