The truth, they say, shall set you free. Sitting on her bed next to Lincoln, her parents sitting side-by-side on Luna's, Luan Loud didn't feel very free. In fact, she felt the opposite of free. She felt like a prisoner. She'd never been to jail, but she imagined that the claustrophobic tightness in her chest is what convicts must feel as they sit in their 6-by-6 cells, caged animals whose entire world existed as only a few steps in any direction. Her parents' faces were expectant. They were waiting. Next to her, Lincoln grasped for words, flailing like a drowning man, and Luan wanted to help him because it wasn't right that he had to do this alone, but she couldn't. She knew the drop was coming, that she would plummet over the edge, but she couldn't bring herself to actually jump, to embrace that fall.
Mom sighed. "Whatever it is, just tell us. We won't be angry. We promise. We just...we need to know so we can help your sister get better."
Oh, she said they wouldn't be angry now, but Luan imagined she would be furious when she heard what they had to say.
Why did I have to fall in love with him? Luan asked. Why did I have to have sex with him?
She cursed herself. This was her fault. She was the one who couldn't control her raging teenage hormones. She was the one who almost literally woke up one morning and decided she wanted to have sex with her brother. Her own brother. Then, she was the one who went and fell in love with him. Everything from Leni's breakdown to this, Lincoln fumbling to explain to their parents what had happened, was totally and entirely her fault and no one else's.
Lincoln sighed. "Well..."
She couldn't let him do this. She was the one who made this mess, and she was the one who needed to woman up and own responsibility. "Leni and I are both in love with Lincoln," she blurted.
Shocked silence filled the room as mom's face fell and dad's eyes widened. Lincoln squeezed Luan's hand tighter. His heart was racing.
"What?" mom asked. Lincoln got the impression that she thought she'd heard wrong.
"We both love Lincoln," Luan said, "and we both slept with him..."
"What?"
The color drained from dad's face and he looked away from them. Mom's eyes strained in their sockets. "Jesus Christ, this is d- God, you slept with your brother? You had sex with him?"
"Yeah," Lincoln said.
Dad started to speak, but mom jumped to her feet, and both Lincoln and Luan cringed. "I can't believe this!" She started pacing, her hands pressed to the sides of her head. "You-You should know better! Don't you realize how awful this is? I'm at a loss for words. I don't...I just...I" she sank onto the bed, put her head in her hands, and started to cry. Dad put his arm around her shoulders and looked at Lincoln and Luan, something like misery in his eyes.
"You're both grounded indefinitely," he said.
"I don't even want them in the same room together," mom sobbed. "Ever again. Never."
"You are to stay in your rooms and to not come out except to use the bathroom. And even then you need to ask me. I am...I am so disappointed in both of you. I thought we raised you better than to have sex. And with each other at that..." he shook his head. "Lincoln, get the hell out of here and go to your room."
Lincoln sighed and squeezed Luan's hand. He looked at her, and she at him. "I love you," she said.
"I love you too."
"NOW!"
Lincoln got up and left, tears streaming down his face. When he opened the door, Lori was there, and sudden anger overcame him. He shoved roughly past her with a tight, "Move," and went to his room, where he slammed the door and threw himself onto the bed. He pulled his pillow to his face and wept.
In her room, Luan hugged herself and cried silently.
"Why would you even, Luan?" mom asked. She raked a hand through her hair. "I can't for the life of me imagine...your own brother..."
"I love him," she moaned.
"You're fourteen! You have no idea what love is!"
"Yes I do!"
"No you don't!"
Luan jumped to her feet. "I'm in love with him and nothing you say can change that! I don't care if you like it or not!"
Mom's eyes flashed and her teeth clenched. She stood, and dad grabbed her arm. "You little bitch! He's your brother!"
"I don't care!" Luan screamed.
"YOUR FUCKING BROTHER!"
"I HATE YOU!" Luan stomped her foot and shook her arms. "I HATE YOU! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
Mom tried to come toward her, her hand raising, but dad got up and grabbed her around the waist. "Honey, calm down."
"It's disgusting! Did you even use protection?"
"He came in me and I liked it," Luan said defiantly. "All four times he did it."
