by Sarah Lyu
Her chin trembles and she starts to cry.
“And saying you’re different doesn’t actually make you different. I don’t want to go anywhere with you! I don’t ever want to see or talk to you again.”
“No, Remy, please,” she says. “I am different. Killing Jack was a mistake—”
“A mistake?”
“Please, Remy.” She’s sobbing now, groveling, but I don’t want to hear it.
“You’re different now, less than a week after you murdered Jack? What, are you going to pinky swear not to shoot the next person I love?”
She cries harder. “Listen,” she says between sobs. “Listen to me. I know what you did in your police interview. I know you tried to protect me. I know you still care about me, or you wouldn’t have done it.”
She’s not wrong, but I won’t give her the satisfaction. “Take me home, Elise. I want to go home.” I know my voice is cold, but I can’t crack, can’t show any weakness. Yes, I still care about her, but it’s not enough, not after everything.
“Fine!” she says. “You want to go home, I’ll take you home.” She swerves three lanes over to pull off the nearest exit, barely missing the metal guardrails. We almost crash into another car but Elise avoids it just in time.
“Oh my God,” I breathe, my hands against the dash bracing for impact.
She turns right, and without slowing down, she makes a wide U-turn and then we are swerving out of control, the tires skidding and then hydroplaning on the wet road.
The Pink Caddy lurches forward off the road and shoots down a hill.
I’m screaming at the top of my lungs as she tries to regain control of the car, slamming the brakes. Finally we’re slowing down, but before the tires can find purchase, we hit a tree.
The airbags discharge and I’m disoriented from their punch. But the impact is minor—bruises, not broken bones.
“Are you okay?” Elise asks beside me.
“Stay away from me,” I say, freeing myself from the seat belt and popping open the door.
“What are you doing?” she asks. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t care as long as it’s far away from you!” My legs are weak and I’m stumbling, but I have to get away.
“You can’t leave!”
I keep going.
“No one will ever love you like I do!” she screams after me desperately.
“Good!” I shout back, but I’m beginning to feel faint. The exhaustion and grief is catching up.
If this is love then I don’t want it. Love isn’t need, isn’t holding another person in a death grip.
“Stop,” she says, pushing open the door, scrambling after me.
“Stay away from me,” I say weakly, collapsing to the ground from the exertion, heaving. My head hurts. Everything’s spinning around me.
“You can’t leave me. You can’t,” she says, catching up. The Pink Caddy is behind her, smoke and steam rising from under the crushed hood. The tree stands strong, unaffected. “I’ll die without you, I will.” She’s beside me now, also on her knees, hands gripping the grass, tears falling.
I shake my head, try to stand again.
Even though we’re off an exit in the middle of nowhere, a couple cars have passed, though none stop.
“I will,” she insists. “I’ll die without you.”
Elise grabs my wrist and I shove her off me.
“Get away from me!” I cry, trying to catch my breath, my footing.
Suddenly she does, hobbling in the opposite direction toward the Pink Caddy. Propping myself up with hands on my knees, I can’t pull in enough air. The whole world seems to tilt and sway, the ground shifting beneath me. Struggling, I manage to push myself all the way up to see Elise emerge from the passenger side, glove compartment left hanging open.
I don’t notice the gun until she’s lifting it. For a second I think she’s going to point it at me. For a second I think I’m going to die.
But she raises it to her own temple.
“Don’t leave me, Remy. Please don’t leave me,” she cries.
“No!” I stumble toward her, tripping and falling. “Elise, no!”
“I don’t know how to exist without you, I can’t do it,” she sobs. “I need you, Remy. I need you.”
“No, no, no,” I say, finally reaching her. Dimly, I register a car finally pulling over near us. Elise squeezes her eyes shut and I lunge forward.
I knock the revolver from her hand. It hits the car seat and bounces into the passenger side footwell. She’s after it immediately and manages to retrieve it.
“No,” I say, trying to pull it away from her.
Behind me, more cars have pulled over and people are running toward us, closing in. I just have to keep the gun away from her for another minute.
“I can’t do it,” she says, crying and fighting me for control. “Just let go of me, Remy, just let me go!”
“Don’t do this!”
We struggle, the gun between us.
I hear someone shouting behind me.
Only a few more seconds, I think.
And that’s when it goes off.
65.
Pain explodes through me as I slip away from Elise and hit the ground with a thud. I clutch my left shoulder, crying out. It’s excruciating. I can’t breathe. The world closes in around me—I can’t see, can’t hear.
I am pain and pain is me.
“Remy, Remy,” Elise says, but her voice is so, so far away.
I exist in a strange in-between state, coming in and out of focus. When I open my eyes, the sun overhead is blinding. It takes me a moment to realize it’s night, not day, and I’m no longer lying outside on the grass but inside of an ambulance, strapped to a gurney and staring up at the bright white lights.
I have one last thought before I’m pulled under.
Our wounds don’t make us special. They only mean we’ve been hurt.
Suffering isn’t romantic. It’s just painful.
FRIDAY // SEPTEMBER 1 // DAY 357
66.
