by Sarah Lyu
“It’s like, I know it’s not true, but I can’t help but hope. And sometimes it is true, at least for a while. Before this”—she lifted the bruised shoulder a little—“it’d been almost two months. It’s gotten better since we moved here. All the money my grandparents left me helped, dating The Realtor’s helped.” That’s what she still called her father’s girlfriend.
“There are gradations,” she said. “And it could be worse. It could always be worse.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You know my mom left when I was a kid. She just packed up her things and never looked back.” She flicked her cigarette over the ledge, watched as it spun out of view. “She never hit me or anything, but sometimes I can’t decide what’s worse.”
“What do you mean?” The stars were out in full force that night, the sky clear, the moon dark.
“I don’t know. In the end my dad stayed. Maybe that counts for something.” She sounded lost in thought. “That has to count for something, right?” It was shocking to hear her talk about her father like that. Why was she trying to redeem him?
“You’re defending him?” I said, so confused. I pulled back, rewrapping the blanket around me.
“No,” she said carefully. “I’m not defending him, I’m just saying—forget it.”
“What?”
“It’s easier, isn’t it, to just run away? Like my mom did, like your dad’s always doing.” Elise was completely still, her eyes piercing. She was saying that her father wasn’t a complete monster and that was hard for me to comprehend. What he did was unforgivable. She’d been so clear about it the night before but now she sounded uncertain.
I pulled her lighter out and began flipping the top up and down absently, letting the swoosh and clicks comfort me. I still thought of it as hers, then.
“My mom didn’t have to leave me behind. She could’ve just left my dad,” Elise pushed on. “She didn’t have to, but she left me anyway.”
I struggled to understand how her mom’s actions could excuse her dad’s violence, but she seemed so sure of her conclusions that I didn’t push back. The silence and smoke surrounded us, the cold night numbing my fingers as I held on to my cigarette, unsure of what to say, how to help her.
“You know what I learned, Rem? Love isn’t enough. Love doesn’t make people stay.” Her voice was rising, her words growing rushed and uneven. “Do you know what makes people stay? Need. My mother left me behind because she didn’t need me.”
“What’s the difference?” I shook my head. “Love, need, it’s all the same. You love someone, you need them,” I said, but doubt crept in, my heart faltering.
“You could say it means the same thing. Or you could say that true love is pure need.” Elise sounded so wise beyond her years, like she had all the answers.
I remained quiet, confused.
“I need you, Remy,” she said softly. What she was saying: I love you.
After a moment I said, “I need you too.” What we were saying, together: love is to need and to be needed. Love is truest, strongest when you need each other, when you can’t live without each other. Anything less is ephemeral. Anything less risks heartbreak.
We needed each other. What we had was true love.
We were misfit toys who didn’t belong anywhere. And then, for the first time in our lives, we belonged somewhere. We belonged to someone, to each other. Home wasn’t a house. It wasn’t on a map. Home was a person and for me, that person was Elise. We were a little family of our own making, and I thought nothing could stand in the way of that. Back then, I never thought I’d want anything else.
MONDAY // AUGUST 28 // DAY 353
30.
As I piece our history together bit by bit, Detective Ward stares at me with piercing eyes. We are sharks trapped in a tank together, circling and circling. She listens to me talk about how I met Jack, about Elise’s anti-anti-prom party.
It’s so surreal, sharing all of it with a stranger. There are moments when I’m so lost in my memories that I almost forget where I am and why I’m here.
I almost forget that these memories of Jack are the only pieces of him I have left.
I almost forget that there won’t be any new memories with him because he is gone forever.
I almost forget that hours ago, I held him in my arms for the last time.
Almost.
I could live inside of our first memory at the lake forever. When the stars smiled down at us and everything was possible.
I linger on these memories with Detective Ward and she doesn’t cut me off or urge me on. If anything, she seems to soften the more she hears me talk about him.
But eventually I arrive at Elise’s call in the middle of the night, and everything that followed.
Tell me something true. I hear Jack’s voice in my head.
It grounds me. Give me something true, something real to hold on to.
The truth is I failed Elise. I shrank away from her when she needed me most.
Detective Ward twists her wedding band around her finger as she watches me. Behind her, the camera blinks, slow and steady. Vera sits quietly beside me, jotting down notes.
I relay every detail, every word from that night. Describe the bruise on Elise’s shoulder, the tears on her face. I sound tired, almost like the way Elise sounded when reciting some of the things her father had done to her over the years. Like I’m talking about someone else.
I desperately wish I was someone else, that none of this was happening.
It’s strange, talking about that night with someone. Acknowledging the truth. Saying the words out loud. Especially when I promised Elise I’d never, ever tell anyone.
Detective Ward picks up a folder and opens it up on her lap, but I can still read the label on the side: Elise Ferro. I know what she’s looking at. The things I’m sharing with her are details of a larger story she’s already aware of. It’s not a betrayal if she knew, is it?
As she skims the file, I brace myself for the question she doesn’t ask: Why didn’t I tell anyone then?
I’ve failed Elise so many times, in so many ways. There’s so much I have to atone for.