Mom tried to get to her again, but dad held her back. "Calm down!" he shouted. "You're acting insane, Rita!" Her face was screwed up in an ugly expression, her lips tight and her eyes bulging. She took deep breaths through her nostrils. Her face was red.
"I'm very disappointed in you, young lady," she said lowly, dangerously. "Words can't even begin to describe what I feel right now." She pulled away from her husband and went to the door. He followed close behind, throwing a sorrowful look over his shoulder.
"You stay away from Lincoln," mom said. In the hall, she looked at her husband, and when she spoke, her voice was dripping with venom. "Talk to your son." She brushed past him and stalked down the stairs. When she entered the living room, everyone looked at her. She fixed malicious eyes on Lori, whose face suddenly rippled with fear. "And you need to learn to mind your own goddamn business." She looked around the room. "I want all of you in your rooms now."
In his room, Lincoln sat up as his father entered and sat on the edge of the bed. Lincoln sniffed and brushed his tears away as, without looking at him, his father said, "I'm very disappointed in you, Lincoln. You're supposed to protect and look after your sisters. You're supposed to..." he trailed off, not having one clue in hell how to continue. "You're not supposed to look at your sisters like that. You're not supposed to do things like that to them."
"Dad..."
"I don't want to hear it, Lincoln. Your mother overreacted. I apologize for that. She's under a lot of stress right now with Leni, and so am I. But that doesn't change the fact that what you and Luan did is wrong."
"I love her."
"She's your sister, Lincoln. Your sister. I know things can be...confusing...at your age, but you have to understand that siblings don't fall in love. They aren't...they aren't supposed to do what you two did. What you and Leni did." He sighed. In the gathering gloom of the evening, Lincoln could just make out his father's profile. "Siblings share a special bond. A bond of love. Not love-love, like...like you feel for a girl who's not your sister, because that kind of love doesn't always last. Sometimes it's not meant to. It's like a fire that burns very hot and sometimes goes out. Sibling love is...it's a fire that supposed to burn low and last forever. Yours and Luan's...feelings...have turned your low fire into a very hot one that's going to burn out, because love sometimes fades...but young love almost always fades." He paused and wracked his brain. "When you're your age, you feel things more intensely and every little infatuation feels like true love. This isn't love, Lincoln. And if, God forbid, it is, where does your love for Luan as your sister end and your love for her as something else begin?"
Lincoln stared down at the bed, his eyes welling with tears. His heart ached so badly that he felt sick to his stomach. He didn't care about fires or fading or what he was supposed to do and not supposed to do...he loved Luan and he needed her.
He made no attempt to argue the point with his father. He wouldn't listen. Lincoln realized how it looked from the outside, so he couldn't entirely blame him. Loving your sister was "wrong" and "disgusting." Fine. Everyone in the world could wag their fingers in his face and call him what they wanted, but that didn't matter: The love he felt for Luan was a beautiful thing whether they could see it or not, whether they wanted to see it or not.
"I don't want to see this come out wrong," dad said. "Any wronger than it already is. I'm not as upset by the fact that you and Luan – and Leni – feel the way you do as I am about the fact that you...acted on it. You're all children, whether you think you are or not, and you can't make decisions like this. I..." he trailed off again and shook his head. With a sigh, he said, "Get some sleep."
He got up and left, leaving Lincoln alone with his heartache.
"What do you think it was?" Lynn asked. It was just after 9'o'clock, and she was lying in bed, her hands laced behind her head. In the next bed over, Lucy was reading, her mind so preoccupied by the events of the day that she had to read each sentence twice just to get an idea of what they meant.
"I don't know," she said.
As soon as mom and dad disappeared upstairs with Lincoln and Luan, Lori took it upon herself to follow, even though Lucy told her that it wasn't a good idea. Lori, however, thought it was her right to know. "Something's not right," she said suspiciously as she got up. "They know something we don't."
In five minutes, after the slam of a door, she returned, her eyes wide and her face drawn. Behind her, mom roared: "YOUR FUCKING BROTHER!"
"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
Lori shuffled over to the couch and sat, everyone talking over each other. "What was it?" "What'd you hear?" "Come on! Spit it out!"
"Nothing," she said, a shell-shocked quality to her voice. "I didn't hear anything."
