For a beat, the boat tilts, a soft but disorienting sway, and a cold thought slips in: if she can’t even get my name right, what else is wrong?
“Mom?” My voice cracks. I look down at my hands and freeze. Blood slicks my palms, glistening under the moonlight.
I’m even more confused when I see my father’s limp form crumpled at my feet.
My eyes widen.
Jesus, Noah. Not now. Don’t lose your focus.
Lose my focus?
Lose my damn focus?!
I swat at my ear, desperate to flush her voice out of my head. Only Mimi would do something like this—Mom knows that! Not me. I would never do this.
I’m a coward! A fucking sissy! Always have been.
It’s why I made Meera stay with me when America left—because I was too scared to be alone.
Too scared I’d get lost in the rain.
I was afraid, damn it!
Afraid!
Dissociative identity disorder—that’s the official phrasing—the neat little line on my chart. It means I share a brain with Meera.
Trauma does that, you know? Splits you. Gives you whatever mechanism it can to keep you alive. Hands you versions of yourself you never asked for.
To be clear,mymechanism had always been the rain, the steady hiding place in my head.
But Meera? She wasn’t mine. She was just… borrowed.
Borrowed because she never actually belonged to me in the first place—she belonged to my sister.
Meera wasAmerica’smechanism for survival. Mimi too. Those wereheridentities.Heralters.
Her fucking disorder!
I stumble over the puddle of blood and collapse into my mother’s arms.
“Oh god. Oh, baby,” she cries. “I’m so sorry, Noah.” Her thumbs trace my cheeks, trembling against my skin.
Sorry? For what?
For watching that monster rape my sister? For watching him hurtme?
For keeping us trapped in this drifting hell on water?
Sorry that you tried your best?
That you helped me escape?
That you were trapped too?
I know, Mom.
I know.