Maybe Ward can see the devastation on my face because she closes the folder and sets it facedown on the table so I can’t see Elise’s name on it, but I catch it anyway.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” she says quietly. The words mean nothing to me—I know the truth—so I don’t bother responding.
“It’s not,” she says again, and all I can think is—isn’t it?
This is a question I’ve found myself circling in the three weeks since that night. If I’d said something when she first told me, then maybe Elise would’ve been safe. If I’d done something, then maybe we wouldn’t even be here today, if only, if only—
My mind comes up with a million reasons. Elise didn’t want anyone else to know. Elise had already tried getting help once. Elise had just turned seventeen and had only one year left.
I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t my story to tell. I have a million reasons and none of them are good enough.
Lurking behind all the excuses is the truth: Maybe it was just easier to do nothing. To think that Elise had it all under control. It was bad, but maybe it wasn’t that bad—bad enough to go to the police and risk everything. Risk no one believing her and angering her father further. Or the flip side, risk people believing her and then losing her to the foster system.
Maybe it was easier to imagine us as heroes-in-training, to tell myself that these were merely setbacks for Elise. This was the part of the movie where the hero got beaten up, where all hope was lost, the dark before the dawn. She’d take all of this pain and suffering and use it to get stronger, to get so strong she could take on the world.
Detective Ward looks like she’s about to say something else when there’s a soft knock on the door.
“Sorry to interrupt,” an officer says, waving a notepad at Detective Ward. “You told me to get
you.”
“I’ll be right back,” Ward says to us. She leaves the door ajar and I can see the two of them talking on the other side of the hall. He’s pointing to something in his notes and she’s nodding along.
Vera takes the opportunity to see how I’m doing. I tell her I’m fine and tune her out, straining to hear what they’re saying in the hall. A million thoughts flood my mind. Is it Elise? Is she okay? Is it Jack’s mother? His cousin Evan? Are they here? My heart is beating so fast it’s going to explode. It feels like all of the air is being sucked out of the room. My hands fly to my throat as I gasp and choke.
“Remy!” Vera’s voice sounds so incredibly far away and all I can hear is my pounding heart.
Finally, Detective Ward steps away for a few minutes before returning to the room. Her expression is carefully neutral.
“We need to talk about last night.”
My eyes remain on the door. Still open, it provides a limited view of the hall. It’s not a particularly busy station and I glimpse only a couple people walking by. I wonder where Elise is. I have a feeling: She’s here, I know it.
“Remy’s answered your questions about last night already. Twice,” Vera says as Detective Ward checks the camera again.
“I have an update. We have a warrant for your phone and took a look at your call and text history. I just want to make sure everything lines up,” she says, sitting down to the same notepad the police officer had.
Vera yanks it from her and begins to skim. “We need time to go over this; we’ve never seen this.”
Detective Ward considers it and reluctantly says, “Fine. Fifteen minutes.” When Vera looks like she’s going to balk, Ward adds, “It’s only the last few I want to talk about,” and Vera finally acquiesces.
After Ward leaves, I look over Vera’s shoulder as she reads it, then answer her questions about which number belongs to Jack and Elise. I don’t have them memorized, but I can recognize Elise’s by her Tennessee area code and Jack’s by the frequency of our texts.
“Oh,” Vera says like she’s realized something awful just as Detective Ward knocks on the door and sits down across from us. I look up at Vera, desperate to know what she’s found.
“We’ve confirmed these texts and calls against what’s on the victim’s cell phone found at the scene,” Ward says. “His cousin helpfully provided the passcode, so we took a look there and of course we’ll confirm with the phone records once we get them, but we don’t expect to see any surprises. So here we have you calling him at 11:02 p.m.. Then at 11:18 p.m., he sends you a text saying he’s there. And then, fourteen minutes later, at 11:32 p.m. precisely, you call 9-1-1. You say that you let him in, then said goodbye, that he startled Elise, causing her to shoot him, but fourteen minutes is an awful lot of time for something you’d expect to happen quickly.”
I pull the handwritten notes toward me, confused, panic rising. It takes me a moment to find the information she’s referencing. Vera, on the other hand, dives right in.
“This means nothing,” she says.
“I think it’s suggestive,” Ward counters.
“Yeah, suggestive of nothing,” Vera says. “Fourteen minutes isn’t a lot of time. Say he texts her from the driveway and she doesn’t see it right away, there’s two minutes. Then, like Remy said, they talk for a bit, easily six or seven minutes there. And then finally she’s at her car and hears the shots, running back inside. And a few minutes with the body, in shock. Fourteen minutes is nothing.”
As she talks, though, my heart is pounding because Detective Ward is right: Where did those fourteen minutes go? All the things Vera says are possibilities, but I was there, and I can account for maybe seven of those minutes.
He arrives, we exchange a few words, I leave, and then as soon as I start the car, I hear the gunshots. Maybe Vera’s right, that I didn’t call 9-1-1 right away, that maybe I was in too much shock to pull myself away from his body long enough to call 9-1-1.
Still, it bothers me. Something about it feels off but I can’t quite explain why.
