48
The attic door closes behindme, and with the slam of wood against wood, the last pieces fall into place.
I feel him behind me before he speaks my name.
“Kennedy.” His voice is hard and jagged, and I know my time is up. I feel him drifting behind me like an errant tide. I feel his presence like heartbreak, like something loved and lost, like a thousand past summers fading into photographs in dusty albums. Like something trying desperately not to be forgotten.
I know I’ve failed again.
I didn’t save Ryan. I lied to Chelsea. She was better than us. She couldn’t live with the guilt. So we tried to erase it.
It was one little lie.
We all tell little lies.
Chelsea tells them all the time. She lied about her relationship with Ryan. I’ll probably never know the truth about what happened between them, but it doesn’t matter. It was never any of my business. It was over and done the moment we became each other’s worlds.
Mila lies. She lies with every cutting word she says. She pretends to be harder, colder, than she is. She deserved betterfrom us from day one. We could have been friends. We should have been friends. I should have taken her side.
Chase lies. He lied about helping Ryan run away. He faked all those letters from Ryan, proving he was still alive out there, spinning stories to ease our guilt. He lied to Chelsea’s face with his half-truths. He lied to Emily with his silence. It wasn’t malicious. None of our lies have ever been malicious. They were benevolent lies. Lies in service to friendship. Lies to keep us from falling apart.
We did what we had to, Chase and me.
We buried a body.
Ryan lied. He lied on the boat that night. He pushed me and I pushed him. He lied when he came back year after year, when all that remained between him and us was history and longing. He let us believe we could go back to the way things were. That every day could be summer. That our friendship was more than a ghost following me, waiting for the final cut.
I lie. I lie by omission. I lie every time I open my mouth and speak any words to Chelsea that are notI still love you.I lie to myself as often as I lie to my girlfriend. I have never been more frightened, with heat rising below, with smoke clouding my lungs, because there is love in the world, filling me, there are ghosts behind and before, all around me now, and I love her. There have always been ghosts, fires, death, distractions, lies, but the one that destroys us is the pain of not knowing we are loved, not telling. Not telling Chelsea. I press my palms against the scorching floorboards below and push, knowing they won’t give way.
I turn to Ryan, resigned. He stands over me silently, stale lake water soaking his clothes, matting his hair to his skull, dripping
dripping
dripping
and I finally understand.
“I was just a kid,” I say. “You tried to kill me.”
“You killed me first.” He stares at me dully. “It took me a while to understand. Why I was still here and you were all gone. And then I realized thathere,there is no time. Not the way there used to be. It was like being everywhere at once. Only it was everywhen, not everywhere. Because this is the only place left now, Kennedy. You did that to me. You trapped me in the one place I never wanted to see again. So yes. I did try to kill you. A dead three-year-old can’t grow up to be a murderer, can she?”
“But it doesn’t work that way.”
“No. I’ve lived that moment over and over. I’ve even watched you die. It doesn’t change what happened to me. Maybe in some other reality. But all that matters is what we know, doesn’t it? What we live through. Or don’t. I’m stuck in some kind of loop with you, Kennedy. I always come back. And I always regret it.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, then begin to cough as smoke fills my lungs.
He turns to the window and begins to draw in the dust. When he turns around, the wordstoo lateare revealed. He grins at me, a cold, wet grin. I can’t feel sorry for him. I don’t.He settles himself down on the floor with his hands folded behind his head. “It’s just you and me, Kennedy. Can you think of anyone more fitting to spend your last moments with?” He aims a piercing stare at me. “Because I can’t.”
I slam my fists against the wood, shout Chelsea’s name, silently pray to space and time to bend for me. I want to go back. I want a redo.
It can’t end this way.