“What happened to him?”
Hannah grabbed her can of soda and I saw her hand shaking.
“They put him in a mental health facility, doped him up. He’s still there. It was either that or jail, and my parents chose that. He’s of age now, but he’s still too much of a danger to be let out. So, that’s my story. Now show me yours.”
She flipped so quickly that I couldn’t follow. I couldn’t process what she’d told me. Once again, it was something that had been done to her. Something she’d had absolutely no control over. Hannah was a victim; I’d created one.
“I...I don’t know if I can, Hannah. I haven’t told anyone.”
She got up and sat on her knees right in front of me.
“Look, we all have terrible shit in our lives. Every single person on this planet at some time or another has had a secret they would rather die than share. It’s part of being human, of being alive. Stuff happens and we can’t deal with it. But what I’ve learned is that we are stronger than what happens to us. You can’t let it define you. The f**ked-up parts of you are just that. Parts. But I understand if you’re not ready. It took me a long time and a lot of therapy to be able to even remember what happened. I blocked it out for a long time.”
My eyes skimmed over the scars on her face and neck and arm and I couldn’t even imagine the horror she’d been through.
“I killed someone,” I blurted out. To her credit, Hannah didn’t gasp like I expected her to. Her eyes went wide for a second and she shook her head.
“Okay, then. I think I’m going to need some details before I process this.” She got up and sat back down on the couch beside me. “Because that can mean a lot of things.”
I took the deepest breath of my life and started from the beginning. How I’d met Nathan randomly at a party that I’d gone to in order to satisfy my stupid friends, and how we’d formed an odd friendship and how he’d started making me open my eyes to the world and music and having fun and then how I’d begged him to go to the concert, and then drive me home, and how I’d called him and begged him to come get me.
“He was just hanging up with me when it happened. They figured he must have been looking down at the phone, or have dropped it, or something. He never saw the tractor-trailer truck, and that was it. Nathan is dead because of me.”
Saying the words had been as hard as slicing into my soul and bleeding them out, word by word, drop by drop. Whoever said the truth was freeing had never held a secret like this. Somewhere around the middle of my story, I’d started crying again, but I was kind of used to it by now. It was a bit like being a leaky faucet.
I tried to turn my tears off and waited for Hannah to process.
“So you think you’re the reason Nathan hit that truck.”
“I am the reason, Hannah. He never would have been on that road at that time, and he wouldn’t have been distracted. I’m responsible for all of it.”
“You. Are. Mother. Fucking. Crazy,” she said before she dived at me, putting her arms around me and pulling me close in a rib-crushing hug. “How in the hell have you convinced yourself that it’s your fault?”
See? That was my exact fear. That whoever I told would try to convince me that it wasn’t. That it was just an accident and no one’s fault, etc. No. I wouldn’t go for that. People had used that excuse for thousands of years to get themselves off the hook for the horrible things they’d done. Not me.
Hannah wouldn’t let go of me, and I was having trouble breathing.
“You need to let go,” I sort of gasped.
“Oh, sorry.” She pulled back, but kept her hands on my shoulders. I couldn’t look at her.
“So there, I told you. Now you can get off my back about it.”
I tried to get up, but she wouldn’t let me.
“No way. You are not going anywhere. You’ve carried this alone for too long, and I’m not going to let you carry it a second longer. What happened was an act of God or a shitty day or a whole host of things. You’re one of those people, Jos, who can’t stand not having an explanation for something, a reason. There was no reason for this. There wasn’t a reason for my f**king brother to set me on fire.” She couldn’t compare the circumstances. They just weren’t the same. I wrenched myself free from her grip.
“I knew this would happen if I told someone. I knew they would try to talk me out of feeling bad, but I don’t want to stop feeling bad. He was a wonderful person and he didn’t deserve to die. The world is a worse-off place without him, and I’m the one that caused that. I won’t let you take the pain that I should be feeling away from me. If I don’t have pain that he’s gone, then who will?”
“I don’t know where you got such f**ked-up logic from, but I’m going to stop you right there, because this is crazy. Bat-shit crazy.” She tried to grab my shoulders, probably to shake me, but I backed away.
“Great, now you think I’m crazy. Thanks so much, Hannah. I feel so much better that I finally told you.” I went for the stairs, because it was the only escape down here.
She blocked my exit. Damn, her reflexes were good.
“I told you that it took a lot of therapy for me to get where I am, and part of that very expensive therapy was letting go of my anger toward my brother. I had to let it go or I would never be free of him and what had happened. I’m not saying I’m the poster child for letting go, or that I’m even okay, but the one thing I do know is that you have to let go of this guilt, Jos. It’s going to kill you, and I don’t think Nathan would have wanted that.”
I exploded.
“How the f**k do you know what he would have wanted? You didn’t know him. No one will ever get to know him again.” My yelling brought the pounding of footsteps, and the door at the top of the stairs opened.
“What’s wrong?” Renee came rushing down, with everyone else just behind her.
“Why can’t you all leave me the f**k alone?! I just want you all to stop trying to save me, because I don’t want to be f**king saved, okay?! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” I had nowhere else to go, so I went for my bedroom, managing to get the door shut and locked before they could catch me. I waited for someone to bang the door down, but it didn’t happen. I waited and heard quiet talking and people going back up the stairs.
Then...silence. The door shut and I waited for someone to come and try to talk to me through the door. Nothing. I moved to the crack between the door and the frame and listened, just to make sure. Nope, it was quiet.