A few minutes later, heavy footfalls descended the stairs, and everyone turned. Their mother, her face flushed with anger, looked around the room, her jaw set. Her eyes landed on Lori. "And you need to learn to mind your own goddamn business." Lori bowed her head like a scolded dog. After that, mom sent them all to their rooms even though it was barely 8'o'clock.
Lynn's mind worked. Mom was obviously upset about something to do with Lincoln. The "brother" remark was directed at Luan. She thought back to that day in the backyard when Luan climbed onto Lincoln and kissed him. Lynn was sure she'd seen her slip her tongue into his mouth, though she eventually convinced herself she was mistaken. Maybe she wasn't.
YOUR FUCKING BROTHER!
I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!
Were Lincoln and Luan...doing something? Or...was Luan doing something to Lincoln against his will? And if so, how did Leni fit into it? Did she walk in on something and snap? She looked all upset at dinner last night; upset because she was carrying the weight of knowing her sister was...abusing her brother?
No, that didn't make sense. If Luan was doing something to Lincoln against his will, he wouldn't always be around her, and if he was, he would look unhappy, or afraid, or...or...or anything but happy and carefree, which is how he was around Luan. He was like that around all of them because why not? They were his family. If you can't be happy and carefree around your family, who can you be happy and carefree around? But now that she thought about it, they were both extra happy and carefree around one another. Sometimes they looked at each other and just smiled, and Lynn had noticed, of course, but she hadn't really registered it. Why would she? They were brother and sister!
If anything was happening, and she knew that it must be, it was mutual.
Maybe she would have noticed that if she hadn't been so caught up in her own affairs.
Whatever. How did Leni figure into it? Maybe she saw something and she mistook it for something else, or maybe she something and knew what it was, but the stress of carrying it around triggered something in her mind and she lost it.
She started to say something to Lucy, but stopped. She could be wrong, and opening your mouth and flabbing your gums when you were wrong is how rumors got started. Instead, she checked her phone and replied to a text from Amber. They'd texted only sporadically that afternoon. Frist the thing between Leni and Luan, then the thing between Luan and her parents, kept her away. She told Amber about Leni but not about the blowout between Luan and mom.
"Whatever it is, I hope it blows over soon," Lucy said, turning a page with a crisp snap, "I've never seen mom that angry."
"Neither have I," Lynn said honestly. "It...it was kind of scary."
"You sure you don't want to talk about it?" Luna asked. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her shoulders slumped and her forearms resting on her legs. Luan was curled up on her side, facing the wall, her body trembling as she wept. Up until ten minutes ago, her grief was audible. Now it was silent. To Luna, that was somehow worse.
The younger girl didn't reply, and Luna was torn. She wanted to get up and go to her, lay her hand on her shoulder and offer whatever comfort she could, but she wanted to give her space as well: Sometimes, when she was upset, she just wanted to be alone, and if someone bothered her, she got even more upset. She sighed and drummed her fingers on her knees. She wished that she at least knew what this was about. As it stood, all she could piece together was that there had been a fight between Luan and their mother, about Lincoln (or at least involving him) from the sound of it. It was linked to Leni somehow. Luna had no idea in hell how it all fit. She was thoroughly confused.
Luan sniffed and drew herself tighter, as if by doing so she could collapse inwards and cease to exist. Luna took off her boots and laid back on her bed, the scene in the living room playing in her mind for the millionth time: Her mother angrier than she had ever seen her, Lori looking like she'd seen great and terrible things, everyone else lost and afraid. She thought even farther back to that afternoon: Luan on her knees, her face turning blue, Leni standing over her, her hands wrapped around the younger girl's throat, her face twisted in fury and loathing, no longer beautiful but ugly, frightening. Luna shuddered, goosebumps racing up and down her arms. She never imagined Leni being capable of such pure, unadulterated hatred. Psychosis or not.
"I'm here for you if you need me, Luan," Luna said. She looked over at her sister one final time, then turned out the lights.
Leni Loud sat in a chair facing a wire-mesh covered window. The Royal Woods General psych ward was on the fifth floor; from here, she had a scenic view of the parking lot, arch sodium lamps casting murky orange pools on the pavement. White dots danced around them. Moths without a care in the world.