I run through the night one more time in my mind, try to snap the fragments of my memories together into a coherent whole. Elise and me fighting, then separating. Jack showing up at the door, telling me he’d talk to Elise. I’m in my car, the keys in the ignition, about to leave.
Nothing’s making any sense. I try to follow what Vera’s saying, but no matter how I divide the time, there’s always a few minutes left over. I didn’t miss his text, and I opened the door as soon as Jack arrived. We talked for a bit but it wasn’t that long. Then I went to my car, ready to go home and let Elise and Jack work it out themselves, so we could put the fight behind us.
That’s where they found my keys, still in the ignition. Everything is still hazy but I remember running up those steps.
Maybe Jack didn’t find Elise right away. Maybe he waited for her to come back inside from the balcony, and when she did, he startled her.
And maybe, when I went to my car, I dozed off for a few minutes before being jolted awake by the sound of gunshots. It can all be explained. That’s what matters in the end.
Fourteen minutes isn’t a lot of time, I tell myself over and over. It doesn’t mean anything.
I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince, Ward or myself.
31.
We break for lunch. My parents have gone out and bought me a turkey sandwich but I can’t think about eating. Instead, I hide out in the bathroom for as long as I can.
I splash cold water on my face, trying to wake myself up. I’m so tired that I’m teetering a little. I’m running on empty, but I can still feel the spikes of nausea-inducing adrenaline. My stomach twists, and all I can do is focus on not throwing up. My body thinks I’m about to die. It thinks I’m in the fight of my life, and maybe it’s right.
Every second I’m locked in that room with Detective Ward feels like life or death.
I hold myself up with both arms against the counter. I look in the mirror and a stranger stares back out at me, but I can’t quite look away.
This is life or death, I think, but it’s not only our lives on the line. It’s our friendship that’s endangered.
From the moment she crashed into my life, it’s always been just the two of us, Elise and I. She was a shooting star, a devastating asteroid that shattered my world upon impact. And in its ashes, I was reborn—we were reborn—whole, complete.
I can’t lose her. I can’t let her down again. I can’t let one tragic mistake consume us.
I won’t let it destroy us.
SUNDAY // APRIL 2 // DAY 205
32.
Elise didn’t just love heroes—she wanted to be one. And not just an everyday hero who occasionally spoke up for bullied classmates. She wanted to be the real thing.
“You know what we should do?” Elise said the day after her birthday. I watched her carefully, almost hyperaware of her every move. I was worried about her, but I was also scared, not just of saying or doing something wrong, but of the entire situation. She acted like she had it under control, but how do you control something like that?
“What?” I said, distracted, flicking a cigarette over the balcony ledge, staring at the river below. It was late morning, the sun’s heat growing oppressive.
“We should help people,” she said, eyes lighting up.
“With what?” I asked, confused.
“Anything,” she said, grabbing my shoulder in excitement. “Like what we’ve been doing, with the pranks, but more.”
“More?”
She nodded, taking a quick inhale from her cigarette. “Like we should get organized, take cases.”
“What?”
“Yeah, like the Deadly Vipers,” she said. “Or the Justice League or Avengers.”
I laughed, thinking she was joking.
“I mean it!” she said, but she was laughing too. “I know it sounds a little ridiculous, but don’t you think we could help a lot of people?”
“Sure,” I sai
d, not taking any of it seriously. “Who’d you be—Superman?” In some ways, Elise had always seemed superhuman to me.
I thought of Jack then, and wanted to tell Elise about him. But I still held back. We were in the middle of a conversation and there was always time later.
“No way, Superman’s boring. Batman,” she said, and I thought, Of course. An orphan who overcame terrible tragedy and personal demons to become bigger than life. “A hero no one wants but everyone needs.”
I nodded.
“I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman!” she finished with a grand sweep of an arm, and I swore she was electric.
“What about me?” I asked, playing along. “Don’t tell me I’m Robin.”
Elise tapped her cigarette over the balcony, considering. “Wonder Woman,” she said. “Too pure for this sinful Earth.” She smiled and reached out with a hand to brush a stray hair from my face.
When we went back inside, I checked my phone and saw a couple messages from Jack waiting for me.
Jack: So I thought about waiting a couple of days to text you so I could seem really cool and detached but screw that because I’m low key dying to see you again
Jack: Are you free for dinner tonight?
I loved that he didn’t care about playing it cool and I couldn’t keep the goofy grin off my face as I wrote back yes.
Elise noticed. “Did something happen? You seem different.”
“Different how?’
“Happy? Keyed-up?”
“Oh. Um, I forgot to tell you. I met a guy,” I said, dreading this moment. “At the party. After you left.”
“You did? Why didn’t you say something sooner?” she asked, looking slightly betrayed. “Wait, is this the thing you texted me about but wouldn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to,” I said. “But—”
But you needed me, and you were devastated, and—
Instead, I said, “There just wasn’t a good time and it wasn’t important.” That was sort of true, but at the heart of it, I was a little scared of her—scared that she’d be angry that I’d had such a good time when she’d had such a shitty one.