It's Our Secret

by W. Winters

  And I know I aimed. I can remember that.

  Again and again, my arm lifted and slammed the lamp down. My throat burned with a scream I couldn’t hear. I pushed my muscles harder and harder, feeling like I was on fire.

  I just wanted her to stop screaming. I wanted all this to go away. To be a nightmare and nothing more.

  For a moment, I questioned myself. As if my sudden lapse of sanity was over. As if I wasn’t angry, and I was wondering what I was doing.

  But the moment was quickly forgotten when I heard Allie scream again.

  And that’s when the hammering of the base of the lamp turned to a slash from the broken ceramic.

  It’s all a haze of red.

  Like I wasn’t seeing things clearly. Like it wasn’t real.

  It stayed that way as the blood spilled from his neck where a shard of the glass pierced his skin. It covered his shoulder and poured onto my leg and onto the sofa. I’ve never seen anything like it. And maybe the surprise of it is what stops me. I can’t be sure.

  His eyes stare through me. With every breath, I wait for him to blink but he doesn’t. What the hell just happened? My heart pounds and my pulse is louder than anything I’ve ever heard. I’m dizzy as I imagine him reaching up to stop the steady flow of blood, but his body is still. This isn’t real. This didn’t happen.

  I can barely hear Allie but I know her screams have stopped, and she’s saying something else now as she hunches over, but not taking her eyes from me. Something laced with dread and guilt, but I can’t hear her over the ringing in my ears. I can hardly focus my vision on her. My body’s shaking and I can’t move. I’m frozen. It feels that way as I drop what’s left of the lamp to the floor. It thuds and then cracks, that’s clear to me. But Allie’s words are mixed with the memory of her scream.

  I can hardly feel her tugging on me as I stare at her ripped pajamas, hanging from her chest.

  It all stays red until the scream from behind me forces me to realize there’s someone else here. Someone other than Allie. Allie’s weeping on the ground, her hands covered in blood as she crouches on the ground and then looks up at me with fear and sorrow swirling in her eyes and it takes another scream before I turn around to face the front door and see who’s screaming.

  Someone who would bear witness to what I’d done.

  Someone who heard the screaming and came in through the front door.

  Someone who saw Kevin’s dead body at my feet.

  Allie’s neighbor from earlier, is screaming in the doorway behind me.

  31

  Allison

  No. I take it back.

  I take it all back.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “Dean, stop!” I try to scream at him but my voice is hoarse, the pain ripping my throat as I topple over. The bleeding won’t stop. I keep pushing against Kevin’s throat with my trembling hands as if I can stop the flow. But it won’t.

  It’s too late.

  I know it is but I can’t stop trying.

  I can barely breathe as my shaking hands move away from the limp body. He’s still warm but blood isn’t pumping from the wound anymore. It’s hardly a trickle.

  “Are you okay?” I hear Dean ask over the sound of a shrill scream.

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s trying to pick me up and move me, but I can’t move. I can’t be touched. I only catch a glimpse of a woman’s back from the doorway.

  My heart races and my body chills.

  “Dean,” I say. What did I do?

  It happened so fast. Too fast to control. Too many moving parts to see what would come next.

  I didn’t mean for this to happen. I try to blink away the vision. The memory. As the feeling of Kevin pushing me down comes back to me and I could vomit from it. I shove against Dean’s chest. My body reacts reflexively, trying to protect me.

  “It’s me,” he says as I wrap my arms around my shoulders and try to get away.

  I’m numb and shaking.

  “It’s me. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Dean keeps speaking lies.

  It’s not okay.

  It’s never been worse.

  Kevin’s body is at an odd angle on the floor and as I try to back away, Dean’s boot hits Kevin’s leg. And it moves easily, lifeless.

  I didn’t mean for him to die.

  It’s all I can think. I swear. I wanted the world to know who he was and what he was capable of.

  I wanted him to pay for what he did to Sam.

  But I never intended this.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, the words whispered from my lips and Dean stiffens beside me. It’s the first time I really look up at him.

  His hair’s disheveled and his eyes are narrowed and deadly. I should be scared of him, but all I can do is cling to his side.

  “You didn’t do anything.” His t-shirt seems to tighten around his broad shoulders, the cotton stretching as he takes a heavy breath.

  But didn’t I? The pain and regret all mix with everything else. It’s a whirlwind of chaos.

  Right there beside us is the undeniable and crushing truth that I’ve brought Dean into this. I led him here. The one person who made me question it.

  My heart stutters in my chest, refusing to believe this is real and not wanting to admit any of this. I just want to go back to that night in the hotel room and tell him everything. I want to beg for his forgiveness. To let him walk away and save him.

  It’s too late.

  The whisper hangs between us as I say, “What have I done?”

  “You were fighting him,” Dean says and struggles to control his breathing. I can feel his eyes piercing into me but I can’t look him in the eyes. “You were fighting him and screaming,” he repeats.

  I nod my head.

  “He was hurting you.” His voice cracks on the last word.

