The Sea of Tranquility(95)
Author: Katja Millay

And so he does.

He gives me the mythical why. He tells me the story. At least what he remembers of it and I think how ironic it is that I’m not supposed to remember, but I do, and the boy who is supposed to have all the answers has a mind full of blanks. But he spills everything in a mad rush like he’s been holding onto it for years and he wants to get it out before I stop him.

He tells me about his brother. About the girl his brother was in love with who went to the same school as me. The girl who broke up with his brother and who Aidan blamed for the suicide, even though he knows, now, that she wasn’t the reason. The Russian girl. The Russian whore. The girl he went looking for that day. The girl he saw when he saw me. Just because I was there.

And then he says the words. And it isn’t possible for me to hate this boy more, but I do.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

My head wants to explode. This is not the way this is supposed to happen. He’s not supposed to be apologizing. He’s supposed to be evil and I’m supposed to hurt him.

My hands are fists without a purpose. I don’t know where my breath comes from, just that it still comes. I can’t hear any more of this. Because he’s stealing my rage and it’s the only thing I have. He can’t take that, too. He can’t make me not hate him. I’ll have nothing left.

He starts talking about his parents putting him in therapy after the suicide and about the guilt he lives under because he never told anybody about what he did to me. How he kept waiting to get caught and waiting to get caught but no one ever came for him. And he thought that he was being given a second chance; that I didn’t die and he thought I was okay and it was some sort of new beginning. It was. Just to a shittier story.

Words. So many words. I don’t need to know why he turned evil, just that he was. There is absolutely no part of me that wants to listen to him talk about his guilt and his therapy and his art and his healing. He doesn’t get to feel better. He doesn’t get to forgive himself. I won’t give him permission.

And yet I don’t think he does forgive himself. There is so much remorse and pain and self-loathing in his expression that I ache for him because I know what it feels like; and I hate myself for the aching.

He stops talking. I listened to every word he said and it’s my turn now. My turn to tell him everything I’ve needed to tell him since the day I remembered what he did to me. My turn to make him listen. But I don’t get the chance. Clay walks in before I can figure out which of the thousand words in my head I’m going to say first.

“There you are,” Clay looks at me. “Did you make it all the way through already?”

He turns to Aidan Richter who looks haunted and stares at me like I’m a specter. Some spirit from the past, come to claim what’s owed.

“Hi,” Clay says, and walks over to offer his hand. I want to grab it away and scream not to touch him. I know what those hands have done and I don’t want them anywhere near Clay’s. “Clay Whitaker. You’re work?”

Clay glances around at the walls which I’ve only now started to notice. This boy’s art is so different from Clay’s. There’s nothing remotely similar at all. But it’s amazing and I want to slap myself for thinking so. I despise him for the ability to create it.

And then I see it. And there are no words that exist to describe the hatred I feel for him. The painting. On the far side of one wall, all the way to the end, like a period or an afterthought. But it’s not a painting. It’s a memory that didn’t happen.

I don’t know anything about art so I can’t tell you that it’s watercolor or acrylic or that it’s on canvas or anything art related at all. I can tell you that it’s a painting of a hand, my hand, turned up and opened to the world and that it reaches into my body and rips out everything that’s left. Because in the palm, right in the center, is the pearl button I never reached.

***

Aidan Richter is gone and I’m still waiting.

I need to find him. He got to say everything and I said nothing. I won’t let him absolve his guilt at my expense. He doesn’t get to use me for that, too. He doesn’t get to make me question everything I’ve believed for nearly three years and then walk away without listening to me.

I want my turn to scream at him. To ask him if he knows that he’s a murderer. If he knows that, even though I lived, it doesn’t mean he didn’t kill me. Just because they brought me back, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t dead. Just because they restarted it, it doesn’t mean my heart didn’t stop. It doesn’t change anything he did. He killed the Brighton Piano Girl even if he didn’t kill Emilia Ward. And I want to tell him. I want him to know what I know. I want him to hurt. I’m frantic with unsaid words.

Maybe no one found him before, but I know who he is now. I know his name. I can find him like he found me.

And when I do, it won’t be random.

CHAPTER 54

Josh

When I get to Sunday dinner I’m hoping she’ll be there. With everything that happened last weekend, she skipped it and I don’t blame her. I would have skipped it, too, if I wasn’t desperate for even the slightest chance of seeing her.

My house is too quiet and my garage is too empty so I came over here early. Dinner isn’t ready, so Drew and I end up in his room because I don’t feel like standing around being polite and making small talk. But I have nothing to talk to Drew about, either, and we just end up sitting here in stupid silence.

Maybe I should have stayed home. Sunshine never came back after we talked on Wednesday. I thought it was a turning point but maybe I was just deluding myself again.

“Tell me what the hell happened between you two,” Drew finally demands. “And don’t say nothing. And don’t say you don’t know. I’ve gotten every evasive answer there is from both of you and I’m calling bullshit.”

“I don’t know.” I look up at Drew and stop him before he can interrupt. “That’s the absolute truth, whether you like it or not. I have no f**king idea. Everything was fine. Everything was good. And then it wasn’t. All I know is that, for like five minutes, I think I was happy.”

“Something had to have happened, Josh.”

Something most definitely did happen. I wage an internal battle over whether to ask him the question that’s in my head. I’ve always wondered how much she talks to Drew, how much goes on between them that I don’t know about.