He was dead. There was nothing I could do to bring him back. No matter how much guilt I buried myself under, I’d never see him again. I could never tell him how sorry I really was.
“Ian,” I whispered.
It might have been easier to stay locked in this cell, but I’d spent a year hiding in the dark. I needed to find my way out.
I got to my feet. I kicked at the door and heard a tiny splinter.
“Ian is dead!” I shouted. My voice sounded stronger, but I felt shredded.
It was time to get free of the lies. I wouldn’t let my mistakes hurt anyone else.
I took three steps back and ran at the door. This time the crack was louder. I pushed against the door again, and the seam grew bigger. My arms shook and the veins in my forearms popped out. The wood cracked again, leaving me just enough space to squeeze out.
Freedom.
“Jenna.”
I was halfway down the stairs when Luke said my name. His deep voice caressed it rather than clipping it short. No one said my name like he did.
“Luke.” I turned and ran back up the stairs. He was standing in a patch of moonlight, and he ran his hand through his hair. I saw Luke in his face—the worry, the sorrow, the guilt.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked. He took a step forward, then stopped. “Are you okay?” He clenched his fists and wouldn’t come any closer.
I crossed the space between us in two strides. “I’m fine,” I told him. But it was a lie. My heart ached for the boy standing in front of me.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. Relief and revulsion warred in his face, but he finally reached up and brushed my hair out of my eyes. His fingers lingered on my cheek.
“Ian’s trying to convince me he’s—” I stopped and reached out to touch Luke’s face. “Luke, I need to know—”
Luke took my hand away from his face. “You need to get home,” he said. “Away from me.”
It hurt to hear him say that. I could tell it hurt him to have to say it. He was probably right. But first, I needed to know for sure.
I wrapped my arms around Luke’s neck and pulled his face to mine. He hesitated for a moment, his shoulders tense, but then he crushed himself to me, his hands tangled in my hair. I tried to tell him all the things I didn’t have words for.
I lost my doubt.
I found the truth.
I pulled out of the kiss, but Jenna kept her arms around my neck, her body warm. “Stay,” she whispered. Her lips brushed my ear as she spoke.
It was exactly what I wanted. To stay with her. “I don’t think I can,” I whispered back. I already felt myself slipping away. Felt Ian pulling at me. I didn’t know how many moments I had left. Ian was getting so much stronger.
And then he was there, as if I’d called his name.
“You’re going to ruin everything,” he said.
I’d already ruined everything. This was me trying to hold together what I still could. “Jenna shouldn’t be here. This is between you and me.”
“You’re right about that, brother. I had this under control until you messed it all up. You have to go away—permanently. After everything that’s happened, you owe me at least that.”
Everyone wanted me to disappear. It had been my plan all along. Things would be easier on Mom. Maybe if I were gone, she and Dad could get back together. Hadn’t I wanted to become Ian? Maybe the freedom I’d been fighting for wasn’t about forgiving myself but forgetting myself.
Maybe Ian
was
my best version.
“What’s going on?” Jenna demanded. She had stepped away and was watching my conversation with Ian. I wondered what it looked like on the outside.
“We’re negotiating,” I said.
“About what?”
“We both can’t—” I sighed. “I had my chance.”
“You’re going to have to forgive yourself eventually.” How could she trust me? I didn’t. No one should. “I picked you,” she said, “not Ian. Luke can’t be all bad.”
Ian’s anger became a searing pain in my head. “I can make you want to disappear,” he said.
“Go!” I shouted to Jenna, pushing her away from me. When she didn’t move immediately, I shouted again. “Just go!” My scalp felt like it was shrinking. No, it turned out Ian wasn’t my best version after all, but he was the one calling the shots. Lights popped. Colors flowed. Darkness.
They were trying to get rid of me. He was my brother and I had loved her. Now they were both in it together. More than anything, I needed Luke out of my head. I wanted quiet. I wanted the headaches to stop. I just wanted to be alone for a while, to have a chance to collect and create more memories. I’d do anything to make that happen.
I didn’t get why Luke wouldn’t go. Why he was fighting me so hard. He’d been hiding in his room for months now. He’d locked himself in—not me. Luke had no right to my life. He really didn’t even have a right to his own. The accident had been his fault. We were lucky to have walked away. Mandy hadn’t.
