Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) (34 page)

And here came the real horror.
My mom and dad looked over at Dex who gave them a small wave.
“Mom,” he said with a crisp nod. “Dad.”

That set them off, both of them
battering me with questions and ridiculous statements.

“
What the hell
are you doing?”

“
You’re too
young to get married!”

“
This has to
be a joke.”

“
You’re
wasting your life, Perry.”

“
You don’t
know him at all.”

“
Is that a
tattoo?”

“
I hope you
said you’d think about it.”

“
Why do you
have a tattoo?”

“
This is
ridiculous.”

“
An anchor,
what are you, a sailor?”

“
You better
give that ring right back.”

“
Did Alberto
know about this?”

“
This guy
asked you to marry him and you said yes?”

I folded my arms, ignoring them
until they were done.

“
He asked me
to marry him yesterday,” I said sternly. “I said yes. I love him.
End of story.”

My mom gave me a wave of
disgust. “Love,” she scoffed, “you’re too young to know what that
is, let alone get married.”

My father turned to Dex who was
still standing beside Rebecca and taking their comments in stride.
“Didn’t you know that it’s customary to ask the father’s permission
before you propose to his daughter?”

“
Well, I
thought about it,” Dex said slowly. “But I figured you’d say
no.”

“
Damn right
I’d say no!” he yelled at him, his face starting to go red. I
really hoped this didn’t start a major argument because as
sharp-tongued as Dex was, my dad’s temper was worse.

“
Hey, dad,” I
said, pointing at him. “This little reaction right here? Maybe
that’s the reason I don’t live here anymore.”

“
Oh, where did
we go wrong?” my mom cried out dramatically. She turned away and
started shuffling to the living room, probably to get the wine out.
“It’s our fault, Daniel,” she muttered hopelessly as she went. “We
pushed her away.”

Well, she wasn’t entirely wrong
about that. I looked at my dad who wasn’t too happy about me
talking back to him. But you know what, fuck that. I just watched
Dex—my fiancé—get verbally slaughtered by my parents and he just
stood there, taking it and not backing down. I wasn’t going to back
down either.

“
I’m
sorry if you think I’ve made a mistake,” I told him. “I’m sorry if
you think he’s not good enough for me or maybe I’m not good enough
for him, or we’re just not good enough for you. I’m sorry I moved
out, and that I’m, once again, not living the life you wanted me
to. I’m sorry I’m just a big disappointment to you and I’m making
all the wrong choices. I’m sorry…actually, you know what, Dad, I’m
not sorry about
any
of that.”

His eyes grew larger behind his
glasses.

I went on, pointing behind me
at Dex. “I love that man and that man loves me. He loves me for who
I am, no matter what I look like, what I do, how I act. He loves me
and he understands me, and whatever he doesn’t understand, he tries
damn hard to. You and mom can disapprove of him all you want, and
you can disapprove of me all you want, but I really don’t give a
shit anymore. I’m done trying to please you, to make you love me,
to make you proud of me. I don’t need any of that anymore because
that man over there gives that to me and he gives it freely. I’m
happy, okay, and once the two of you realize that, maybe the
happier you will be. Because you’re both looking pretty damn
miserable with your lives.”

I was breathless by the time I
finished my speech, breathless and feeling high, and it was
punctuated by the sound of breaking glass.

I turned my head to see my
mother standing in the hall, a wine bottle smashed at her feet.
Droplets of it had splattered on her pants, looking like blood.

“
Oh,” she said
distantly, looking down at the floor in slow motion. “It’s okay,
I’ll clean it up.”

Suddenly Rebecca was jogging
down the hall to help my mother, leading her into the kitchen.
Whatever I said had just stung the hell out of her.

Good.

I looked back at my dad who was
totally acting like my mom didn’t just drop a whole bottle of wine.
He was speechless. This was a first for him.

I felt Dex come up behind me,
resting his hand on my shoulder as Rebecca came out of the kitchen
with paper towels and started wiping up the floor.

“
Mr.
Palomino,” he said, reverting back to being formal. “I love your
daughter. I promise I’ll keep loving her for as long as we’re
together. I know she’s important to you, I know she’s precious. And
I know she can be a pain in the ass. But I just want you to know
that I have her best interests—and your best interests—at
heart.”

My father slowly nodded, eyeing
the both of us like he was unsure what we were going to say or do
next. Having my father be afraid of me wasn’t a new thing, but this
time it felt good. I felt like he was respecting me. I felt like I
got some power back.

He cleared his throat and
straightened his shoulders. He gave us a smile that might have been
forced, but it was still there and that’s what counted. “Well, I
hope you both like roast. It’s been in the slow cooker all
day.”

Then he turned and walked over
to Rebecca, helping her clean up the floor.

I looked up at Dex and
twisted my lips as if to say,
well that’s that
.

He smiled warmly at me as if he
were proud as fuck and kissed my forehead. That was that.

***

After the altercation, the rest
of the evening went smoothly. Ada came home right after school and
she burst into tears the minute she saw me, mascara running down
her cheeks.

“
You should
have worn waterproof,” I said to her as I held her in a tight hug
and she sobbed into my shoulder.

“
I tried a new
brand,” she said, pulling out a monogrammed handkerchief that was
probably by some hip designer and dotted her cheeks with it. “It
was too clumpy,” she sobbed.

We went out to the car and
moved our bags inside, including the camera with all our footage.
Dex and I were taking over my old bedroom while Rebecca was
sleeping on the pull-out couch in my father’s den. While dinner was
getting ready—my mom feeling more chipper despite the wine
incident—we set up a makeshift studio in my room and invited Ada in
to watch. We went through all the footage together and even though
it was hard to watch sometimes, reliving the fear that was stalking
us just yesterday, it also felt good. Without any editing yet or
music or anything to enhance it, we could tell we had made the best
Experiment in Terror episode ever.

