"Because you plucked them from the battlefield and made new arrows of them." She touches the tip of my chin with a fingertip, gazing up at me, and my god, I do not deserve the tenderness in her eyes. "I think it's a beautiful thing you did for them."
"That's just it—it was forme. I hoped that if I could save others, do something selfless, that I'd…I'd somehow find redemption for myself. I don't regret doing it, but it didn't work."
Her laugh surprises me. "Of course it didn't. That's not how redemption works. You can't earn it, Jakob. You could do it all over again a hundred times, the whole Broken Arrows thing, and never find the redemption you seek."
"Then…how?"
"You have to forgive yourself."
My turn to laugh. "Is that all?” I sigh. "The irony is that they all found redemption.Andlove."
"You can't see it, still?" The warmth in her eyes shakes me to my core.
"Don't look at me like that, Brys." My words are wet.
She looks at me like that all the more. Unwavering. Blazing with intensity. Afire with…
Love.
Her thumb captures the dot trickling down from the corner of my eyes. "There he is."
I turn my head away to hide my shame. "Don't. Fucking—don't. You can't."
"Jakob, trust me."
I'm on fire. My skin burns. My gut pulses with nausea. Everything is tight and hot and sour. I can only shake my head. "You can't." It barely counts as speech.
"Why not, Jakob?"
"I'm not worth it,” I whisper around the knives still caught in my throat. "Whore. Addict. Killer. Liar. Traitor—I betrayed Isabel. I'm a user; I use people. I'm a taker." I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as they'll go, but the tears fall anyway—I haven't cried since the day…no. Not even then. "I never cried for her."
"Trust me with it."
"Why do you want it?"
"Because I love you."
I should say it back, but my breaking is too violent a thing. She says those words so matter-of-factly, so easily—when I know it's not easy for her at all. And I just…shatter.
And all of a sudden, I'm a sixteen-year-old boy in a hospital room who has just been shoved to the ground by his father. My mother is still and thin under a scratchy white blanket, and her once-lovely features are lit by the harsh fluorescent lights, which make her ugly, when in life she was so beautiful that men would stop on the sidewalk and stare at her. Her hair, once a storm cloud of black, dense curls, is lank and thin. The only part of her I recognize is her nose, that proud Jewish nose. I don't have it—I have my father's. For a long time—to my shame—I was glad I didn't. Now I wish I did.
There's a steady tone, an awful, unending beep.
I'm sixteen, and my mother is dead, and in a short time, so will be my father.
I'm slumped on the floor outside my father's study. The gun has just gone off. I heard thepop, a terrible silence, and then the slump of a body. And I know.
I'm alone on the streets of New York City. I do not speak any English beyond "Hello," “my name is Jakob," “please,” and "no thank you." Why my parents and the tutor thought it was more important for me to learn fucking Latin instead of English is still a mystery to me. My father's cousin has pushed me out of the car and driven away. I may be naive, but I know what has happened. That I am alone. That I will starve.
I am walking and walking and walking.
I am on a bed, face down; I have just been fucked by a man; he was not gentle.
I am in the corner of the bathroom, jonesing and tweaking for a hit. Miss Amy will not give it to me because I would not submit to the man who violated me. She locks me in thebathroom with a bottle of water until I come out. She calls Douglas. Douglas comes over and has his way. I get my shot.
I am standing over Amy's wrecked corpse. There is an ocean of blood, and her arms and legs and neck are all bent the wrong direction. Her purse is still across her slender chest, her keys right on top, visible in the open purse-mouth. I cast a glance around—there is a crowd. I crouch and pretend to check her pulse even though her eyes stare sightlessly at the leaves of a towering maple tree. I take her keys and wallet. I killed her.
I am detoxing; even in this wild hurricane of cathartic, overdue grief, I cannot relive that.
