Even if every instinct I have is screaming at me to do something, anything, to help.
The pacing finally stops around 2 a.m. I hear her door close, and then the creak of the bed springs as she lies down.
I don't sleep. Just lie here in the dark, hand throbbing, listening to the silence and hoping she's okay up there.
Hoping tomorrow she'll let me help.
Hoping I haven't made everything worse by losing my temper and beating the shit out of Tyler.
Hoping she knows that what happened wasn't her fault, that freezing is a normal trauma response, that she's not weak or broken or any of the things I know she's telling herself right now.
But hope feels pretty fucking useless when the person you care about is falling apart above you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
10
MAYA
I'm in the supply closet again.
The walls are too close, pressing in from all sides. Pills dig into my spine: sharp edges, hard plastic bottles jabbing into my skin with each movement. His hands pin my wrists above my head, fingers like vises, bruising the bone. His weight crushes the air from my lungs, and I can't breathe, can't move, can't do anything but feel every second of it.
"Stop. Please stop."
My voice doesn't sound like mine. It's small, broken, begging.
He doesn't stop. He never stops.
The fluorescent light above flickers, casting shadows that make his face monstrous. I can smell his cologne mixed with sweat, can feel his breath hot against my neck, can hear him saying things I've spent three months trying to forget.
Just relax. This is what you wanted. Stop making this difficult.
"No—please?—"
The door opens.
Lily's there.
Six years old in her hospital gown, the one with the fadeddinosaurs on it. Her pigtails are askew, one higher than the other, like they always were. She's watching me with those big eyes, too big for her small face, too knowing.
"You couldn't save me," she says, and her voice echoes wrong.
Her monitor starts beeping. Faster.Faster. The sound fills my head, drowning out everything else.
Then the flatline.
That long, endless scream of a sound that means death, that means failure, that means I wasn't good enough.
The closet dissolves, and I'm in her hospital room, my hands on her tiny chest, doing compressions.One. Two. Three.But his hands are still on me, still pinning me down even as I'm trying to save her. Lily's ribs crack under my palms. I feel each one break, hear the snap of bone, know I'm hurting her, but I can't stop because maybe if I just keep going?—
"Maya, stop." His voice in my ear, lips brushing my skin. "She's already dead. You killed her."
Lily's eyes are open, staring at nothing. The monitor screams and screams and screams.
"I'm sorry," I'm sobbing, still doing compressions on her lifeless body. "I'm so sorry, Lily. I'm sorry?—"
Her small hand reaches up and grabs my wrist. Her grip is impossibly strong.
"It should have been you," she whispers.