  I finally look up at him with tears welling in my eyes. The pain has apparently won. Of all things, pain is the most damaging. “He was trying to…” The words are slow, achingly slow and the worst word of all stays trapped in the back of my throat.

  I’m going to be sick.

  My stomach churns and I try to stand but my head’s foggy and I slip backward, almost touching the dead body.

  With the image of him pushing me down, I try to get away and Dean’s there, holding me, pulling me away from the nonexistent threat. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “I’m here,” he whispers and holds me as the faint sound of a siren in the distance sneaks in through the broken front door. “It’s okay.”

  “Dean, it’s not okay.” I look into his eyes as I speak and I’m so wounded. None of this is okay. It hasn’t been. But it wasn’t supposed to become this. This isn’t right.

  What have I done? Please, I just want to take it back.

  My heart pounds in my chest. The fear is crippling.

  “No.” The word bubbles from my lips repeatedly as the reality hits me. There’s no way I could have known this is what would happen. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know and I didn’t want this.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay,” Dean keeps saying even over the sound of the sirens growing louder by the minute. As if anything could be okay.

  “You don’t understand,” I plead with him to listen but my throat is scratchy, and I hiccup over my words. “I’m so sorry,” I whimper, covering my face as the tears pour from me.

  “Stop saying you’re sorry!” Dean yells as he grips my shoulders, forcing me to face him. His strong hands pin me where he wants me with a force that almost makes me collapse. If I did, I’d collapse into his arms. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says and his voice is full of sympathy, but so much more than that too. He keeps saying that but he doesn’t know the truth.

  “You don’t understand,” I say, the words full of agony as I remember Samantha’s broad smile. She was so beautiful. So full of life and happiness. It’s a smile that will only live in my memory. I’ve let everyone down. Everyone I ever loved. Sam. De
an.

  “Did you want him to do that?” Dean questions with hate, with denial, with jealousy in his eyes and I shake my head furiously.

  “Never,” I tell him quickly. “I didn’t. I swear.”

  “Then stop it!” he commands me. He doesn’t understand.

  “I knew he would,” I say, the words coming out strained. “When I let him in—” It’s only a part of a confession and it’s cut off by Dean’s fingers digging into my arms as he shakes me slightly.

  My cheeks feel hot as the tears stain them.

  “He’s responsible for what he did, Allie,” Dean tells me, his eyes piercing into my own. “I won’t have you say any differently.” The sirens are louder now, almost deafening.

  “I asked for this,” I say weakly, full of shame.

  “What did you ask for?” He barely gets out the words as his voice shakes with pain. He shakes his head as he adds, “You didn’t ask for this.” He’s full of denial as the police park in front of the house. I can hear them. There’s more than one cop car and the sound of multiple doors slamming shut is mixed with him whispering that this isn’t my fault and that I’m okay and that he’s the one who’s sorry.

  But it is my fault.

  I asked for this. For vengeance. For justice.

  I didn’t just ask for it. I prayed for it every day for years. When they taunted her in the hallways. When the other girls declined to sit with her. Every meeting I had with lawyers who refused to take the case, saying it was impossible. Every time I thought of her, I knew I would never be able to stop until someone did something. I prayed for him to pay.

  Dean didn’t, though. Knowing that, I hate myself even more.

  32

  Dean

  My stomach feels hollow.

  My body is freezing.

  The fucking jail cell is cold, so at least that part makes sense.

  The doctor who came in to examine me said I was in shock. Maybe that’s what happens when you kill a man. Or when you see someone you love screaming in pain. Maybe the two are the same.

  A cell opens and closes, and I barely lift my eyes at the eerie sound of finality.

  I killed him.

  In cold blood.

  This isn’t a bar fight I can get out of.

  Charges have been pressed and they booked me within hours.

  Third-degree murder.

  I told them everything. Every bit of what I remembered. There’s no way to get out of this and I still don’t know how I could do it. I can say I’m sorry and I didn’t intend to kill him, and I mean it. I do. I didn’t mean to kill the prick. It doesn’t change it, though. I can’t take it back.

  I’m fucked.

  I run my hand down my face and try to stop seeing him. Any time the image flashes in my head of him dead on the floor, it’s followed by one of him on top of Allie. It’s like a sick joke my mind’s playing on me. Twisting and coiling the darkness inside my head until it strikes me down over and over again.

  “Allie,” I whisper under my breath and let my head fall. The door opens at the end of the row of cells and I repeat to myself, “It was to protect her.” Wasn’t it?

  I’m already starting to question it. Just like the cops did. Asking me what I thought of him. If we’d had physical encounters before. How my anger management sessions were going. Whether I tried to pull him away or if I just went in to kill him.

  They questioned if he was even hurting her.

  I didn’t have to keep going, but I swear I couldn’t stop myself.

  There were so many questions, I couldn’t even keep my own answers straight.

  “Just let me know when you’re ready to leave.” I lift my eyes at the sound of the guard’s voice and see Uncle Rob standing outside of the bars.

  They slide open and he walks through, looking like a ghost of the man I once knew. His hair’s silver and the heavy bags under his eyes are either from years of booze or weeks of no sleep.