When I open my eyes, I’m completely alone in a hospital room. Vases of flowers fill my bedside table and line the windowsill. The pain in my shoulder is dull but persistent.
“She’s awake,” someone says, and I look up to find Christian standing by the door.
All of them walk toward me and it feels like I’m in a dream. Mom, Dad, Christian—they surround my bed and ask me how I am. No one is arguing, no one is angry or sad, only relieved.
The bullet hit my left shoulder, far away from any major arteries, they tell me. It was only a 9mm and I was very lucky, they say. I was in surgery for six hours and might need to have another operation later. I’m looking at a few months of physical therapy, and I might not regain full range of motion in that shoulder, but I’ll be okay. I’ll survive.
“The doctors are optimistic since you’re so young,” Mom tells me. Then she launches into a long and detailed medical explanation of what the surgeons did, how I now have hardware inside me, pieces of metal I’ll always have to carry within me. I think of Jack and his shoulder, of the way trauma changes you forever.
“How are you feeling?” Dad asks, pouring a cup of water for me. I try to drink but can’t, feeling dizzy and nauseated from the pain meds.
Lucky. They keep telling me how lucky I was, but I don’t feel particularly lucky. I reach for my shoulder with my right hand. Even the lightest pressure is excruciating, leaving me gasping in pain.
“Don’t touch it,” Mom says, and it’s not anger in her voice but fear.
“You flew back?” I ask Christian when we have a moment alone. “You just left three days ago.”
“I flew back as soon as I heard,” he says. I can see the concern on his face. “I can’t believe she shot you.”
“She didn’t,” I say. “It was an accident.”
“You can’t be serious,” he says. “You’re really going to keep covering for her?”
“I’m not covering for her,
” I say, and it’s the truth. “It was an accident.” None of them believe me, but that’s what happened. She didn’t aim the gun at me—we both had hands on it when it went off.
And when the Atlanta police arrive for a statement, that’s exactly what I tell them despite the glares from my family. It takes all my effort to hold back, to not ask about Elise. I don’t tell them about the memories I’ve recovered, but it’s not because I’m still protecting Elise. I haven’t decided what I’ll do, if I can even recant my previous statement.
In quiet moments, I wonder where she is, how she’s doing. I can’t shake our last moments together—the struggle over the gun, the sound of her voice begging me not to leave.
But at the same time, I feel a strange distance. I worry about her but I don’t feel responsible for her in the same way I used to—I don’t feel guilt gnawing at my heart. It’s not just the fight, what was said at the end. I can’t explain it, but it’s like the bullet severed more than soft tissue and bone. Like it destroyed every last shred of who I was so completely that I became brand-new.
Within hours I’m running a fever, but it doesn’t feel like any fever I’ve ever had.
Instead, as I burn up, tossing and turning on the hospital bed, it feels like a cleansing fire. Like destruction but also rebirth.
A phoenix rising from its ashes.
It’s a comforting thought, but then I catch myself. This is the kind of lie Elise would believe—this is the kind of pain she thought would make her stronger.
I am not a phoenix rising from its ashes. Fire does not cleanse, only burn. Death isn’t rebirth.
Jack is never coming back.
67.
In the afternoon, Vera comes by. “I thought we agreed to stop meeting like this,” she jokes with a gentle smile.
“Sorry,” I say, returning the smile.
She tells me she’s spoken with Detective Ward, who wants to talk to me again. “This specific incident didn’t happen in her jurisdiction, but she wants to know if there’s anything you’d like to revise in your statement.”
I start crying, alarming Mom, Dad, and Christian. Vera asks them to give us a few minutes. I tell her everything. I tell her about the pranks, about our trip to Chattanooga and the ensuing argument between Elise and Jack, and finally, what really happened Sunday night.
“Will you—” My voice cracks. “Will you make sure Elise is okay?” I can still see her standing in the downpour, gun to her temple. She needs help I can’t give.
“I will,” she says. Vera is the one I trust. She’ll know what to do. “Can I?” she asks, reaching a hand forward, and I nod, letting her squeeze my wrist.
For a while we just sit together quietly, uncertainty hanging in the air between us.
“What do you think I should do?” I finally ask.
“Do you want to know what I think as a friend or what I think as your lawyer?” she says.
“Both.”
She lays out the options. There’s obvious risk to recanting my entire interview. Not only could I be charged with obstruction of justice, but footage of everything I said exists and will be admissible as evidence, making it, again, difficult to prosecute. Another risk is that I could be charged as an accessory to the crime itself for my part after it happened—the lies I told at the station.
“As your lawyer, I’m not sure I’d advise changing your statement now. But there are downsides to staying silent too. If the police recover more evidence and decide to go forward with charges against Elise, you’ll almost certainly be charged as well. Now that they have the murder weapon, it could change things,” she says.
“What do you think I should do?” I ask again, my voice so, so small.
“I think you should let me talk to Detective Ward and the DA first. I can’t say with certainty what they’ll do, but I think they’ll be interested in making a deal in exchange for your testimony.”
“What will happen to Elise?” I ask.
