You’re doing the right thing.
The icy rain pelts on the windshield, pounding like large wooden sticks banging on metal. My tears and blood have dried and the residual burn has left my skin stiff. The gentle swipe of the windshield wipers is the only sound. They swish back and forth. Back and forth. I glance in the rearview mirror and wince at my appearance.
You really are crazy.
Bile gathers in my throat. I swallow it down and cross over the bridge.
It all happens in a slow bubble—a blip in time.
Slipping on the puddle in the road. My car smashing into the railing, careening off the Dover Bridge toward the rushing water.
The descent lasts for hours and seconds at the same time.
“Sissy?” A small voice travels from the back seat.
The despair is instant. Everything in what was left of my life just changed. My thoughts, my actions. My heart separates into tiny pieces.
“What’s wrong?” Tate says, emphasizing the G at the end of wrong, like she always does.
I yank my foot off the gas and look back into her pure brown eyes, so innocent and confused. Time is frozen.
How could she be here?
“Buckle up! Hold on!” I scream, holding my arm behind me in a weak attempt to shield her from the impact. She tumbles forward, legs and arms flailing, her face twisting in pain and confusion.
I try to grab her, but my hands find empty air.
? ? ?
That was the last image I saw. I don’t even remember hitting the water or how the hell I survived. The doctors told me it was a combination of how the car was made and sheer dumb luck. It should have been me at the bottom of the river.
“I was on my way to the hospital to tell my mom about my dad when my car slipped and smashed through the bridge. I don’t know how fast I was going. But it was fast enough that I couldn’t control anything. The car started falling toward the water when I heard her voice, and I knew she’d snuck back there to hide from us, from our fighting. She had nowhere else to go to get away.”
I sit down on the railing and face the river. He walks up behind me and pulls me into his chest, placing his chin on my head.
Safe.
“I watched her die. I saw her little face go through the confusion and then the reality that this was it for her.” I wipe acidic tears from my eyes. “I couldn’t comfort her. I was trying to figure out how to save her. I thought I was going to die, too, but I didn’t care. I needed to save her. Have you ever watched someone the moment they realize they’re going to die? I don’t mean when they saw it coming. I mean when they have no idea and then—boom. They have seconds. Seconds to come to grips with it.”
“Jesus,” he says softly into my hair.
“I tried to put . . . I put my arm out, but it was hopeless.”
“I’m sure you did everything you could.” His warm breath rustles my hair.
“I should be down there. I deserve to be down there in that water, so I can feel what she felt. So I can somehow make it right.”
“It won’t make the world suddenly balanced. Do you really think your sister would want you at the bottom of the river?” he says, glancing down at the water below us.
“She looked up to me and I let her down in the worst way you could. I did nothing to save her.”
“She loved you. You were her big sister. She’d want you to let this go.”
I turn around and push his arms off me. “You don’t know that. You didn’t even know her.”
“My brother wouldn’t want me to kill myself for not helping him. I could have saved him. If I would’ve told someone, he’d still be alive. You don’t think I suffer every day with that?”
“Do you think that would have really stopped him? If you told?”
“I’m never gonna know.” He locks his jaw like he does when he’s seriously pissed. “You’re taking the easy way out. Just like he did.”
“You think this is easy?” I flip my legs back over the side of the bridge and move closer to the edge. I hear his intake of breath.
“No, I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.”
“My dad blames me for her death. He won’t even speak to me.”
He places his hands gently on my shoulders. “He’s an asshole, but he’s not worth dying for.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s not, but it can be.”
I take a deep breath and stare down at the water below.
Soon.
47
The air on the bridge has thickened with the truth. It’s charged with it. Everything I’ve ever kept secret is pouring out of me like it’s made of liquid. I twist on the ledge toward him so he can hear my next words. “I knew about Dean and I didn’t do anything,” I whisper, hanging my head. Might as well confess all my sins.