Last Girl Ghosted(107)

You who takes what isn’t given. You who breaks and destroys, lies and kills.

It’s you who needs to go. Not the world. Not the rest of us.

When you find your moment, take it, my father said when he was teaching me how to hunt. If you hesitate, wait even a second too long, he’ll be gone. He’ll sense you, your intention. You’ll telegraph your fear with a breath, with an uncertain step. And he’ll disappear into the trees.

My father’s lessons. Some of them I have learned well.

So, it’s swift when I make my move.

Just one fluid motion, then a flash of light, and burst of sound.

There are always a few tense seconds where you’re not sure if you’ve hit your mark.

In that space our eyes meet. There’s fear, and relief, always relief. There’s love. You loved me and I loved you, even if it was only just a part of you.

I have hit my mark. A bullet to your heart.

You fall to your knees. I move closer, as I would to my quarry. Your mouth is open, then closed. You tilt to the side and I am there to catch you, to ease you to the ground. You try to speak but can’t, your own blood mingling with whatever blood was already on your shirt. Who else have you hurt tonight, Adam? She’ll be the last.

Your hand closes around my wrist, and I see the depths of your pain. That’s over now.

Watch the light leave, my father said. Be present for that. It’s the least you can do.

And I am. I hold your eyes and in their darkness I see the whole the universe, the glittering galaxies, and swallowing black holes, the bloated red giants, and all the mysteries not yet revealed. I watch you return to that place. Heavy in my arms, eyes staring.

And I feel no sadness. No guilt or remorse.

I am not the hunter.

Or the doe.

I am the storm.



fifty-three


I run from the house and down the path to where I was supposed to die. There’s a shovel there beside the bag, heavy, well-used. He would have used it to dig my grave I guess, when he got around to it. I use it to try to find Mia, but the ground is hard and cold and I don’t make much progress before I hear the sirens.

I want to know the end of their stories—Melissa, Bonnie, and Mia. What he did to them, how they each died. But I may never know, only that I escaped the same fate, by luck alone. And some skills I learned from a man as dark as Adam, one I loved in spite of all his failings. My father.

Around me the trees sigh. Nature, impervious as ever.

In the movies, there’s always a battle—epic and bloody. Terrible losses and a darkening sky. There’s always a moment when it seems that evil triumphs and the hero has fallen. And then in that moment when all appears lost, reinforcements rush in to save the day.

But in life, you have to save yourself. And there are still a million battles large and small ahead. And that’s the beauty of it all, the blessed, terrible mingle of good and bad, right and wrong, bliss and agony.

That’s where Jax, Jones Cooper, and Bailey Kirk find me when they come bursting through the trees. I’m on my knees beside the grave of a girl none of us could help, after having saved myself from my own dark impulses, and the man who saw them more clearly than anyone else.

Bailey gets to me first, drops down beside me, gathers me in his arms. I wrap myself around him as he buries his face in my neck.

“Oh, my God, Wren, I thought I lost you,” he breathes, holding me tight. “Thank God. Thank God.”

His eyes are full of stars—joy, relief, fear, sadness, love. All of it, everything. Not blank like yours. Not black holes sucking in life and light. How did I not see it? Or maybe I did and it’s what I wanted. But not now. Not anymore.

“You’re hurt,” he whispers. “Wren.”

I am, I want to tell him. But I’m the best I can be after all of it. Alive. Strong.

Ready to fight another day.



fifty-four


Dear Birdie,
My father was a sick man. Mental illness ran in our family. He was unstitched by his experiences in the military. He self-medicated with alcohol and he was a violent drunk. My mother, she loved him, even though he was not the man she married, even though he was broken, addicted, and coming apart. When he told her that he wanted to take his family—her, my brother, and me—to the land where he grew up, she agreed. The plan was to return to nature, to live off the grid, and away from the modern world.
She agreed.
The drive has been long and gray and I am tired. It has been mostly flat for a while now, the scattered trees just black line drawings against a silver-gray sky, a light dusting of snow on the ground. When it looms into view, a tall white wall, a red-roofed tower, the building looks more like a castle keep than a prison. My hands, my shoulders are stiff with tension, my stomach fluttering with nerves as I park. I almost turn around and leave. Must happen a lot. People arrive here to visit, to confront, to forgive, and lose their nerve.

But I find a spot and park, sit a moment, staring at the guard turrets, the large gate. There’s an aura of pain and desolation. This is a maximum security facility, housing some of the most dangerous criminals in the state. Many people who walk though these doors will not walk back out.

Why have I come here?

In my childhood memory, there are so many different versions of my father. There’s the handsome young soldier in uniform, a picture in a frame beside my mother’s bed. There was the stranger on the video calls that we took on my mother’s old laptop, cuddled together on the bed. There was the hulking, exhausted man who came home and was either in bed, or slouched in front of the television most of the day. He had haunted eyes, looked at me with a kind of despair. He frightened me. There was the man who taught me how to hunt, how to fish, how to garden, how to prepare food for winter, how fire a gun, use a crossbow. He was quiet and careful, gentle, wise. I loved him. There was the monster who hurt my brother, and mother—beat them, screamed at them, and finally killed them. I hated him. I still do. In my heart, he remains unforgiven.