“Are you getting any sleep, Grace?” Dr. Rainier asks me. I nod. It’s not a lie. I am sleeping. I sleep all the time. It’s waking up I have a hard time bringing myself to do. Because as long as I can sleep, I can dream. And as long as I can dream, I can live in a place where that night might have a different ending.
But it never, ever does.
“How do you feel?” the doctor asks.
My clothes feel too big. I can’t remember the last time I washed my hair. My friends try to come see me, but I can’t face them. Not yet. Ms. Chancellor brings me food, and I think I eat it. But maybe not. I don’t remember, and even if I could, I wouldn’t trust my memories anyway. I don’t trust anything — anyone. Least of all myself.
Mostly I lie in my bed, smelling smoke.
Mostly I try to go back in time.
“I shot my mother.” I say the words that have been haunting me for days. But longer than that, really. Years. They have been haunting me for years. The weeks in the hospital come back to me slowly. I remember in bits and pieces why Dad put in for a transfer when he’d sworn just months before that we would never have to move again. I know why my grandfather can’t look at me, his granddaughter — the selfish, reckless teenager who shot and killed his only child.
And I know the Scarred Man was right — the truth was like a tightrope and eventually I had to fall. Part of me just wishes the fall had killed me. Part of me rejoices that I am achingly alive.
“I’m the reason she’s dead.”
“No.”
I’ve never heard Dr. Rainier sound so firm before, so resolute. Almost like I’ve made her angry.
“It was an accident.” I can’t believe the words until they are out of my mouth, spilling forth in painful, sloppy sobs. The very words I have spent the last three years despising. But they were right, weren’t they? My family didn’t lie to me. They just never actually told me the truth.
“Does Jamie know?” I finally ask the question that I fear the most. “Does he … does he hate me, too?”
“Your brother does not hate you, Grace.” The doctor smiles sadly, nods slowly. “And yes, he has always known you fired the gun.”
“I killed his mother,” I say.
“It was an accident,” the doctor tells me, and then I really start to cry.
Dr. Rainer hands me a tissue and continues. “The human mind is a miraculous thing. Somehow, it knows what it can take. It self-limits in that way. And three years ago you knew that you weren’t ready to process this information. You let yourself forget. And the people in your life couldn’t bring themselves to remind you. They thought it was best.”
Was it? I’m still not sure. I want to go back to before I knew. Anger is a far easier emotion than guilt.
“The grief and guilt were simply too much for you, and so your mind chose simply to forget. But it couldn’t forget everything.”
“The Scarred Man,” I say.
Dr. Rainer nods slowly. “You have a condition known as acute stress disorder. You have a condition, Grace. And we are going to help you get better.”
She smiles when she says it. I try to smile back, knowing you can’t possibly put a name on who I am and what I’ve done.
“Come on,” the doctor says, rising. “There’s something we think it’s time for you to see.”
“We?” I ask.
When the door opens, Ms. Chancellor is standing there, smiling at me. “Come now, Grace. It’s time.”