“It has nothing to do with you,” I said, which wasn’t true at all.
“It has everything to do with me,” he said. And he was right. Because over his shoulder, down the road, was his uncomplicated life, and his uncomplicated future, and I was its opposite. I wouldn’t be responsible for ruining this life too.
“Reid,” I whispered, and I put my hands up, face out. “I can’t do this.”
Reid stopped walking toward me. “What, exactly, can’t you do?”
But I didn’t need to say anything at all, because he already knew the answer. I fumbled for the door handle behind me, my hand still shaking.
“Don’t,” he said. “Wait.” I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t look at him as I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. Too much. It was all too much.
I put my head between my knees until I found my breath again. The selfish part of me still wanted him here, unwavering, standing with me against everyone. I stood and faced the door. There were things I knew about Reid. Things I was sure of. If I opened that door, he’d come inside. He’d listen. He’d believe me. If I opened that door, he’d stay.
I wondered whether he heard, through the rain, the metal clicking into place as I turned the lock.
I watched through the curtains as his car drove away, down the same road as Dylan, and then there was nothing. No one. Not Mom, not Dylan, not even that presence anymore. And definitely not Reid.
I guess that, at least, I deserved.
Chapter 19
I used half the towels in the bathroom to soak up the water that Dylan had brought inside. I showered. I pushed the couch aside and found Mom’s pepper spray. And when she returned, I was sitting in the exact same place I was when she’d left. She let her bag drop on the floor and sat next to me on the couch. “Not much they can do about an off-campus incident,” she said, leaning back against the cushions.
I pressed my lips together to keep the tremble from my mouth. I sat on my hands so she wouldn’t see they were shaking. And I held my breath so she couldn’t hear it catch. She placed her hand tentatively on my shoulder and said, “It’s okay. Dad’s talking to the lawyer again. We’ll figure something out. And then we’ll get out of this place.”
And that did it. My mother telling me we could go—together. My breath caught and she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me from the side. It was like she was seeing me for the first time since the night she came home and found Brian’s blood all over her spotless kitchen floor. It was like she was making up for that. Because she didn’t hug me that night.
She couldn’t. She was shaking too hard.
Colleen had been begging me to stand up. She told me we had to go. Leave. Get out of there. And she was pulling on my arms, trying to get me to my feet.
“Mallory,” she said. And I realized she was choking on the word. I looked at my hands, my shirt, and realized what I must’ve looked like to her with the tide rising up.
I reached both arms up to her and she locked her hands around my elbows and I locked mine around hers and she dug her feet into the sand and I dug mine in too, and then we were standing.
“Come on,” Colleen whispered, like we were supposed to go but stay hidden.
But as she started walking I said, “Colleen.” She looked over her shoulder, and I said, “I want to go home.”
She didn’t argue, though I could tell she wanted to. She stopped and faced me, and we stood that way for a minute at least, with the rain falling between us, and then she closed the gap between us, wrapped her arms around me, held on so tight I stopped shaking. Held on like this was the end of something, like this was good-bye. But all I could think was that I was getting blood on her shirt. “Please,” she whispered, and all I could do was shake my head against hers. Though now I realized that when she said please, she hadn’t been saying it to me.
We were saying good-bye. To the life we thought we’d have. To the future we thought we’d see. Even if it was just the two of us, and the future was just tomorrow. We wouldn’t have it. We walked down the back alley, and there were people outside, some with umbrellas. Some without. They parted as we walked, and Colleen held onto my hand. And as everyone parted for us, I saw a figure at the end. My mother, shaking her head, with a hand over her stomach, and a cop with a hand on her shoulder, and my dad with an arm on her back.
She looked up, I guess to see what the sudden silence was about. And she looked at me, covered in rain and salt water and blood, walking toward her, like I was a ghost. Her knees gave out beneath her.
Dad caught her under the arms before she hit the ground.
“Everything will be okay,” Mom said, like she should have that night but didn’t. Couldn’t, I guess. And then after that, it was too late. Nothing was okay after that.
I wrapped my arms back around her, but I wasn’t scared anymore. Mostly I was angry. Angry for Brian. Angry for Dylan. Angry for the thing I’d done and couldn’t undo. For the future I’d taken and couldn’t replace. For time, so finite and unbendable, that I could not go back. Not now. Not ever.
And, if I was being perfectly honest, I was angry at Mom. My hands tightened into fists around her back.
“I can’t believe you sent me here.”
“It wasn’t safe at home,” she said. “You know that. I was scared she would hurt you. She wasn’t right in the head.”
“Is that why you hid the knives from me? Because it wasn’t safe for me?”
“What? You used to stare at that kitchen, like you were remembering something horrible. You were remembering something horrible. I put them away so you wouldn’t have to think about it every time you walked in the room.” Then her whole body tensed. “Is that what you thought? That we sent you away because we were scared of you?”
When I didn’t answer, she said, “We were scared for you.”
“I don’t know why I did it, Mom,” I choked out. I thought of the choice again—the knife, the door. Death, life. “I should’ve picked life,” I whispered, though I’m not sure she understood.
She stopped breathing. And with my head on her chest, I could’ve sworn her heart stopped beating for a second too. “Mallory, don’t you see? That’s exactly what you did.”
I clung to my mother like she was the only thing I had in this world.
Which, I guess, she was.
That night there was no heartbeat. There never had been. There had only been my memory of Brian pounding on the door, trying to force his way in. There was no voice, either. No name whispered throughout the room. No hand reaching for me as I drifted away. There had only been my memory of Dylan, calling my name and then grabbing my shoulder in the alley. I hadn’t remembered—didn’t want to remember—but I needed to remember. I needed to. The memory demanded to be seen.
Like Reid had explained, his mother had been stuck. And sometimes the psychological can manifest into something physical. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real. My shoulder still ached—the handprint still raw, like a healing burn mark. Real as anything, there it was.
And the dream still came. Just because I finally remembered didn’t really change anything. It didn’t change the fact that I kept remembering. It didn’t make the dream any better. Didn’t change the ending.
I was caught in between again, as I was waking up. Hearing Brian’s heart as he stood before me. Boom, boom, boom. No. Not a heart. It had never been his heart to begin with. It was someone at the door. Again.
I opened my eyes and jumped out of bed, thinking maybe it was the police telling me—telling us—that we were free to go. I raced out of my room, still in my pajamas, but Mom was already in the living room, dressed for the day, pepper spray held behind her back.