She was cold, so she crossed her arms. She wore a thin hospital gown and woolen socks. Cold air poured in from a big vent in the ceiling. The walls were blindingly white. Just like her sheets. Just like her gown. Just like the lights. They were trying to make her go blind and she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing it was working, so she stared out the window, unblinking, her eyelids straining and tears flowing down her cheeks.
She tried to remember why she was here in the first place, but her memory was hazy. She remembered a doctor talking to her, and sitting on an uncomfortable couch in a dayroom while an old black-and-white movie played on a wall-mounted TV. She watched the other patients with suspicion. They were all dressed in white. Some spun in circles, some played checkers, some read newspapers. Orderlies also dressed in white stood watch as a nurse handed medications out from a rolling metal cart. It was poison and even so Leni took what the nurse gave her because she had nothing to live for. She was here, in this cold, drab institutional prison and her family hated her. They gave her away because she was stupid and ugly and crazy and fat and ugly and stupid and she couldn't have kids and she was fat and stupid.
The pill made Leni feel funny. The world blurred at the edges, and her stomach turned. By the time they took her to her room, she could vaguely recall a fight. Her family probably attacked her when she was at her weakest, beat her up, and brought her here. Take her she's stupid and we don't want her in the house anymore Luan can have all of her things and don't let her come black no...back don't let her come back because we don't want her because she's not Luan she's something else something evil something from space that isn't human and eats people and wants to hatch its eggs in the caves because its dark and wet there.
A white mist swirled in her brain, and she saw the outline of Luan's face. Luan trembled...as if in rage. Rage against Leni. Rage against all that was scared and holy and beautiful and stood in its domination. Leni's teeth clenched and she rubbed her arms. She was so cold. So cold. Still, she didn't blink. She knew they were watching her, and she wouldn't let them know she was going blind. Let them figure it out themselves. Make them come in with their guns and knives and drag her into the hall and lynch her and put her on trial. The back of her neck tingled, but she didn't turn. Get it over with. Shoot me, hit me, choke me, then lock me in a cell and never let me out because everyone lies and no one wants to tell the truth anymore it's easier to say she's crazy that it is to face that fact that you're crazy and there's something wrong with your mind that Luan can fool you into believing she's real and not a thing that took Lincoln away from her and spoiled her chances at being happy. All her life she existed as a phantom like the movie and she never got to be anything. She was a tile on the wall. A chipped tile among chipped tiles. No one loves tiles they love fissures and lamps and she tried to be a lamp because she never felt like anyone truly loved her and she was right even when she was a kid she had this feeling that things were off but she knew she was stupid so she ignored it. Of course they love you they say it and they hug you and they help you but things are closer than they appear...no not what they seem that's it. Smoke and shadows.
She was a fool to ignore her guts she should have known. She should have killed Luan in the cradle and none of it would ever have happened because her Bluetooth brain wouldn't have casted signals to the others and killed her reputation. She should have done it.
They came and put her to bed and she stared into the darkness. She still did not blink. She could never blink again. Never, ever, ever blink again...
Luan wiped tears from her eyes and looked at the soft glow of her phone screen. Lincoln's text was short, sweet, and to the point: We have to break up.
It was after two in the morning and the only sound was Luna's steady, rhythmic breathing. Up until a half an hour ago, there was another sound, Luan's own hitching agony, but that tapered off when her phone buzzed and she saw a text from Lincoln asking how she was.
I don't want to break up with you, she texted back.
She never knew it was possible to hurt so bad. She felt like a thousand tiny knives were stabbing her heart; she silently wished for death, because death would free of her of this torment.
I don't want to break up with you either. I love you. But I can't lose you as a sister and if we don't break up I won't have you. You heard mom. She said she doesn't even want us in the same room together anymore.
Luan sighed and sniffled. She thought back to her mother's rage. She loved Lincoln, why couldn't they see that? Why couldn't they care? That fat bitch sad it was "disgusting" and "awful." How could loving someone be awful? How could wanting to hold their hand and be with them be disgusting? Oh, right, brother and sister, I forgot. Ew. We have the same parents. How fucking terrible.
I know. I can't lose you either\.
Then we have to break up.
Luan rolled onto her back and took a hitching breath. He was right. She knew that. Still, she didn't want to lose him. She was in love with him.
In that moment, she hated her parents with such intensity that she trembled. She hoped they both died in their sleep.