"Go back inside," she barks at Marie and Alice. "Be with your cousin."
With crossed arms and stink-eyes directed at me, they do as they’re told.
When we’re alone, Helena's eyes, normally sharp and commanding, hold a bone-deep weariness. The lines on her forehead, etched by a life of hard work and no-nonsense decisions, seem to have deepened overnight. She looks older, the strain of Miguel’s condition pulling at the corners of her mouth.
"Evie, you need to explain everything now, and it better make sense." There’s a tremor in her voice that doesn’t quite mask theblame. She’s been holding the questions in for weeks, giving me space, but apparently the dam is broken along with her patience.
"What aren’t you telling us? What aren’t the police saying?" The walls echo with the hushed tones of Helena’s distress turned anger.
I feel my own defenses rise. I know the truth sounds crazy even to my own ears, but lying won’t help either. Besides, what lie would even manage to account for what happened?
"I've told the police everything," I say, my voice steady despite the turmoil inside. "There were monsters, Helena."
Her dark eyes harden, the severe lines of her face pulling into an expression of incredulity. "Monsters," she repeats, the word dripping with scorn. "That's still what you expect me to believe?"
I can only nod, knowing how it sounds, how it tears at the tenuous threads connecting me to the closest thing I’ve had to an ally.
"It's the truth, Helena. It's all I have."
She studies me, her gaze searching for the lie she's convinced must be there. "This is not a game, Evie. This is Miguel's life. You are entangled in my business, our livelihood. You come to me with a story of monsters when my nephew’s life is on the line?" She points in the direction of his room. "The longer he’s in the coma, the less likely he’ll wake up."
I have no response, no way to make her believe me. But I can take the weight of the guilt she’s pushing down on my shoulders. It forces my knees to buckle and my stomach to sour, but it’s mine to bear.
She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Whatever happened that night was clearly traumatizing. But I’ve grown tired of the lies."
"The other witnesses gave the same statements," I point out.
"I don’t care what the other people said," she snaps, her eyes blazing with open accusation. "First, you tell me you brokeup with him, and then you spin this ridiculous story. The only explanation I can figure is that drugs were involved, and he got hurt. For that many people to say so many ridiculous things, well…" She huffs like an angry bull. "I thought he would be a good influence on you, but clearly I was wrong."
I wince at that. That one hit me right where I already bleed daily.
I’m the monster, the one who should be in that bed.
"You need to stay away," she says finally, her voice quiet and firm. "From the hospital, from my family. I can’t have this… madness around my family or my clients."
I'm surprised how her words rock me.
I’ve expected them for the last couple weeks, but it cuts deep inside me, a severing of ties that I'd come to rely on more than I realized.
There is a glimmer of regret in her eyes as she fires me. It’s not because she regrets lettingmego. I’m a cancer to her life.
It’s because her business will hurt for it. I pull so many hours, she’s more than doubled business since I came on. I doubt even she knows how they’ll cover all I do.
The finality in her posture, the way she holds herself, speaks louder than her words.
I want to argue, to make her see reason, but the resignation in her eyes tells me it's over. I'm the loose thread she's decided to cut before more of her life unravels.
As Helena turns to walk away, casting me a final, wary glance, I'm left with the echo of her words and the closing of a door I hadn’t realized I'd been leaning on. The loss is a tangible thing, a hollowing out of the almost-mentor, the almost-friend I'd found in her.
I watch her leave, her braid catching the light. She represents everything normal that I'm being cut off from. The hospital around me is cold and empty, reflecting the emptinessexpanding inside of me—a void where Shadow's absence feels bigger than ever.
In the end, all I have left is a truth no one will believe and the pieces of my life falling apart faster and faster.
The journey to my apartment happens in a blur. Before I know it, I open the door to the apartment, and I’m met by a blast of heat.
The thermostat is fucked up… again.
I tear off my coat and fling it onto the couch. Needing something to do with my hands, I grab the stack of mail I brought in and rip the envelopes open.