  “Dean,” he says my name and my eyes drop from his jeans to his boots, then lower to the cement floor of the cell. I can’t look him in the eyes.

  The cell door shuts with a loud clink and I hear him walk over to the cold bench to sit beside me.

  He doesn’t speak as he leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

  “Your lawyer’s coming,” he tells me with a tone of comfort and safety as though a lawyer can get me out of this. I guess I should have asked for one before saying a word. But what’s the point?

  “I did it,” I tell him in a tight voice and tilt my head to reach his eyes. “I killed him.” The last sentence comes out strong. I can at least own it. “He was trying to—”

  Uncle Rob cuts me off, placing a hand on my shoulder and leaning in closer. “I know what happened. They gave me the report. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a lawyer.”

  His eyes are bloodshot and rimmed in red as he stares at me, begging me to hear him out.

  “I don’t see the point. I told them what happened. They know he tried to rape her.” My voice goes tight. “I only did it to save her.”

  “It’s Jack’s nephew. He’s friends with the judge. You need a lawyer.” His voice is hard but also panicked.

  I huff out a breath of disbelief at my uncle’s words. “I already know that.”

  “Listen to me for once in your fucking life, Dean,” my uncle shouts at me with exasperation. “He doesn’t want his name smeared.”

  “Smeared?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  “You don’t know how they’ll spin it,” my uncle says sharply and that gets my attention.

  “Spin it?”

  “Jack said she set his nephew up.”

  “She what?” My vision spins.

  “That she liked it that way and wanted to make you jealous.”

  “You believe him?” I stand up abruptly, moving away from my uncle and looking at him with disgust.

  “No!” he says and taps his foot nervously on the cement floor. “They’re going to try to spin it. They’re saying she wanted him and that you caught them in the act.”

  “But she’s a witness, she can testify. Shit, a neighbor heard her screaming!” My voice bellows in the cell, my anger bouncing off the hard, unforgiving walls.

  “Well, there’s some damning evidence, Dean. You need to hear it. You need to be prepared for it.”

  “Hear what?”

  “Your anger, your arrests. Pictures of the two of you and testimonies of her being more than friendly with some of your friends.” My heart slows with each word.

  “None of that has anything to do with this.”

  “Maybe not to you, but your opinion doesn’t matter. If they think she’s lying, her testimony doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s the truth!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he says in a flat voice.

  “She didn’t want him to rape her.”

  “You have to prove it was rape.”

  “Her word isn’t enough?” I spit back at him with even more contempt.

  “Not when she’s made her intentions questionable. The DA has to decide—”

  “Get out!” I say and seethe. “I don’t need you or your lawyer.” My voice comes out even and confident, and I have no fucking clue how. I’m trembling with anger and sickness.

  “I’m not leaving you,” he tells me with a shaky voice. “You needed me back then, and I failed you. I won’t fail you now. If you don’t want me here, that’s fine. I’ll respect that, but I’m getting you a lawyer for the arraignment.”

  33

  Allison

  I’ve been waiting for one phone call.

  The one where a stranger on the end of the line will tell me I can go see him. They told me I needed to leave. That I needed to wait and stop calling. So, I’m trying to be patient.

  I have to tell Dean first. He has to know.

  And then I can tell everyone else. They’ll let Dean go after I do. They’ll have to.

  It’s my fault. I’m still in di
sbelief. I can’t believe it happened.

  My tired eyes lift from the dead violets on the windowsill to the front door. The window’s open and I should have heard someone pull up to the house, but I didn’t.

  “Allison?” a soft voice says hesitantly and I press my palms into my sore eyes.

  “Mom?” Through my tears, I think I see her. She’s hazy and the white blinds swirl in front of her before she can walk in and shut the door behind her, but I hear her voice.

  “You didn’t answer your phone.” She talks quickly as she walks toward me with uncertain steps. “I had to come see you,” she whispers as I get up from the floor with shaky legs.

  “Mom?” I can’t stop repeating myself.

  My feet move on their own, guiding me to her and when I finally get close enough, I cling to her. Burying my face in the crook of her neck, I hold on to her with a tight grip.

  “Mom,” I say between the sobs.

  “I’m here,” she says and holds me back just as tightly, the keys in her hand dropping to the floor and clattering together. The noise makes my shoulders shake, but everything makes me jumpy now. I don’t care.

  I’ve broken down so many times in the last week. I thought I was done with crying. I thought I had nothing left, but as she cries into my hair and rocks me, they come again. They’re merciless.

  I deserve it.

  “Are you okay?” my mother asks me although her grip doesn’t loosen. I can’t nod and I can’t speak, so I don’t say anything until she holds me at arm’s length.

  “Talk to me please,” she begs me and I shake my head. Her eyes are red and puffy with dark shadows beneath them.

  “I’m not okay. I’m not okay,” I tell her as my shoulders shake.

  “It’s okay, I’m here,” she says, just like Dean did. As if mere words can make it all right but they can’t. “I heard what happened,” my mother says and my body tenses, but all she says is that it will be okay.