“There’s nothing we can do. We need to go. We need to get you out of here.”
She tried to pull away, but her legs gave out and she fell. The ground was cold. Wet earth mixed with broken shards of glass. An empty paint can lay on its side, feet from her, dried green paint spilled across dead leaves.
Leaves, broken glass, a can of green paint.
The voice was talking, the gloves were on her arm, her face. Questions, words. But there was darkness at the edges, closing in over her head. Burying her.Everything was losing focus as she stayed like that. Unmoving.
Leaves, broken glass, a can of green paint.
She should have died then. She wished she had died then. Every day since, she wished that everything had just stopped, ended—that she had closed her eyes and let the darkness take her too, swallow her whole.
Leaves, broken glass, a can of green paint.
At some point the strong arms must have lifted her up, must have carried her away from the wall, away from Danny. For the last time.
But it wasn’t over. It would never be over now. With a certainty that was forged in that moment of pure, bitter grief, she knew one thing. For as long as she lived, as long as she breathed, she would never forgive herself for what she’d done. She had sent her brother to his death. He had trusted her, and he had died because of her. There would be no absolution, no respite, no hope. Not for her. Her guilt was damning.
She had killed her brother.
There would be no redemption.
32
Ana
47:06
“I killed Danny.”
After a year, it was odd how easily the words came out. Ana couldn’t bring herself to look up at Alex. She didn’t want to see his reaction. But it was time.
The shock of losing Raya had shaken something loose inside her. No more hiding. No more cowering, barely breathing, under the weight of guilt.
Until this moment, the only other time she’d spoken about it was during that one therapy session with Dankman. She hadn’t told anyone else what had happened, what she’d done. Her mom, Raya, Alex…she couldn’t break it to them. They were grieving Danny’s loss. How could she tell them that she had caused it—that it had been her stupid idea to go into the locker room, that Danny had wanted to wait, that he would be alive now if it wasn’t for her? How could she tell them that whenDanny had needed her the most, she had let him down—she had let him die.
Now, here in this motel from hell, it had happened again. Raya was gone.Raya.
Ana’s chest burned with pain. She tried to hold an image of Raya’s face in her mind, but it was forced out by the shape on the desert floor, black hair blowing in the wind. A hollow nothingness thrown down, cast away.
Somewhere in the darkness of her mind Ana knew they’d already lost. Whether they opened the hatch and made it out or not, the game was over. Raya was dead. Danny was dead. There was no reason to hide anymore. There was nothing left to lose.
Almost nothing. There was still Alex.
It was time she told him the truth.
She fixed her eyes on a particularly nasty stain on the carpet and talked. Her voice sounded scratchy and dry to her. She went back to that day and forced herself to recount every detail. There was no hiding from it. No sugarcoating the ugly raw truth. Just the facts laid bare.
When she was done, she realized her shaking had stopped. There was an odd sensation in her arms and legs. Lightness, maybe? As though somehow the weight of it all had been lifted almost imperceptibly.
So, there it was. The truth. Hanging in the musty air between them. She had killed Danny. Now Alex knew.
There wasn’t a sound in the room. Alex hadn’t moved. Ana didn’t dare face him.
She took a long deep breath. It was her turn to wait.
It seemed an eternity before Alex stirred. He stood up and walked over to the wall where he had propped his guitar. Picking it up, he gently touched the wood, the strings.
Ana kept her eyes away from his face. She didn’t want to see his expression. What if he hated her? What would be the point?
