Page 67 of You Know Why

Mom. Margot. Alex.

“Where’s Alex?”

Margot mutters a curse. “The doctors were worried about this.”

“What do you mean? Can you call him? I want to see him.”

“Honey, do you not remember? About Alex?” Margot sighs. “The doctors said you might not remember everything right away.”

Remember. Why can’t I remember? It would be so easy to shut my eyes, to slip away. I am tired, so tired. A car accident? Hit by a car? How? And then I realize what’s happening. Alex is not by my bedside. The sunshine, the curls, the blue eyes, that laugh. The secrets. Roses. That is my mother’s scent. But Alex . . . woodsy. Musky. Love and vodka. The river. The argument. The blood.

A huge swell of horror moves through me. Of loss, and fear. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. “Oh my God, is he dead? Where is he? Where’s Alex?”

“Honey, Alex is dead. He has been for years.”

The scream comes from someplace unfathomable, deep and guttural. People rush into the room. There is confusion and shouting, then I swim, swirling into nothingness.

It is night when I wake again. I can sense time has passed, but I have no idea how much. Margot was here. Trey was here. Alex. Trey. Wait.

The two men collide in my brain, and I feel something like sparks or fireworks. I am losing my mind. What is happening? I can’t see either of them clearly. They blend and merge, dancing, laughing; one wears the other’s face. Trey with blond curls. Alex with whiskey eyes. Neither is familiar, nor right; both are ingrained in my soul.

Think, Brook. Think. Ugh, it hurts to think. Do it anyway.

Not Alex. Trey. Trey is now. Alex was before. Maybe?

I feel sick. Wrong. There is a timeline, and if I could just grasp onto it . . .

“Trey?” I ask.

Someone surges to my side from the foldout chair next to the bed. “Brook? Oh, God, Brookie. You’re awake again.”

The voice is familiar, but her face feels all wrong. A stranger. But that can’t be right. The voice is my sister’s. The face is a stranger’s. I think something has damaged my eyes. Nothing looks right.

“Mm—Margot? Where’s Trey?”

“Well, at least you’re back into current events,” my sister says.

“What are you talking about? Where’s Trey?”

Trey was here. I remember him talking, the whispered words. Not exactly what he said, only that he was comforting me and encouraging me. Angel whispers. He was talking to me while I was dying. He was already on the other side.

The reality of my life parades back in.

He’s dead. He’s gone. He is no more. My stomach drops, adrenaline coursing through my body. I know this sensation all too well. To have to grieve him . . . I’m not sure I can go through it all again.

“Brooklyn—”

“It’s okay. I remember now. He’s dead.”

Margot takes my hand. The gesture is so familiar, yet so strange. Like my mother sitting on the edge of the bed, testing if I was running a fever. A hand on my forehead, my cheek, fingers trailing across my fiery skin. Even her scent, roses, is vivid in my nose. I haven’t smelled that perfume in years, and now, sitting at my bedside, is my mother. No, my sister. I’m wrong. What is happening?

The thoughts, swirling, kaleidoscoping together and apart, fragmented and fractured. Past, present, past. Is this what it feels like to go insane? To lose control of your mind?

“No, Brookie. Alex is dead. Not Trey. I don’t think. Though I’d like to kill him.”

My brain can’t grasp this. Trey, alive? But not here?

“Where am I? Where is he?”