Page 18 of What We Bury

I wash my hair and remember Brock’s hands fisting it. I scrub my face until the cologne-and-salt memory blurs, but the heat of his blood stays with me.

I’m not sorry.

I turn the hot water even higher, until my skin flashes red and the spray hammers against my back. When I close my eyes, the afterimage behind my lids is an inkblot of blood and more blood.

Eventually, my fingertips prune and the water cools before turning stone cold. I step out and swipe the fog from the mirror with the heel of my hand. My reflection looks worse than I expected—blotchy, sunken, eyes bruised all the way around. I towel off, forcing myself to wipe each drop from my skin.

I’m not okay.

The tears come without permission, and they’re ugly—the kind that twist your face into something unrecognizable and drag out sounds you didn’t know your body could make.

I press my forehead against the mirror and my mouth opens, an animal screaming out—a howl, a keen, something inhuman pulled from the same place that swung that knife.

I killed a man.

I stabbed him past sense, past necessity, until the knife felt welded to my hand and all I had left was the need to make sure he could never hurt me again.

I stare at myself in the mirror and whisper the truth that’s in my soul.

“And I’d do it again.”

I howl again, but it breaks into a laugh, then a sob. The worst part is, I’m not ashamed. It’s grief and shock and terror and something too sharp to name—but it isn’t shame. I brace myself against the sink and let it run through me. Sobbing. Laughing. Shaking.

Eventually I run out of fuel. I wipe the back of my wrist under my nose and breathe through my mouth until I’m at least mildly sane.

I finish toweling off and pull on my favorite oversized T-shirt and cotton shorts—the softest things I own. Then I brush my teeth twice because my mouth still tastes like bile and beer.

Burn the dress.

The guy’s warning echoes through my head. Amy will be back tomorrow morning, and I need all evidence of tonight gone.

I turn to scoop it up. But all I find is empty floor.

What the fuck?

The dress is missing.

I stand there, towel twisted around my hair, staring at the empty tile where I know—absolutely fucking know—I left it. I remember peeling the stickiness off my body. I remember watching it hit the floor.

“Am I going insane?”

My brain sprints through impossible options even as it screams,it should be here. I lurch toward the kitchen—maybe I took it off with the jacket and hung it on the chair?

But I freeze before I reach the table.

The jacket isn’t where I left it.

“Fuck.”

Maybe the shock scrambled things. Maybe I’m remembering wrong.

No. I draped the jacket over the kitchen chair before I went to shower. I took the dress off in the bathroom.

The living room looks the same. The kitchen looks the same. But something’s off.

The knife.

I drop to my knees and check under the chair. Nothing.