I tried to run, but I tripped over something in the dark. I banged my knees, and a rock ground into my shin. Blood trickled down my leg.
“Dad says Luke has to go,” Ian said, stepping out of a nearby shadow to stand right in front of me. “Please. I need you.”
“I can’t fix you,” I said.
Either one of you
.
Ian’s face hardened. “I’m not broken.” Ian’s fingers dug into my skin as he reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Let go of me,” I said, jerking out of his grasp.
“I’m sorry,” Ian said, only there was remorse in his voice, and he was Luke. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I wanted to escape this nightmare. But I couldn’t leave Luke alone. He would tear himself apart.
I wanted to help Luke, but I needed to escape Ian. I couldn’t have both.
“Shut up!” Ian screamed. “I won’t let you take anything else away from me.” The softness that usually pushed Ian’s mouth into an easy smile had become a jagged edge of desperation. “Maybe you’d like to know what it feels like to lose everything.”
Ian’s head jerked back, like someone had hit him, then his mouth turned down and sorrow flooded his face. His shoulders slumped forward. “I’ve already lost it all, Ian.”
“You still have Jenna.” Ian. His words had taken on a cruelty I’d never heard in them before. “But only because she believes the lies. I can take her, Luke. You know I can.”
I tried to be invisible. I could feel my grip on reality slipping. My mind wanted to fold in on itself and protect me from the horror of standing in the shadows and watching Luke lose his brother all over again. It was torture seeing them both cling to a life only one of them could have. For the first time in seven months, I just wanted to go home.
“Don’t.” Luke’s voice was shredded. “Don’t.”
I stood in the dark and listened to Luke fall apart.
I was back in my room. Door locked. Ian was holding me prisoner by sheer will. Not possible, but true.
There were no windows in my room. The door was the only way out. I’d built the perfect cell. It shut me in and the world out. It was a place for me to hide instead of facing reality. But I didn’t want to hide anymore. I wanted Jenna. She had torn me apart and rebuilt me. Made me better. She found my best version. Jenna had seen me when no one else could and loved me anyway.
I hadn’t been able to save Mandy. I hadn’t been able to save Ian. But I could save Jenna. And maybe even myself.
I slammed my fist into the wall, leaving a nice dent in the Sheetrock. Hope. I hit it again, and even in this imagining, pain shot up my arm. I’d made a hole.
“I’m sorry, Ian,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Jenna. You have to get to the truck.” Definitely Luke. It felt like I was submerged in some bad dream. I couldn’t move fast enough. I couldn’t think. I was afraid that, if I did, I would lose it completely. I ran toward the stairs.
“Please.” Ian. Damn, they were switching faster than I could keep up. Ian blocked my way out. His eyes were hard, and I knew he was Ian because Luke would never have tried to make me stay.
“Ian, just let me go.”
He stepped closer. “There’s no other way to fix this.” He gripped my arm. “He’s trying to kill me.”
I no longer recognized the boy who stood in front of me. “No one’s trying to kill you.”
“If they think Luke’s real and I’m the projection, then what do you think will happen? They’ll try to get rid of me. There’s only room for one of us in here.”
He tilted his head, like he was listening to someone, then banged on his temples in pain and desperation. “I don’t want to go,” he said. “I don’t want to forget this. I don’t want to forget you.”
I wanted to save him, save them both, but I couldn’t. I had to remind myself that Ian had been dead for over a year. And Luke needed the kind of help I couldn’t give. His phone was in the truck. If I could just get to it, I could call his mom. She might know what to do.
I wanted to forget this entire night, but I would settle for escaping it instead. I stepped around Ian and was almost to the stairs when he reached out and grabbed my wrist. He twisted my arm, sending needles of pain into my shoulder. I cried out in surprise.
“Please. You can help put my family back together.”
“You’re out of your damn mind,” I whispered. The words hurt, as only truth sometimes can.
Ian’s laugh made the back of my neck prickle. “If Luke told you everything, then you know that’s what he is. I’m the stable one.”
