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And every time I pulled myself out of that bullshit and started to focus on just living a good life, someone would reach out to see whatever happened to the little girl that the great Dr. Dabrowski saved … and I’d spiral all over.

But now I’m listening to these three strangers. Henry. Noemi. Caleb. Ordinary people leading ordinary lives, and they are happy. Not a single one of them seems on the trajectory for greatness, and yet I envy them with all my heart.

This is the path I need to get back on.

Call my therapist. Finish one of those damned degrees—or finally admit that I don’t need it. Get a job I’ll enjoy. Renew friendships. As for a guy in my life, if it happens, it happens, but that particular goal has always seemed like a backup plan for success.

If I can’t discover the cure for cancer myself, maybe I’ll marry a guy who will. Or have kids who will. Or, hell, at the very least, I’ll be the matriarch of a happy family, which is something, right?

Fuck all that.

Really, fuck it.

It’s a horrible tragedy that Dr. Dabrowski died saving me, but I don’t need to do anything to prove myself worthy of her sacrifice. She didn’t run out that door because she had some premonition of my future greatness.

She saved me because she was a good person, and I’ve honored her by trying to be the same.

I look back toward the window, thinking of that old man.

Would a good person have abandoned him?

I didn’t, though. I went into the forest—despite being terrified—following a stranger that I didn’t want to get hurt, while also trying to save a stranger we both wanted to help.

I did what I could—

Something slams into the door.

TWENTY-TWO

We all scramble to our feet, as if we hadn’t just been chilling there, laughing and relaxed, two seconds ago.

Because we hadn’t really been relaxed. We’d been faking it, tense and scared and trying so hard to pretend otherwise. Now something crashes into the door, and I’m on my feet, heart in my mouth, Noemi yelping, Henry getting in front of all of us, as if he can single-handedly stop whatever is out there.

The doorknob jangles. Then something heaves on the door, and the bartender says, in the calmest voice, “I locked it after he left.”

A fist pounds on the door. “What the fuck?” a man bellows from the other side. “You fuckers locked me out? Open this fucking door!”

The door rattles, and we all stand there, as if frozen.

“Let me the fuck in! Something’s out here! Goddamn it, you cowards, open this door or I will tear your fucking heads off!”

“Well,” the bartender murmurs. “When you put it like that, how can we refuse?”

He goes back to polishing a glass, and I stare at him. The man—it’s clearly the one who left with his bike—keeps pounding on the door, voice rising to a near shriek.

“Something bit my fucking leg, you bastards. It’s out here, and you’re going to cower in there and let it kill me.”

Henry moves toward the door, and the woman at the bar turns sharply.

“Don’t.”

Henry pauses.

“Don’t let him in,” she says.

“What?” Noemi’s voice rises. “We can’t just leave him—”

“We’re not,” Henry says, and he turns the lock.