This is what you wanted.
My heartbeats fire in succession like a machine gun. I wait for them to stop, to slow down. They don’t. I put my hand over my chest and blood runs down my body. I can almost see my chest palpitating with my heartbeats. I push on the glass door. It won’t budge and I can’t breathe and I need to breathe. I want this over, but not like this, quicker. My rapid heartbeat continues. I try to turn off the water, but my fingers slip on the knob. I forget which way to turn and the stream turns ice cold. It’s freezing and the knives have turned into daggers, piercing my skin. I look down and there’s so much blood, but I don’t feel cleansed. I don’t feel the salvation I’m supposed to.
I gather some strength and try again to pull the door to the side with my good arm, but it gets stuck. I start to push on it and it won’t relent. I slam my fist on it over and over, pounding onto the fake glass. It’s vibrating and I can feel it in my body, hear it echo in my head.
There’s too much blood.
I shove it again with all the strength I can manage and the door releases from the hinges and shatters, sending me down with my broken leg straddling the bathtub, with my bagged arm under me.
I’m naked and broken on the floor and no one is coming.
You deserve this.
I grasp onto the sink, gulping air. I look down and my blood-red fingerprint has stained the white sink. My hand slips; my body can’t hold me up anymore. I can’t get enough air. The room tilts.
There’s a knock on the door once, then I hear a strong kick and the wood splinters before the door flies open and slams into the wall. My dad comes in, his eyes wide and panicked.
I’m numb, unable to move. My breath has abandoned me. He grabs me and sets me on the toilet, searching my face for an explanation, but I can’t respond. I want to talk, to tell him to leave me here, but my lips are sewn shut, like my vocal cords have atrophied.
“What did you do?” he gasps, his face in anguish, as if he finally notices I’m covered in blood.
My breathing has calmed but my body is a statue. It’s as if I’m watching my life from above it. And I can’t do anything about it.
He wraps me in a towel and starts pacing. “Your mom’s going to be home soon. Just . . . we’ll talk to her when she gets home.”
I say nothing.
He grabs more towels, I don’t know how many, and holds them on my arm, pushing my good hand against the towels. “Keep the pressure on the cuts.” He retrieves his cell phone and stares at it. “Jesus Christ, Ellery.”
I want to let go and let the blood just flow. It wants to, I can tell.
He leaves for a moment and returns with a flowy dress I didn’t know I had. He slips it over my head as if I were a doll—carefully and quietly, watching out for my bagged arm until the dress is on.
“I have a big case coming up. I can’t afford to have another daughter . . . I should take you to the hospital,” he says, as if he’s talking himself into it.
Before Tate died I would have cared that he was so shallow, that he only cared about winning cases and fucking around on Mom, but now? His words don’t hurt anymore. I don’t let them.
He lifts the towels and his shoulders relax. “The pressure’s working, I think. We may not have to go to the hospital.” He places them back on my arm and leaves me in the bathroom, the floor scattered in glass, my blood dripping onto plastic bags.
? ? ?
I’m not gasping when I open my eyes from the memory. My breath has returned, but I haven’t learned a damn thing. A whole year and I’m back to where I started. I may not be able to change my past, but I can change who I hurt in the present.
I have to let Colter go.
41
I have to let Colter go because I love him. It’s the right thing to do. I got lost in his sweet words and smiles and his bravery. He never ran away. He only wanted to help me. The least I can do is let him go so he doesn’t have to go through what I just did with Dean.
No one deserves this.
I get into my car and turn the heat on full blast. My cell’s screen displays his name and I try to think of any way I can end it over the phone and not look like an asshole in this scenario. I suppose I’m the asshole no matter what, so I call him.
He answers on the first ring.
“Hey, beautiful. How are you?” he says in a gravelly voice laced with concern.
My heart plummets into an empty abyss.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. What happened? Are you hurt?” he says with panic in his voice.
“Dean Prescott’s dead. He shot himself this afternoon.”
Silence.
“Oh my God.”
“Can you meet me at The Beanery?” I ask.
“Yeah, of course. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”