Kirsten puts her arm through his and rests her head on his shoulder. “Marcus and I have an arrangement. He does what I ask and he gets what he needs.”
He yanks out of her grasp. “No way. I want no part of this.”
She regards him coolly. “You’re already in. It’s too late.”
I look at the creek, running briskly downstream, and my eyes burn. I take a few slow steps toward the falls, then a few more. Each time I pick up a foot it seems heavier than the last, my big black boots weighing down my steps rather than making me feel secure. Kirsten doesn’t say anything, she just matches my pace.
Marcus shuffles behind us. “Just call the sheriff, Kirsten. This is fucked up.”
“It’s her choice,” Kirsten growls.
The air is warm as we move along the creek, filled with the scents of springtime and promise I’ll never taste again. I have to bite back tears when I think of all the nevers. Never college, never dreams . . . never again my mother’s face. I feel Marcus at my back, bearing witness to all of it. But he’s just one more piece I’ve already lost. And then Kirsten’s word echoes in my mind, and I know she’s right. I have chosen. I chose this fate the day I applied for a scholarship. I chose it every time I fought with Gretchen. I chose it again when I dared to challenge her the night of the party. Gretchen didn’t succeed in pushing me into the falls then, but she might as well have. I was stupid to think it could end any other way.
We reach the rocks above Hidden Falls before I’m ready. People have laid new flowers and trinkets in place of the old memorial, but even in the dark I can make out where the graffiti used to be.
The second bitch is going down.
Kirsten hardly glances at it, but I guess I knew it wasn’t hers. Aisha was right, there were a lot of people Gretchen pissed off.
I turn in a circle and everything else is so much like it was three weeks ago, I stumble, my mind flashing visions of Gretchen in the shadows. I guess this is fitting, to never escape her. She’s probably watching from wherever she is and laughing, waiting to pull me under the icy water.
“Last chance to back out,” Kirsten says over the gush of the falls. It’s loud, but not like it was the last night I was here. My heart pounds. If I scream, someone might hear.
I look at her, then at the phone. She’s holding it up again, nine-one-one punched in on the screen. I try to imagine my mother’s eyes when she finds out what I’ve done.
What I did.
I step a shaking foot onto the ledge where I last saw my best friend alive. The place where the good things we had got all mixed up and destroyed with everything else. I get lost for a moment, trying to remember some of them. The time she spent teaching me how to drive. How the two of us could go days quoting lines from our favorite movies. How she really did listen, whatever her motive, anytime I was sad or hurting.
With nothing but air and water at my back, I raise my head and try to think carefully what to say. “I am sorry. If I could bring her back—”
“You can’t,” Kirsten says.
I open my mouth again, but the look on her face tells me not to waste my last breath. No amount of words can make up for what I did. I turn to Marcus. His face is a black cloud, his hands opening and closing. Our eyes meet and I see a glimmer of something—maybe just something that could’ve been. My heart comes to pieces thinking of everything we never had because of Gretchen. And because of me.
“I meant what I said before . . . about how I feel. I never could have turned you in.”
His jaw is tight. “This is wrong. Don’t do this.”
“No, it’s okay.” I shake my head, blinking back tears I hope will be lost in the spray. “It’s what I want,” I tell myself. “It’s best this way.”
I close my eyes, the rush of water drowning everything out until I almost feel like I’m alone. I take a moment to appreciate the solidity of the limestone beneath my feet, the cool humid air. But one by one my family steps into my thoughts, coming to join me. My throat closes. I don’t even know what’s happened to my uncle Noah. Will my mother wake up tomorrow without a daughter or a brother? How will she explain that to my cousin? Will she and Dina accept that I took my own life? Will any of them forgive me?
Suddenly, that seems worse, never having any answers. My mom could live the rest of her life above the diner, looking out into the park, wondering and never knowing. A sharp pang shoots through my chest. That’s probably how Gretchen’s parents feel now. I’ve taken my knowledge of what happened to her for granted.
I open my eyes.
“What are you doing?” Kirsten asks.
I purse my lips. I can’t convey to her how much watching Gretchen die has haunted me. How if I back off this ledge now, I’d be shifting that weight to her instead of easing her burden.
“I changed my mind. Call the sheriff.”
I take a step forward, on trembling legs, but onto solid ground. Marcus seems to exhale with his whole body, but Kirsten’s eyes blaze in an unnerving, familiar way.