Chapter Twenty-Five

NOW

 

“Cedar and I were always so different,” Lyric began, focusing his attention at his hands in his lap, unable to look at the officers anymore. “You’d think identical twins would be more on the same page than we were, but nothing about us was similar. Not our tastes, not the way we dressed, not even the way we wore our hair. I remember the day I got my dreads done, Cedar was so disgusted with me he couldn’t even look at me for a week. But despite how different we were, we were completely and totally inseparable.”

“Did you have the same group of friends?” the female officer asked.

“Cedar didn’t really have many friends. I was always the outgoing one, whereas he preferred his own company. I would always ask him to join me if I was going somewhere. Sometimes he would, but when he did, he would always seem awkward and uncomfortable. Like he would rather be anywhere but there. He much preferred it when we did things together…Alone.”

“Would you say that your brother was possessive of you?”

Lyric paused and thought about the question before answering.

“Possessive doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

“How so?”

“As we became teenagers, I sort of fell into the wrong crowd. I started hanging with the popular kids our age on the island. Getting into trouble, drinking, drugs, that sort of thing. Cedar hated it. He hated that I started spending so much time away from him.”

“So, he was hurt?”

“He was destroyed. We started growing apart. He would become angry with me for no reason; we’d fight. Throw things.”

“Was he ever physically violent towards you?”

“I’m not sure who started it, but yeah. We were both quite violent with each other at times.”

“What changed?”

“I started getting into trouble a lot. Like serious shit. I started getting sent away…”

“To detention centres?”

Lyric just nodded.

“And how did Cedar feel about you going away?”

Lyric sighed before answering, “Although he never actually came out and said it, I think he was almost happy I was getting sent away…”

“He wasn’t upset at losing you again?”

“Part of him was…But another part of him was happy seeing me suffer.”

The officers exchanged a look between themselves.

“He was happy I was hurting. Pleased that I was finally learning my lesson. Once when he came to visit me in juvie, he had the smuggest look on his face, like I was getting what I deserved.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“I hated feeling like the black sheep of the family.”

“Did it change the way you acted when you got out?”

“When I got out of juvie, you’d think it would have set me on the straight and narrow. I wanted to be good. I really did. I tried to be good…”

“But?”

“But it was as if I wasn’t totally in control. You know? Like there was something stopping me from changing. Like there was something in me that wanted to see me suffer.”

Lyric picked at the skin around his thumb until it started to bleed. He sucked it before sitting back in his chair and running a hand through his dreadlocks.

A silence stretched out between them as the officers considered the next direction they wished to take.

“Lyric, tell us about the accident.”