Ada leaned into me as we sat
together on the bed, while Rebecca and Dex sat on the edge of it,
staring up at the computer monitor on my desk. “Having second
thoughts now?”

I smiled and shook my head.
“Nope. I’m sad that it’s over but I know we’re doing the right
thing. Going out with a bang.”

She brushed her blonde bangs
out of her eyes and put her head on my shoulder. “I’m glad I don’t
have to worry about you anymore.”

“
I just hope I
don’t have to worry about you,” I said.

She tensed up for a moment, and
I waited for her to say something but she never did. I’d have to
come back to that later. Finally she stuck out her long leg and
tapped Dex on the back with her foot. “Hey, bro.”

Dex eyed her over his shoulder.
“Hey watch it, Little Fifteen.”

“
Well you’re
my big brother now, aren’t you?”

“
I will be,”
he said. “And when I am, you can expect fifteen years worth of
wedgies and atomic wedgies and noogies until I’m all caught
up.”

She stuck her tongue out at
him. “I turn sixteen next month.”

“
It gets even
worse for you then,” he said with a grin. “Too bad there is no song
called Little Sixteen.”

“
I’m sure
you’ll think of something,” I told him dryly.

I settled back into the
pillows, and with my sister at my side and my fiancé and best
friend in the same room with me, I was struck by how damn lucky I
was. Maybe I was jobless, and maybe my parents would never
understand me, but I had these people in my life who did.

I stared down at my ring.

I was the luckiest bitch in the
world.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

After dinner, where my parents
perfected the art of small talk and Dex and Ada argued over some
film remake, we all went our separate ways to digest the food, have
some more wine, and talk. My parents told us they were going out to
a friend’s house. I’m thinking that was code for grab a drink
somewhere and bitch about me and my poor life choices. The rest of
us hunkered down in the TV room, hoping something good would come
on HBO.

After my fifth glass of
celebratory wine that evening though, I wasn’t feeling the best. I
pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and told everyone I was
heading up to bed.

“
I’ll join you
in a minute,” Dex said.

I nodded, slugging back the
liquid, and made my way upstairs to my parents’ bedroom to fish out
some of the Excedrin my mom often had lying around.

I went into their washroom and
opened the medicine cabinet, going through their bottles of
medication, but coming up empty for something that would stifle the
headache that I knew was coming on. It was my fault for drinking so
much red wine after a week of drinking Jack Daniels and beer, but
once we started toasting to our engagement, I got carried away.

I gave up, shutting the cabinet
door, and was about to leave the room when I decided to check my
mother’s bedside table. I opened up the drawer and saw the bottle
of Excedrin in there. I snatched it up and saw a few prescription
pill bottles underneath. I didn’t think my mother was on any meds
these days, and a naughty part of me was wondering if it was
something fun and stronger, like the Vicodin I used to use as a
teenager.

I picked up a few of the
bottles, wondering why there were so many, and held them up to the
light that was streaming in through the hall.

They were all prescribed from
Dr. Freedman—my doctor, my old damn shrink—and had medical names I
recognized. Though I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, I was
fairly certain they were the same meds that Dex had been taking
back in the day, the ones that kept him from seeing ghosts, the
ones I hid on him in order to uncover the truth.

And now, it looked like my
mother was taking the same medication.

With shaking hands, I stuck two
of the bottles back in the drawer, along with the Excedrin, and sat
down on the edge of their bed, rolling the other two bottles
between my hands. I stayed like that for a few minutes, trying to
make sense of it, trying to figure out what to do. When I heard the
door to my bedroom close further down the hall, I got up and left
the room, pills in my hands.

I couldn’t believe I was doing
this again.

I went to my bedroom and gently
closed the door behind me. Dex was sitting up in bed, reading a
copy of The Gunslinger which he must have pulled off my old
bookshelf, looking totally immersed in it. I subtly put the pills
into my purse, hiding them for now, then stripped and slipped on my
sleep shirt.

“
Baby?” I
asked as I got under the covers.

“
Mmmmm?” he
said without looking up. He thumbed a page over.

“
What was the
name of the medication you used to be on, you know the ones that
made you stop seeing the ghosts?”

“
Clozaril,
Zyprexa, to name a few,” he said. He slowly put the book down and
gave me a hard look. “Why? You’re not thinking about going on them
are you?”

I shook my head absently,
totally focused on what he said. The same fucking pills that Dex
had been taking to keep the ghosts at bay were the exact same ones
my mother was taking. How was that possible? Why was my mother
taking pills for people who hallucinated?

“
Hello?” Dex
asked, waving his hand in my face. I stared at him blankly. He
shook his head. “Nevermind. It’s like talking to a wall.” His eyes
rested on my chest. “With boobs.”

“
What were you
saying?” I asked.

“
I said why
did you want to know?”

I shrugged as casually as I
could. “No reason.”

I wasn’t about to tell
him what I was doing; it ran a little too close to home for him. I
didn’t want to be known as the pill-switcher, but I had to know.
I
had
to. My mother wasn’t the type of person who would ever
admit to anything like that, especially after what her own mother
and daughter had gone through. Holy shit. Holy shit. The more I
thought about it, the crazier the whole situation became, the more
fucked up the implications were.

If my mom was taking
pills because she was like me or Pippa, that meant this
entire time
she knew what I was going through. It meant she was in
complete denial about our affliction, about every fucking
thing.

I had to know if this was
true—I deserved to know.

“
Perry?”

I looked at him.

“
What’s going
on in that head of yours?”