Vera begins to answer but pauses. “I think you already know,” she says. “I think what you’re really asking me is if she’ll be okay.”
I nod.
“I will do everything in my power to get her the help she needs. But no one can say if Elise will be okay or not,” she tells me. “But I know you feel bad. I know you feel like you weren’t able to help her.” All of this is true. That guilt comes and goes. That guilt may never be completely eradicated. “But I have to say, Remy, that I agree with Detective Ward for once. It wasn’t your fault.” Even though I know it too, it’s hard for me to accept it. “A lot of people in Elise’s life failed her. Her parents, her caseworker after she was hospitalized. She needed counseling. She needed things that you couldn’t give her.”
I let Vera’s words sink in, try to process them. She stays a little while longer but eventually the pain in my shoulder becomes too strong for me to think straight. She leaves, promising to come back soon.
A nurse comes in to change my bandages, and after he leaves I click the remote attached to the infusion pump containing my pain meds and slip into a fitful but dreamless sleep.
• • •
When I awaken I find Evan and his parents there. They tell me that Jack’s mother finally managed to get a flight home and that she’d like to meet me since I won’t be able to attend the funeral. They seem worried about me, and not just because of the gunshot wound. Evan is the most bewildered of all, struggling to process everything that’s happened, struggling with this new view of Elise, both of her past and what she’s done. When his parents leave to get some coffee, he sits beside me and tells me he’s sorry.
“Why?” I ask, and for a moment he looks like he’s about to cry.
“Jack—I’m just sorry,” he says, shaking his head.
“How’s Lola?” I ask. Just thinking about her brings tears to my eyes. Jack left and never returned and no one can tell her why.
“She’s confused,” Evan says. “Hangs out by the door and stares out the window a lot.”
“God, that’s awful.” My heart breaks for her and I tear up. No one will ever be able to explain to her why he’s not coming back—or the fact he won’t be coming back at all.
“My parents wanted me to ask you about her, actually.” He takes a deep breath. “Jack’s mom can’t take her since she’s almost never home, and of course Lola will always have a home with us, but she was really Jack’s dog and she seemed to like you a lot, so—”
“Yes,” I say immediately, and my heart breaks again at the thought of the two of us coping with the loss of Jack, but it also brings me a ray of comfort that we’ll have each other.
“Okay,” Evan says with a small smile. “I’ll bring her over when you get out.”
I cry when they leave. My parents, the nurses, and doctors all think I’m in pain, and they’re right, but it’s not the gunshot wound.
Jack was right. The guilt I felt for failing Elise when she needed me most consumed me, confused me. And without its oppressive weight, I am free to really mourn Jack. I cry and cry and cry. I run through all the ways I could’ve prevented his death, all the ways I failed him.
That night, when I sleep, I dream of him briefly. We’re at the lake, and it’s a starry night, like the one when we met. This time, he’s the first to jump in. I quickly follow, and even though it’s dark, I can see his face, that gentle smile.
He goes under and, in my dream, I think we are playing a game. I wait and wait for him to emerge laughing, but he never does. The dream lingers long after I wake up sobbing, gasping for air.
A night tech comes into the room. “Are you okay?” he asks.
I answer honestly. “I don’t know.”
SATURDAY // SEPTEMBER 2 // DAY 358
68.
The next day, I’m surprised with a visit from Melody. She brings me coconut cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies. She tells me about school and the things she’s been up to, and it’s nice to just listen to her voice, let her distract me.
“You know
you’re always welcome at our table,” she tells me before she leaves. I don’t know if it’ll even be possible to go back to Riverside, if I’ll be able to handle it, but it’s kind of her to offer. “You’re always welcome there. You and Elise both were.”
“But you and Elise—” I think of what Christian said, how Elise had embellished aspects of her story. I remember what she told me the day we went off campus for lunch in that sub’s car, about how Melody had confronted her about our friendship. I’m about to ask Mel but I decide not to. I have to let go of the past.
• • •
Later that day, when Mom has gone back to work, Dad sticks around for lunch. “Let’s do it,” he tells me.
“Do what?” I ask warily.
“Get out of here. For real.”
“Um, I kind of can’t on account of being shot,” I say with a weak laugh.
“No, not this.” He laughs too. “I mean you and me. Let’s do it, okay?”
I shrug with my right shoulder. We’ve been here before. “Okay,” I say, indulging him. “Let’s do it.”
“I mean it,” he insists. “This—this was a wake-up call, Remy. I almost lost you.” He begins to cry. “I want to start over. I don’t want to fail you.”
“Dad . . .”
“I’ll get an apartment and then we can move out right away.”
“Okay,” I say, my smile a little warmer this time. I’m not sure I have faith in anything he says anymore, but I can’t help but hope anyway.
FRIDAY // SEPTEMBER 8 // DAY 364
69.
I’m sitting outside on the front steps of my house, my left arm in a sling, when Evan pulls up. Lola jumps out of his car and runs toward me, and I smile genuinely for the first time since Jack’s death. I walk her around the neighborhood for a bit with Evan, and when Mom comes home, Lola’s napping under the dining table.