The Masked Truth(43)

Before she can say anything, I set up the boxes the way Max had them.

“That is smart, you know,” she says. “He’s a smart guy.”

I smile over at her. “Even if he is a bit of a prick?”

“If I were that smart, I’d be a total prick. You’re both smart. And brave.” She nibbles at her thumbnail. “I don’t know how you’re doing it. Holding up like this. You have way more reason than anyone to be freaking out. But you’re not. You’re worrying about me. Worrying about Max. Taking charge. Making plans.”

“Running on pure adrenaline, I think. Wait until all this is over, and I’ll need a nice padded-room vacation followed by a lifetime of very expensive therapy.” I glance at her. “Do you think I can sue the Highgates for counseling?”

I’m kidding, of course, but she doesn’t smile. She looks away, her gaze dropping, and I shift, realizing that might have been in bad taste.

She wonders how I’m holding up. I wonder the same thing, and I’m afraid the answer really is adrenaline. That I don’t have a core of inner strength—I’m just a scared little girl, cushioned by shock, ready to fall apart for good when this is all over.

I say I’ve never considered suicide, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the abyss. It started after Dad died, when I dragged myself through my days following the carrot of bedtime. Weeks when all I could think was, Keep going, Riley. Just a few more hours and you can run to your bedroom, close the door and curl up in the darkness, where no one can see you cry. Drop into the abyss. Wallow in grief and lose yourself there.

It got worse after the Porters. The abyss is now wider and deeper, and it calls to me sometimes. The strangest times. I’ll be walking down the hall at school, Lucia or another friend chattering away beside me, and all of a sudden I can’t hear them. I imagine that the hall opens up and I just keep walking and fall into nothing. And it’s a wonderful nothing, like jumping from a plane. Just letting go. Except I’m not jumping without a parachute. That isn’t what I want—that hard and final stop at the end, that endless abyss. No, my fantasy is temporary. I drop into the abyss and shut off my brain and my feelings, and then I’ll come back up when I’m ready.

As the abyss widens, though, I begin to fear that coming back to the surface may, someday, not be under my control. Because at the bottom of my abyss is not death—it’s madness.

My greatest fear isn’t that I’ll kill myself; it’s that I’ll lose myself permanently. That it will all become too much, and my mind will snap, and I won’t ever come back.

That’s what I’m afraid of now. That I might think I’m on solid ground but I’m really on a bridge over the abyss, and with every step the moorings weaken, just a little, and as soon as I think I’m safely across, it’ll give way beneath me.

“I’m kidding,” I say finally. “About the therapy. We’ll be fine.”

She nods.

“What’s your group like?” I say, to change the subject with the first segue I see. “I know you said you hadn’t been in therapy long.”

“This is my first group.”

“Really?” I lean toward her and mock whisper, “It’s usually not like this.”

She laughs at that. Then she looks at me and says, “You are brave. I know you don’t think you are. You feel like you did the wrong thing that night when you were babysitting, and it doesn’t help when guys like Aaron make stupid comments. It’s easy to second-guess when you haven’t been there. It’s like watching a movie and thinking you’d never make the heroine’s mistakes, but that’s because you’re in the safety of your living room. You don’t know what you’d do until you’re there. Not really.”

I nod and try to think of a way to change the subject, but she continues, “I’ve seen guns before. My brother isn’t the only person in my family who has one. And I’ve probably seen more horror movies than I should. But when that guy shot Maria, all I wanted to do was drop and cover my head. Which is the stupidest and most useless thing I could have done. Then the guns kept firing and the blood was everywhere and people were screaming and …” She’s breathing fast, bordering on hyperventilating, and I put my arm around her and she leans against me and whispers, “See? I’m the one freaking out and you’re the one taking care of me.”

“I’ll freak out later. We can take turns.”

When I look over, tears are streaming down her cheeks.

I twist to face her. “It’s going to be okay. Aaron and Max will get the gun, and we’ll figure a way out. We can do this.”

She shakes her head so hard tears fleck my shirt. “You can do this. Me? I thought I was being tough. I thought I was being strong, doing the right thing even if I knew it wasn’t, but it was what I needed to do. Family first, right?” There’s a bitterness in her voice when she says that. Then she looks up. “Do you have a good family, Riley? I hope you do. I hope you have the best—” Her hand flies to her mouth. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I just said that. I am a total idiot. Your dad. I forgot about—”

“He was a great father,” I say. “And I’m proud of what he did.”

Even if I wish he hadn’t. If I really wish he hadn’t. No matter how horrible a person that makes me, I wish he’d just hung back with everyone else and hoped the woman didn’t decide to kill herself and take her kids with her. Because that’s what happens, as much as I can’t imagine it. I remember talking to Dad about that once, when a guy in our city killed his wife and kids and himself, and the news said he’d left a note saying he did it because he loved them, and I’d been so mad, furious, because it made no sense.