Page 10 of Pretty Nightmare

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It’s not.” She lifts her head up just a little and smiles. “I have to tell you something.”

“OK.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t need to ask about what. I know what. “That was a long time ago.”

“That’s not the point. And that’s not even what I mean. I am sorry, Adam. But here’s the part I never told you. I never told anyone. But. I don’t remember it. Time skipped, or something. I can’t explain it, or prove it, and I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t remember hitting you with that candlestick. It’s just… one minute I was standing there watching you—” She stops.

“Watching me beat the fuck out of Nathan?”

“Yeah.” She breathes out. “And then the next thing I knew you were on the ground with a huge gash in your head. Blood was spilling out all over the place and I was holding a candlestick. I don’t know how it happened. And I tried to tell this to you that one summer we spent all our time gardening. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. I’m the one who told you to plant those damn daphne bushes.”

“Yeah.” She inhales deeply, then lets it out slowly. “I don’t like to think about it.”

“Me either. So we don’t need to talk about it. I know you didn’t mean to kill me.”

“I don’t know how you can even think that, Adam. Because I tried to kill you again just a few years later. And…” She stops again.

“Indie,” I say, bringing my hands down so I can place them on her shoulders. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is.”

I shake her a little. “Listen to me, OK? Because this is important. It’s not your fault, kid. It’s just not. They did things to you, Indie. Terrible, evil things. And they fucked you up long before you showed up in that auction. And by that time, there was nothing any of us could’ve done to change it.”

Her face falls into a deep frown. “Oh.” She sounds sad.

“OK, wait. Let me say that again, in a different way. Because that’s not really what I meant. They did things to you. They changed you. And then McKay, and Donovan, and I did our best to… take it back and make it right.”

“It just wasn’t good enough, was it?”

I lift my head up a little to see her better. “It was good enough. We’re still here, right?”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t sound convinced.

“We changed you back a little. You’re much better now, Indie. You learned a lot of truth over the past few months and you’re dealing with it really well.”

She nods and sinks a little deeper into my chest.

I want to hug her. I want to hold her and tell her everything’s gonna be OK. But she scares me.

And it’s not about how dangerous she is. Or if she’ll snap one day and succeed in killing me. All of us, really. It’s just we’re really, really far away from being OK.

“Do you love Maggie more than me?”

I laugh. “Why the hell would you ask me that?”

“Because you act like she’s yours.”

“You’re mine too.”

“It’s different.”

“How?”