“I wanted to save Sofía,” Dr. Franklin says. “And I truly believe she wanted to be saved.”
“But you can’t save everyone,” I say in a low voice.
Beyond the Doctor, Carlos Estrada, dripping wet and slowly turning blue, nods.
I remember the day Sofía told me about Carlos’s death. The way no one noticed. Everyone was playing and splashing in the pool, everyone but him. He sank quietly underwater. He never came back up.
Real drowning is quiet, Sofía had said. It doesn’t announce itself.
It just happens.
And then you’re gone. She’s gone.
Carlos Estrada nods again, and then he disappears.
? ? ?
I understand why she told me about Carlos Estrada now.
? ? ?
“You wanted to change the past so much that you believed you could,” Dr. Franklin says.
I stare at the empty place where Carlos Estrada was.
I’m not even sure I know what the past is anymore. The past is Sofía in 1692. The past is yesterday, and realizing how much power Ryan has. The past is my sister’s bedroom door locking. The past is a deer in an empty field, a camp for sick kids, two men riding on horseback in the marsh.
I remember the way she tasted on my lips the first time I kissed her, with a rocket soaring into the stars behind us. I remember the way she held my hand, as if it were a secret. I remember the sound of her voice, the faraway look in her eyes, the sweep of her hair over the side of her face.
I remember the morning we snuck away from the Berk to watch the sun rise over the ocean, and we fell asleep in each other’s arms until the waves licked at the bottoms of our feet. We’d missed the sun, but found each other.
? ? ?
I remember another morning. The morning that she left me.
I saw her from my window, just like I saw the Doctor this morning. I don’t remember what I was thinking; I just knew I wanted to be with Sofía. I dressed quickly and ran outside. I went to the camp ruins first.
I saw her shoes. Her red shoes.
It was cold, and I picked up her shoes because I knew she’d need them.
But Sofía wasn’t at the camp.
I walked to the edge of the grounds, to the ruins of the chimney, where I found Sofía, curled up inside the fireplace. Sleeping.
No, not sleeping. There was vomit on her shirt, bright red and orange like fire, some of it clinging to her lips.
No. I took her back in time. There was literal fire in the fireplace, and a house, and she got stuck in Salem.
But then the Doctor was there. He’d followed us. “Oh my God,” he said.
I found her. I was there. I saw it.
NO! I scream, but the word never reaches my lips.
Ryan’s influence is too strong, even here at the edge of the academy grounds. This isn’t how it happened, Sofía’s not dead, she’s just lost, and I can bring her back. I can, I can.
The Doctor pats me on the back and uses my shoulder as leverage to help him stand. “I just want you to know, Bo, that whatever happens, you’re a good kid. You couldn’t prevent Sofía’s suicide. I don’t think anyone could. If she hadn’t taken the pills, she would have found another way. When someone’s depressed like that, when they don’t have the will to live anymore . . . if time can’t heal them, nothing can.”
That’s just the thing, though, isn’t it? Time can heal her. It can. It can do anything. As long as I control it.
CHAPTER 58
Phoebe
I’m home alone.
It’s actually somewhat rare for me to have the entire house to myself. Dad works from home, and Mom doesn’t work at all, so there’s almost always someone else around. But today Mom went to a women’s meeting at church, and Dad had “business” at a bar in Boston, so it’s just me.
This house is always quiet, but it’s the uncomfortable sort of quiet, the kind where you can almost hear people trying not to make a sound. Today, there’s real silence, which is kind of nice.
I half considered inviting Jenny and Rosemarie over, but it’s not like the three of us would have a wild party or anything. We’d just end up watching movies, and that just feels so exhausting right now.
We got a letter from Berkshire Academy. It said that the school was being shut down.
It’s been a source of much debate between my parents—what do they do with Bo now? He’ll be coming home at the end of the semester, and Mom has nowhere to take him in the fall. Dr. Franklin called our house personally to suggest that Bo move to a more secure facility in the future, and he recommended one in upstate New York.
Dad was immediately against it. The school Dr. Franklin recommended puts academics on the back burner in favor of focusing on therapy; it would take Bo an additional two years at least to graduate, and Dr. Franklin recommended a six-year program that would give Bo an associate’s degree at the end. “Six years?” Dad had raged. “For just an associate’s degree?”
“It’s not about the degree, George,” Mom had said quietly.