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“I was.” I jerked my hand back when hers touched mine. Guilt blossomed in my chest, and I turned away, tucking my arms under my blankets like the fucker I was. “They broke into Vinny’s apartment and kidnapped me and... and Levi.”
I’d never met the kid, but that fact did nothing to make me feel better. Because my actions had been the cause of this kid’s disappearance. I’d learned that much by listening to what the police didn’t say.
All those women, all those girls. Jen, and Vinny, and Levi.
It’s all your fault.
My eyelids fell shut again, but I couldn’t stand the images that flashed in my mind. Jen and I had become best friends in college. All those stupid business classes we’d been forced to take. I’d helped her with the marketing classes. She’d tutored me through math and accounting, because what the hell kind of bullshit was that?
All those long nights studying. All those long nights partying after we’d become nearly inseparable. Our plans to rule the world through our new marketing and accounting prowess. All that fun, all the deep conversations.
Now, when an image of her popped into my head, she had short dark hair, thin black glasses, and each and every fucking time, they flew off her face as her skull exploded, covering me in blood and brains.
My fault.
Jen opened her mouth, but I couldn’t take another word spoken from her lips. I spoke before she could. “I just want to sleep.”
It wasn’t the truth, but one more lie piled on top of everything else wouldn’t hurt.
“Okay.” Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper, and the beeping and scratching and ticking and buzzing in the room, the incessant thoughts in my head, nearly covered it up. “I just... I’m here for you, Kelly. Whenever you’re ready to talk.”
You can’t talk when you’re dead.
When she got no response, she rose from the chair. For a moment, I didn’t think she would leave, and I wanted to look at her, to see what could possibly be keeping her here.
But I didn’t need more guilt.
“I love you, Kels. I’ll see you soon.”
Love.
What a joke.
As if anyone could love what I’d become. Could love me after what I’d done.
I tried to close my eyes, fall asleep, but those images pulsed and ravaged me worse than what Rhys had done. Every single one of my loved ones flashed before my eyes, before their glasses shattered against the wall behind me, before their faces splattered across my own.
My mom.
My dad.
Aaron and Vinny and Jen and Rhys.
Unknown faces of women and girls and that kid…. Levi.
Gone, because of me.
Sleep came in broken waves, each crash pulling me under and drowning me as another loved one succumbed to the poison I’d spread. Somewhere in those dreams, I saw my mom and dad, as if they were there in my hospital room, crying over me.
Mourning me.
Because I was gone.
The Kelly O’Connor they knew existed no more.
It was better this way, without me to ruin their lives. They could move on, heal, become better people without me here to destroy everything that was good.
They’d learn to live without me, would someday move past the pain I’d caused.
