He doesn’t flinch.
“I need to know,” he repeats.
Whatever’s coming, he’s already decided to meet it head-on.
There’s no space left to retreat. No way to soften the edges enough to make this survivable for either of us. And I realise, with a slow, sinking certainty, that once I start, there will be no putting it back.
“You’re asking for something I don’t have neatly packaged,” I say quietly. My throat tightens around the words. “There are parts of that day that are still… missing. Not forgotten. Missing.”
My hands curl in my lap, nails biting into skin. I barely register the pain.
“There are holes in me where memories should be,” I say. “And around those holes is everything I am now. The caution. The anger. The parts of me that never came back.”
My voice wavers despite my effort to keep it steady.
“And if I open this,” I say, barely above a whisper, “I don’t get to choose what comes out. I don’t get to protect Missy. Or myself. And once you know… you don’t get to unknow it.”
I swallow hard. Silence settles between us, thick and unforgiving.
“I don’t want to make this any harder on you, Rowan. But this is now about so much more than what happened to you and your sister that day. And it could be the only way you get your justice.”
“There are parts,” I say slowly, “I can’t do this alone.”
He nods immediately. No hesitation. “How can I make this easier for you?”
“Bethany. Lily. I need their support.”
Another nod. “Titan?”
I think about that for a moment. About the way he watcheswithout blinking. About the grief he carries like an old injury that never quite healed. Titan is sturdy, and he’s just as much Goliath as Justin is.
“Yes, him too.”
Justin exhales, relieved I didn’t say no.
“I’ll get them. Take your time.”
When the room fills again, it does so quietly.
Bethany sits beside me first, close enough that our knees touch. She takes one of my hands in hers, and sets it down on her own knee, telling me she’s present and she’s listening. Lily takes the chair opposite, her posture open, attentive, her eyes soft but steady. Titan leans back against the far wall, arms folded, his expression unreadable—but I can see it in the tight line of his jaw. The way it ticks once, twice, like something old has been disturbed. I think he’s seen so much, he probably already knows what’s coming. And he’s ready to burn a building down with the rage settling inside him.
Justin takes a seat across from me.
“Whenever you’re ready, Rowan.”
I swallow.
For years,I told myself that if I didn’t give the memory language, it couldn’t keep reshaping itself. That if I left it unspoken, it might eventually soften at the edges, bit it never did.
So this is me finally telling my truth. All of it. Before it kills me.
Missy and I did nothing wrong.
I need to say that first, because the world has a way of twisting stories like this until the girls are always the mistake. We were walking. Laughing. Talking about nothing and everything the way sisters do when they’re young and carefree and think they have all the time in the world.
We were walking back home after Tessa Calloway’s sixteenth birthday party. There was a weeklong festival in town, which we hadn’t yet attended, and distant music carried on the air. There were cars passing every now and then. Nothing about that day could have prepared me or forewarned me that it would be the last normal moment of my life.
A car slowed behind us. It started rolling towards us, and there was noise. Voices. Catcalls. We knew they were visitors, because the local boys were always so respectful and never behaved that way. Missy squeezed my hand and told me to ignore them and keep walking. Which we did.
