Behind Our Walls Read Free Page B

they didn't want you to see them," Sophie pointed out.
    "Christ. Fine. " Corrine snapped as she turned to glare at Sophie. "Come along. I don't care. Just keep quiet. I don't want to waste all this time talking about our feelings."
    Sophie looked at Rowen and nodded. She wanted them to have this time to themselves. She had to jog to catch up as Corrine was clearly not interested in waiting. Her assumption had been that after a few minutes, Corrine would not be able to resist the urge to lay into her, and that would be the foot in the door that she needed to get all of this hostility out into the open. Her sister's stubborn streak proved true however and she marched on, barely paying attention to Sophie.
    "Can you at least talk to me?" Sophie asked.
    Corrine let out a harsh breath, but didn't slow. "Not much for listening, are you? I told you that I didn't want to talk."
    "I just don't understand why you and Dad are shutting me out like this. What am I supposed to be doing?"
    This time Corrine did spin around to face her. "There is nothing you can do. That was pretty much settled back in Dad's shitty van when Mom was killed."
    "Corrine, that wasn't my fault, you don't really—"
    "Think that you killed our mother? No, of course not. You didn't pull the trigger. But when things were starting to fall apart, it was your brilliant idea for us to leave town and head for the cabin upstate. You were convinced it would be safe up there and no one would bother us. Never mind the twelve hours of driving we would have had to do in order to get there. And that was assuming that the roads stayed open, instead of getting taken over by psychotic, trigger-happy soldiers."
    "I had no way of knowing that things were going to happen so fast. I thought we had time!"
    "Well, we obviously didn't, did we? Even now, you can't even admit that you were wrong."
    "I'm not denying that I was wrong. I'm just saying that if you had picked a different option, the same thing could have ended up happening. Or it could have been you, or me or Daddy who got killed. We all could have ended up getting killed. There's no way to know."
    Corrine nodded and grinned, but the smile seemed no more than skin deep. Sophie saw the real emotions her sister felt, wrapped up in the single tear that streaked down her cheek. "Yeah, we'll never know now, will we? Very convenient."
    Sophie started to reply but Corrine spun and resumed her walk up the road. Sophie shook her head and trudged along behind. It was like their conversations were on a constant loop, always ending at the same, pissed off destination. All she wanted was to get back to a place of civility, where the two of them could get along without all the blaming and fighting. What terrified her was the thought that it might not be possible. Like so much of the world around them, that state of being for the two of them could be lost forever.
    Corrine stopped, and Sophie drew to a halt herself, looking down and to her right in the direction that Corrine pointed. In the distance, she could see the glow of lights through the trees, what looked like maybe the windows of a small cabin. She watched as Corrine started to make her way down the slope.
    "Wait," she said. Corrine didn't even bother to slow down as she stumbled down the hill. Sophie started to make her way down after her, bracing herself against the spindly trees to stay on her feet. "Wait!" she hissed after her sister. "We shouldn't go down there alone."
    "I'm not alone. You're with me. Besides, how bad could it possibly be?" Corrine asked over her shoulder. "We're in the middle of nowhere, you don't think there's a bunch of rovers down there sitting around the dinner table, playing Canasta, do you?"
    Sophie wanted to point out the idiocy. They needed to get back and bring the others along for support. But it was clear that her choice was either to go along, or turn back to go for help, leaving Corrine behind. Nothing was going to convince her sister to alter her