In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(94)

Warmth flooded me.

“Just try your best,” my mom whispered into my hair. “That’s all you can do.”

My dad pulled us closer. “My little family,” he said. “You two are the best things in my life.”

I caught my mother’s eyes. She was smiling, telling me it was okay. “It was your dad’s idea to surprise you,” she said, tucking a strand of my hair.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “We’ve got a whole day of fun. I remembered a certain someone loves the zoo.”

My mom rolled her eyes. “When she was eight. She’s fourteen now.”

He only laughed.

This version of my dad was surreal. I didn’t know how to make sense of it, how to square it with the other version. Then a thought struck me: my dad was the angry man in the dark place, true. But maybe he was also this man—this bright and funny father. I’d always thought it was one or the other, fixed and definite. But maybe it was more complicated. Maybe he was both.

He kissed my forehead. “You’re going to do great things, I’m telling you.”

I buried my face in his shirt, and he put his arms loose around me, like he was making a basket with me in the center. If this upswing ever ended, and the darkness swallowed him again, maybe all hope wasn’t lost. Maybe I could find a way to keep this version of my father with me. Then, no matter how bad it got, I could remember how he was now. Maybe that way he could keep being this person, even when he wasn’t. Maybe then he could stay mine, stay warm and solid in my arms. Even one day, when he wasn’t.





Chapter 45


Now

I woke with wet cheeks to the five of them standing around my hospital bed, watching me. I jerked back, snapping the restraints that kept me bound to the bed, tugging painfully at my newly stitched side.

“Easy,” Jack said, holding out his hands like he was placating a scared animal. “Didn’t mean to startle you. We need to talk.”

I’d spent two days lying in this bed, staring at the white walls, giving one-word answers to a fast-talking lawyer who swore he was a friend of Coop’s and would keep me out of jail. Two days of skipping past the local news, first with its nonstop coverage of the Homecoming Queen Killer, the Femme Fatale of Blackwell Tower—my picture flashing, a wildly unflattering photo someone must have pulled from the depths of social media. And then the one-eighty flip to Breaking News: Shocking Developments in the Heather Shelby Cold Case, an image of Mint, one of his professional headshots, and then Heather, looking so unbearably young. Two days without my phone, without word from anyone, wondering where the hell they were, what they were doing.

Last night I’d finally given up on seeing them. Fallen asleep with the understanding that I’d made my choices, and now, as a consequence, I was going to be alone for a long time. Maybe forever.

And that’s when it happened. Sometime in the night, the final puzzle piece fell into place, and I remembered the whole truth of the night Heather died. But “remembered”—that wasn’t right, was it? After this weekend, I knew better.

I’d had the pieces inside all along, a quilt of light and dark, but for years I’d refused to look. When had my body first tried to tell me the truth? Was it the moment in Blackwell when Mint confessed what he’d done, and I felt the heart-quickening pang of sameness? When Eric shoved him out the window, and I was flooded with adrenaline, with the urge to offer myself in Eric’s place? Or was it when I jumped off the float and ran through the crowd, legs driven by a guilt I was only just finding words for?

Whatever the answer was, I woke after two days of solitude with the last memory in my head, only to find the five of them staring at me. And my first thought was: They know. Every horrible, incriminating detail I’d just dredged out of the black hole, like a bloated corpse from a lake, they knew, and they’d come to see me punished.

“The police aren’t going to charge you,” Coop said, filling the silence. I could only stare, heart pounding. “It’s a solid case of self-defense, and Davis—your lawyer—is working his magic. It should only be a day or two before you’re free to go.”

Coop’s face, like Frankie’s and Eric’s, was still pink and shiny from the fire. When he spoke, his hand hovered almost unconsciously over the place in his chest where Mint stabbed him. But his expression was neutral—like he was taking pains to be businesslike. I looked closer at each of their faces. No accusatory stares, no We know what you did hinted on their faces.

I calmed. They didn’t know. But of course not; how could they?

Frankie adjusted his tie. He was wearing a sharply tailored blue suit, dressed like he was headed to the ESPYs. “We all told the cops the same story. You pushed him in self-defense.”

There was a moment of heavy silence, and then Jack stepped forward, lowering his voice. “We can talk openly here. The cop guarding you went for a cigarette.”

Jack, Eric, Coop, and Frankie studied me grimly. Caro, whose arms were crossed tight over her chest, wouldn’t meet my gaze.

I sat up straighter and wiped my eyes. “Where’s Courtney?”

“Rehab,” Coop said. “Her parents came and shipped her off. Apparently extreme stress didn’t mix well with the pills she takes. That’s why she fainted in Blackwell. They’re trying to hush it up.”