I shook my head. “No, don’t you dare!” I said, gritting my teeth. My fingers tugged fretfully at my rubber band, and it snapped in two, falling silently from my wrist to the ground.
“Audrey.” His eyes locked on to mine. Those strange, beautiful eyes: one a stormy gray, the other summer blue.
Like a jagged rock pitched from a slingshot, my mind traveled back to the night I told that lie. I thought of Rad, his strong, gentle hands stained red with Ana’s blood. Candela lying in the hospital bed, fighting for her life. Duck shoved into the back of a police van. Now Freddy—poor Freddy. Another one for the body count. And I had to add Lucy as well because you couldn’t separate the two.
“Audrey,” Rad repeated. There was a desperation to his voice. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do.” He grabbed my arms. “Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything you want.”
I broke free from his grasp and stumbled back. “I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said weakly, my eyes watering and my voice trembling.
“I’ve put my life in your hands,” he pleaded. “Don’t you see? We have a fresh start ahead of us in L.A. We can leave all this behind.”
All of a sudden, I felt an eerie calm settle over me. It was as though I was standing in the eye of the storm, and everything had stopped. In that moment of clarity, I knew I was just as culpable as Rad. I knew there was blood on my hands too. We had become caricatures of ourselves, trapped in this nightmare; the entry ticket for this grotesque carnival, my lie. I had cursed us from the moment the evil spilled from my lips. Yet beyond the madness, the utter horror of Rad’s confession, I couldn’t ignore the love that was there, pulsating with a life of its own, pulling us closer and closer, blurring the lines. We could start all over again in L.A., where no one knew us. I was stronger than I had ever been. I was strong enough for the both of us. Then the clarity dissolved, and I was pitched back into blinding chaos.
I sobbed violently, my shoulders heaving from the effort. I cried in a way I never had before. I felt everything I lost compound into this cruel, unforgiving moment. Rad put his arms around me, and I pushed back as hard as I could, thrashing wildly at his hands, his face, tearing at his hair. With all my strength, I pounded his chest with my fists, but still, he wouldn’t let go. After a while, my arms grew limp, and I let him hold me.
Epilogue
The early morning sun streamed through the curtains of our one-bedroom flat in Santa Monica. I was on my second cup of coffee, and Rad was just waking up.
He opened his eyes and gave me a sleepy smile. “Morning,” he said.
“Morning.” I put my coffee mug down on the side table, then leaned over and kissed him gently. He ran his hands through my hair and buried his face in my neck. “You smell good,” he murmured, pulling me down onto the bed with him. He wrapped his arms around me, and we stayed like that for a while.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost ten, I think.”
“You’re already dressed.”
“I was up early this morning and thought I’d go for a walk on the pier—pick up some bagels on my way back.”
“Sounds good.”
I gently untangled myself and got up.
“Blueberry for you?”
“Yeah.”
I put my Audrey jacket on.
“Is it cold out there today?” he asked.
I nodded. “I was out on the balcony this morning, and it was a little chilly.”
He sat up and stretched out his arms with a yawn, turning his head to the window. “Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”
I smiled. “I think so too.”
The sun had climbed high above the horizon. A seagull was hitching a ride on the wind. I watched as the tide swirled around the wooden legs of the Santa Monica Pier. People milled about taking photographs and talking animatedly on cell phones. The sea was a perfect backdrop to the spinning Ferris wheel and the colored umbrellas that dotted the promenade. In the distance, there were shrieks of delight coming from the bright yellow rollercoaster.
I leaned against the powder-blue railing and closed my eyes, letting the sun warm my face. It had been unusually cool these past few days, and I felt the cold a lot more than I used to. I took in a deep lungful of the salty sea air and let it out again with a sigh.
So here I was, several months after the night of Freddy’s funeral. I had settled into my new life with Rad. I didn’t want to think about the dark days that followed the night when Rad revealed the truth about Ana to me. We had agreed to leave all that behind. I left Lucy and Candela bewildered and begging for answers—answers I couldn’t give without implicating Rad. I knew I could never tell them the truth because they wouldn’t understand. How could I explain it to another person if I couldn’t even justify it to myself? All I knew was that my decision to stay with Rad was not so much a choice as a necessity.
I thought about my time in Delta. About Gabe, that day we said goodbye. How he told me I didn’t need anyone anymore. But he was wrong. I needed Rad—we needed each other now more than ever. Then I thought about the rope that kept the ship attached to the mooring—the one that should never fray, never break. Like the rubber band that used to occupy my left wrist, the rope had snapped, and I was free-falling, but I wasn’t afraid anymore. I thought of Rad and the terrible secret we shared—the lie we chose to bury for good. It would always be there—we knew that—but we would no longer give it any power over us. It nearly drove us apart, but, instead, it had bound us to each other like a blood pact. And now here we were, in a whole new life. It was a blank canvas—the chance to start all over again.
I walked by a busker in a felt hat, a white feather stuck in its brim. He was strumming a muted rendition of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” I stopped and put my hand in the pocket of my jacket for some loose coins. I could hear the jangle, but I couldn’t seem to find the coins. I frowned, my fingers pushing deeper against the red satin lining. I felt a tear that I had never noticed before. As I fished the coins out, I heard the unmistakable rustle of paper. I dropped the coins into the busker’s open guitar case and continued walking, my hand pushing through the tear until my fingers found a piece of folded up paper. It was the page from Ana’s diary that had gone missing the day I opened up the metal box. It must have been caught inside the lining of my jacket this entire time. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt the old familiar panic rising up again. Then, almost as soon as it began, it was over. I took a deep breath and looked at Ana’s tiny writing. As I read, her words seemed to travel from a time so long ago they felt closer to the future than the past. I sensed somehow that those words were always meant to find me here.
I’m going to do it this time. My parents will be away this weekend, and I am going to seal up the garage with Dad’s beloved red Thunderbird running inside. Then I’m going to fall asleep to the sweet perfume of carbon monoxide and “Sugar Baby Love” blasting on the stereo. Seventeen seems like a good age to leave this shitball of a world.
I wonder who will be the first to find me. Maybe the lady next door, the one who keeps giving me the evil eye. I once heard her yelling at her husband about the way he looks at me. I can imagine her at the scene, that initial look of horror. Then her fat, rubbery lips will curve into a smile, secretly pleased with the discovery. Or maybe Rad will get to me before she does. I can just see those sweet, puppy dog eyes, wide with incredulity and brimming with tears. He can be so sentimental sometimes; it makes me want to gag. He still thinks I was a virgin when we fucked for the first time. Can you believe it? I know he thinks he’s in love, but he has no idea what love is. Not yet anyway.