She’s right. If I was a better person, then I’d simply go talk to someone—go to Preston and confess what’s going on. Tell him about Sydney. Bella. These horrifying memories and how I think I might be a killer. But I know I won’t. I’m not sure if that makes me a bad person, for carrying those thoughts inside me, not speaking about them because I worry what they mean. Maybe if I’d spoken up sooner, lives could have been spared. Maybe Sydney would still be alive.
“Maybe,” Lily says. “But maybe not.”
Chapter 21
Maddie
“Bartender Bella Anderfells Missing, Foul Play Suspected.” This is the headline on the news the morning after I find the birth certificates and key. There aren’t too many details only that she was seen over a week ago on March 15th, on the day Sydney died. I don’t know how to process this information, but every time I shut my eyes I end up back at her place, surrounded by blood and no body.
As I’m struggling with whether I should be guilty or not, whether I killed her or not, I decide it’s time to confront my mother about the birth certificate, convincing myself that maybe if I get more answers, then somehow the mystery will be solved. Although in the back of my mind, I think part of me secretly wishes to stay in the dark. What I don’t know can’t hurt me. If I’m a killer and I don’t know it, then everything’s still okay, right?
Wrong. But it’s what I tell myself to keep moving and breathing.
I opt for a surprise attack, and catch my mother one day while she’s eating a sandwich at the kitchen table. I simply walk into the kitchen and set the birth certificate down on the table in front of her.
She immediately drops her sandwich and her jaw drops as she stares at. “Where did you get that?”
“I think you know where I got it.” I pull out a chair and take a seat across from her. “The spot where you were hiding it.”
She shakes her head, staring at the piece of paper. Finally she reaches out to touch it, her fingers trembling, but she quickly pulls back. “Maddie, you need to forget you ever saw this,” she says, her gaze drifting up to me.
I cross my arms on the top of the table. “No. I’ve forgot enough during my lifetime. This is it for me.”
She presses her lips together so forcefully that they start to turn blue around the edges. “It was your sister’s.” Her voice is so soft, delicate, fragile.
“My sister’s?” I act surprised, but I’m not. I had my suspicions. Still… “Why didn’t you tell me about her before?”
She swallows hard, her hand clasps around the bottom of her neck as if she’s trying to strangle herself. “Because the memory of her will only cause you pain.”
“Try me.” My tone is firm, demanding.
She shakes her head over and over again, tears dotting her eyes. “It’s better if you don’t remember her.”
I grip the edge of the table, needing to hold onto something because I feel like I’m about to tumble into darkness, but I don’t know why. “It’s my decision whether I remember her or not and right now I’ve decided that I want to remember her. Now tell me. Where is she?”
It takes her an eternity to answer. Cars drive by from outside, the wind blows, my mother battles to breathe evenly. “She died.”
All noises fade away. “When?” My voice cracks.
A single tear falls from her eye. “A long time ago.”
“But why didn’t you ever tell me about her?”
“Because she’s better forgotten.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I press my hands to the side of my face, struggling for oxygen. I keep thinking about the girl in my memories, the one with blond hair that told me to cut her wrist. She said she was Lily and I thought she was my Lily, but maybe she was my sister. But in the pictures… I look so much like her. Long blond hair and the scar was there, so it had to be me. “What the hell is going on?” The room is spinning, tumbling out of control. Or maybe it’s just me. “Nothing makes sense.”
“Maddie, this is why I didn’t want to tell you.” She slides her arm across the table to take my hand. “It’s better if you can’t remember painful things like this. It’s the bright side of your amnesia.”
My hands drop to the table and I suck in a large mouthful of air. “Brightside? Are you fucking kidding me?” I jump out of the chair so abruptly it topples to the floor. “There is no brightside to this.” I give an exaggerated gesture at myself. “Everyday I feel like I’m losing my mind and you just add to that.”
“I wanted to protect you,” she says, slowly getting to her feet. “From the pain of having a sister.”