Ian’s eyes were wild and he was breathing heavy. “Yeah, you look it,” I said.
Anger twisted his face, and for the first time, I was truly afraid of just how far Ian was willing to go to hang on to the life he thought he deserved.
“Luke.” I hoped he could hear me. “You’re better than he is, no matter what you think. He doesn’t always have to win.”
“I haven’t lost yet,” Ian said. I looked into his face, looking for any trace of Luke, but there wasn’t one. Luke never would have hurt me.
Ian jerked my arm again, and I gasped in pain. Gritting my teeth, I shoved Ian as hard as I could while pulling away from him. The shock on Ian’s face ripped through me, and the lump in my throat was equal parts anger and sorrow as Ian lost his balance and stepped backward. I realized too late what was going to happen, and even though I reached out to grab him, my fingers skimmed his arm as his eyes widened and he fell down the stairs.
I pounded the wall again and again, and when the hole was big enough, I tore it wider with my hands.
“I miss you,” I told Ian. Wherever he was, I hoped he knew at least that much. “I miss you so damn much.”
The wall crumbled at my feet, and the harder I pulled, the faster it fell, until all I could do was step back and watch it disintegrate completely.
The rest of the walls followed, tumbling down like ash, the house falling away until the only thing standing was an enormous oak tree supporting a tree house in its thick branches. It looked brand new. Two young boys stood inside the tree house, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders. They grinned down at me, and when they waved, I waved back. And then they were gone.
Sometimes an eternity existed in a nanosecond. I froze as the crash of Ian’s body became a terrifying silence.
“Jenna.” Luke’s voice, soft and low, floated up through the darkness, and I rushed down the stairs.
His eyes fluttered shut, and I stared in horror at the blood pooling underneath his head. I started shaking. I was pretty sure I’d just killed Luke.
In my dream, I had no scars. No pain. No regret. I was just me.
The ambulance was fast. I’d used Luke’s cell to call 911, then gone back inside to wait with him.
He wasn’t dead. He was broken and beaten, but he was still alive.
Luke coughed and opened his eyes, and in the moment before he spoke, I didn’t know which one I’d get.
“Hey,” he rasped. “Are you okay?”
Tears. I couldn’t help it. I was so glad to hear Luke’s voice. “I’m fine. I’m tougher than I look.”
“Good.” He tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace.
“I am so sorry,” I said.
“Don’t.” He winced. “
I’m
sorry. For everything.”
“But I nearly killed you.” Him. It would take awhile before I could process what had just happened. It was more surreal than life should be.
“No,” Luke said, squeezing my hand, “you saved my life.”
“You probably shouldn’t talk,” I said. He was too pale. “The ambulance should be here any minute.” The sirens screamed through the night, an uncommon sound in the quiet of Solitude. They were getting louder.
“I need to say this.” He sat up, then swayed a bit; I leaned in to steady him. He propped himself up against the wall. “Thank you for making me want to be me again. For seeing me and for loving me anyway.”
“You saw me too,” I told him. I leaned over and brushed his lips with mine. Luke.
I visited Luke in the hospital two days later. His mom was keeping him close. I wasn’t sure she bought our story about him tripping and falling down the stairs.
I had the Bronco back. Mom’s guilt over leaving me stranded had seen to that. Not that she was being reasonable. I wasn’t supposed to be here. Mom didn’t want me to see “Ian” again for a while. And Luke’s mom didn’t think I was a good idea, either. But Cathy Anders, sophomore, candy striper, and resident do-gooder, snuck me in and watched for Mrs. McAlister.
I sat in the chair next to Luke’s bed. He looked rough. His face was stitched and swollen, and he was covered in ugly bruises. He traced patterns on the back of my hand.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
My breath caught in my throat. “Why?”
“That should be obvious.” His voice was tight, and he kissed me before I could answer. The goodbye leaked through and shredded my heart. “I don’t have a choice,” he said, pulling away to look at me. “Mom thinks I need distance.”
From me
. “When?”
“Whenever she says. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Even though we were sitting in the same room, I could already feel him pulling away from me.
“Everything is my fault,” he argued.
I sat back. “Your taking the blame for everything is getting kind of old. Sometimes life just gives us crap, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”