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Unbroken

Page 28

by A. J. Matthews

“I got it back,” she whispered as the bus lurched and started moving out of the station.

  She told herself to relax, that the farther she got away from Maine and New England, the less likely it was that she would hear about a woman who was missing and presumed dead in a small town in central Maine. Unless Ariel’s body was found, it probably wouldn’t even make national news.

  It was hard to relax because of the guilt she felt about leaving her husband and daughter, but she assured herself that they’d eventually get over her death. What bothered her the most was wondering who Ariel really was.

  Was it possible that she really was Kiera . . . or a version of her that existed in some alternate reality? Was she from a parallel timeline where Kiera had reported Billy’s death, and her and Jon’s lives had changed dramatically?

  Or what if the brain surgery had somehow freed Ariel, who really was just a figment of her imagination? Maybe that had made it possible for Ariel to become real and enter Kiera’s reality.

  It was much too confusing and frightening to contemplate. Maybe she had simply imagined Ariel. The truth was, even though she had spoken to her and had Ariel’s purse and IDs as proof of her existence, Kiera’s memory of her already was slipping away like a half-remembered dream.

  Or was it the other way around?

  Maybe she really was Ariel, and Ariel had dreamed Kiera’s life right up to this moment. Her life with Nate certainly felt like it had happened a long time ago to someone else. Maybe she was just returning to the life she had always lived in Montana.

  In the end, Kiera accepted that she might never figure out what had happened. None of it made sense, but as the bus lumbered out of Worcester onto Route 290, other questions filled her mind . . .

  What’s my home in Bozeman like? . . . Am I married? . . . Do I have kids? . . . What do I do for work . . . if I have a job? . . .

  Three hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money for anyone to have in the bank . . . How did I get it? . . . Did I get it legally? . . .

  Am I a good person? . . . Am I the kind of person I always thought I was or, at least, wanted to be? . . .

  Did I report Jon to the cops when he killed Billy or didn’t I? . . . Did he spend twenty years in prison? . . .

  . . . and perhaps the biggest question of all . . .

  Who’s more real—me or Ariel? . . . Or on some plane of existence, are we both real? And why did she die instead of me?

  It was all too confusing and frightening to contemplate, and as tired as she was, she found she couldn’t sleep as the bus headed out on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

  When they pulled into a rest stop, Kiera was tempted to use the pay phone to call home—just once—to say good-bye to Nate and Trista. She knew what she was doing wasn’t fair to either of them, but if she was going to start living an authentic life, leaving them was absolutely necessary. It was a good thing she had left her cell phone in her car. Her purse and cell phone would help identify her if and when they found her body downriver. Maybe the police wouldn’t check too carefully to ID her. Or maybe they’d never find Ariel’s body, like what happened to Billy. Maybe she’d even meet a version of Billy Carroll out in Montana.

  And who knew? Maybe someday she would contact her family and tell them what had happened. Imagine the shock and surprise. But that wouldn’t happen until she understood better what she had been through.

  One thing gave her comfort, and that was the knowledge that Nate and Trista and the friends she’d left behind would know she had been murdered, that she hadn’t committed suicide.

  Kiera was trying to be optimistic about the new life that lay before her, but she also had no delusions. It would be a life like any other life, filled with mysteries and surprises and—yes, hardships and heartbreaks, losses and maybe even love . . . just like her previous life.

  But her previous life had been broken because of a decision she had made when she was young. She had known it was wrong, even at the time; but from now on, she was determined to live as honestly as she could and be true to what she knew was right because—finally—this life was her life.

  This life wasn’t broken, and she had every intention of living it to the fullest.

  Afterwards, I learned that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart ’till they are tired; and you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.

  George McDonald, Phantastes

 

 

 


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