“Pain of having a sister. Are you fucking crazy?” I grasp at my head. This isn’t how a conversation should go. She should be talking about the pain of losing a sister. I lower my hand to the side. “What happened to me mother? In my past? With Lily? Were we locked up once?” I pause. “Did you lock us up?” As soon as I say it, I know it’s not true.
“How dare you.” Her entire body is quivering, not with fear but with rage. She grips onto the back of the chair for support. “I would never do anything to hurt you or your sister.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say and I partially mean it. I don’t know my mother enough to know whether she would hurt me or not. All I know is that in my past I’ve been hurt by someone.
“How can you ever say that?” she says. “I would never, ever do anything but protect you. Even if it means causing pain to myself.”
The last part is a little strange. Why would protecting me cause pain to herself? “What do you mean by that exactly?”
She shakes her head, releasing the table, and squaring her shoulders. “I’m not talking about this anymore. There was a reason I never talked about it.”
“Because it caused you pain?”
“Enough,” she snaps harshly. “No more of this. I’m done.”
And with that, she runs out of the room and I’m left unsure what to believe. Who to trust.
You can always trust me.
Chapter 22
Maddie
I’m moving out of the house. I haven’t told my mom yet, but I can’t do it anymore. Crazy or not, being cooped up in the house with her lies, locks, and alarms is making my situation worse. I’ll get my own place. Go to work and spend the rest of the time by myself, trying to piece together my past, who I was, why I was locked up, and what happened to my sister. That I can do—I’m better at being alone anyway. Although I’m never really alone. I always have Lily. Part of me wonders if maybe I created her out of my sister. Perhaps when I lost my sister Lily, my Lily arose. But the idea is kind of frightening, because my Lily is frightening, which makes me wonder what my sister was like.
Over the next couple of days, I start looking for places to live and a new job, one that will satisfy my darker cravings, one where I can start over, and get some help from someone who isn’t my mother. I’m looking through the classifieds in the newspaper, trying to ignore the best that I can the picture of Bella on page nine, when my phone rings. River’s name flashes on the screen and I freeze. He never calls me, not outside of work, which makes me wonder why he is now. I think I know and even though part of me doesn’t want to know, the other part has to know, whether I need to be worried or not.
He starts off by asking me how I am, acting casual—too casual—I know something’s up and I think I know it before he even asks it—the real reason he’s calling me. He continues casually asking me why I haven’t been to work. “Is it because of Sydney’s death? Or because Bella’s gone missing?” he questions. “I know it must be hard for you, losing people you know.” The fact that he says it, tells me just how little he knows about me. Sometimes I think I’m numb to almost everything going on around me. I hardly feel any emotions except toward Lily. And fear when I’m put in a panicking situation.
“Yes and no,” I respond evasively, wondering if the police have talked to him yet. Perhaps that’s where the casualness is stemming from.
“Well, I hope you
won’t stay away from work forever,” he says, then gives and elongated pause. “I kind of miss you… I know the place seems kind of cursed. At least that’s what people are saying right now, but I assure you the bar had nothing to do with either of their disappearances.”
I want to ask him how he can be so sure, but I bite my tongue. “How could you possibly miss me, River? You barely know me.” I barely know me.
“That’s not true…” he struggles for an answer. “I miss spending time with you… you should really come in today, even if it’s to talk. And your job’s still waiting for you, whenever you’re ready to come back.”
“I can’t do that,” I say, lying down on my bed and staring at the key on my nightstand, the one I found in my mother’s room. “Besides, I’m moving.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I’m figuring it out.”
He pauses, his breathing heavy on the other end. “Maddie, I don’t think you should go anywhere right now.”
“Why not?” I put the key in my pocket. I don’t even know why or if I’m the one who did it.
River pauses for the third time. “Maddie, we really need to talk,” he says as I roll over on my back and stare up at the ceiling. “It’s important.”
I tense. The way his voice deepens it carries a warning and it sends Goosebumps erupting across my skin and I uncontrollably shiver. He knows something.
“About what?” My voice is rickety just like my pulse.
