Page 59 of Where He Ended
She drills her hands in the muck until she's buried to her wrists. “I called him a murderer,” she whispers.
“A lot of people did.”
She looks at me, but her eyes are empty. It's like she's in shock. “He really didn't do it?” I shake my head patiently. “Then, all this time I've been hating him, when really . . .” she trails off, unable to finish. “Oh, God. He blames himself for Bernard's death, and I blamed him too, and it's not even his fault. I feel awful. He's not the monster,Iam.”
“It's okay,” I assure her, putting my muddy arms around her upper body. “Everything is okay.”
“It's not,” she says in my ear. “It's not and it won't ever be.”
Closing my eyes, I think about Wyatt, how he lost his son and managed to keep living. “All we can do is move forward. You and I, we can do that here.”
Kara's grip goes slack. I don't know why, until she leans over, plucking something from the mud. It's the square piece of paper that came out with the envelope of money. “Where did you get this?” she whispers thickly. She turns it so I can see that it's a photo of us as kids.
I'd forgotten all about it. “In a book at the Complex, in our parents' room.”
She stares at it hard. Her fingernail traces the corners, like she's committing the shape of it to memory. “We were so innocent,” she says. “We didn't know what was waiting for us.”
I don't have a response. I've thought the same thing many times.
Kara shakes herself then she gazes around at the brook and the trees. “Nothing about being here feels right, does it?”
Is she talking about the cabin?“It's just because everything is wrecked,” I say, trying to comfort her. “Some elbow grease and everything will be better than before.”
“No. It's not about broken windows or chipped walls or water damage. Laiken, this place doesn't feel like a home because itisn't. Home is more than just a place that you sleep in. It's more than a roof or walls. Home is warmth and comfort and safety and love. The one thing that gives that to you isn't here.”
Deep down, I make sense of what she's saying. But it doesn't bring me joy. Yes, of course I'd be happier if I was with Dominic. But there's no way for me to make that happen.
“Dominic can't ever be here,” I say bitterly.
Her smile is thoughtful. “True. Not with the way things are right now.”
Kara helps me to my feet, and as she does, she makes a face and clicks her tongue. “I'm so sorry about your hair, it's filthy. It'll be a lot of work to clean it up, but I swear I'll help.”
Reaching back, I run my hand over the leaves and twigs and mud stuck in my hair. I think about the photo she's holding. Our bright smiles, our naive, youthful belief in a future that didn't belong to us.
But maybe it still can.
I start to jog through the woods. “Laiken?” she calls after me.
I continue to run; I hear her behind me as she follows. It's easy for her to keep up with me, it always has been. We get to the bridge and I race across it, reaching for the knife that I'd jammed into the railing.
Testing the heft of the blade, I hoist my hair high off my neck. Kara's eyes fly wide, she covers her mouth, watching in shock as I tear the knife through my thick brunette strands. The braid hangs in my fist like a dead python, heavier than all the wishes I've clung to since I was small.
“Why did you do that?” she asks, still unable to wrench her stare away.
Smiling with a certainty so bright it lights up my heart, I drop my hair at my feet. “It's time you and I finally started over. And, for the record.” I tap her on the nose, leaving a smudge of dirt. “I'll still end up with the longer braid.”
Kara's blue eyes glisten. They shift under the layer of unshed tears, growing bigger and bigger until it's all I can see. But when she hugs me in her strong arms, I do see something else. It's our names, carved eternally into the wood of the bridge.