“Come to the bar and talk,” he says, his tone lightening. “I’ll be at my office in about ten minutes.”
“I can’t do that,” I repeat as I sit up on the bed. “Trust me River, this is for your own good.”
“Maddie, this is important,” he stresses. “Just get down here as soon as you can.”
I grind my teeth in frustration, more with myself than anything. I should have been better with the detective, given him a better answer to why I was at Sydney’s crime scene that morning, because that has to be what this is about. Either that or it could be about Bella. Have the police gone to her apartment and found the bloody mess? Have they linked me to that somehow? But why would they go to River about that? I need to find out, just how much they—River—knows.
“Fine.” I get up from my bed, cross the room, and peek out the curtain at the sound of thunder. What will happen when I go back into the real world again? Around people. Around River. What if I lose control? What if I get arrested? Locked up again? What if the police show up? “I’ll be there in like an hour.”
You’re making a big mistake.
“Drive safe,” he says casually, his voice shifting to its normal, friendly tone. Like he didn’t just make things weird between us.
I don’t say anything, just hang up. I put the phone in my pocket, not bothering to cover up the short black skirt, knee-high socks, and tight t-shirt I’m wearing. My mom’s not home to see me, but quite honestly it doesn’t really matter anymore if she sees me dressed like this. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be today, a mixture of someone, perhaps Lily and Maddie.
I pull on a jacket as I prepare to head out because it looks like it’s going to rain, heavy clouds rolling in, a grumble of lightning in the distance. I hate the rain. I go over to the security box and try to unset the alarm, even though I don’t know the code. After several failed attempts, Lily gets irritated and pretty much forces me to walk out the door, setting off the alarm and sprinting out into the rain.
I take the bus because it’s the only form of transportation I have at the moment. On my way there, I debate getting off and taking another bus that goes up to the foothills, taking a detour up to the cabin, and just blowing off River completely. I haven’t seen Ryland since the night Sydney was killed. I want to talk to him about it, because he’s the only one I can talk to openly, but at the same time I fear that even he might think twice about being near me if I divulged I think I might have killed someone. What is his limit? How much is too much? Do I trust him No. I don’t trust anyone.
But I need to go see River and find out what he knows, whether I want to or not. So I head to the bar. By the time I get there, raindrops are splattering against the window and the ground like the blood I see in my memories. I can hardly see through it, it’s coming down so hard. I can make out the building across the street as the bus slows to a stop; the parking lot where I saw Sydney splattered in her own blood. I try to picture myself luring her over there. What would I have said that would make her go with me. Maybe we were fighting and she tried to run away from me. Maybe I chased her down and then just at the right moment, I stabbed her multiple times. But where would I get the knife? And what about Bella? Why would I hurt her? I liked her, well more than I liked anyone else.
“I think I really did it,” I say as I get off the bus and once again Lily has nothing to say. “It seems so easy to picture—someone dying because of me. And what happened at Bella’s… I can’t deny the blood.”
I stand on the sidewalk, staring at the bar, afraid of going inside. I listen to the rain drown the world. The thunder boom. The lightning crash. I remain there until a memory of me wrapping my fingers around a woman’s neck starts to slither into me, a venomous snake slipping its fangs into my skin. Until I can feel the rain drenching my body, the cold concrete against my flesh, hear the deep voice calling me a whore and that I deserve to be punished, see the flames ignite through the storm, her voice that sounds just like mine telling me not to be weak, to do whatever it takes to be strong. Be the darkness within you. It’s so much easier. Once it gets to that place, I jog inside, trying to outrun the images, but they’re always behind me, chasing at my heels.
The bar is empty as I stumble in, drenched in rain from head to toe. The place doesn’t open for another half of an hour. The faint smell of sweat and tequila is in the air, the lights are low, the chairs turned up. I think about the last time I was here. The chill of the freezer. The voice. The blood. I try to remember the rest. Connect the dots, but everything is still hazy.
I find River in his office, just like he said, talking on the phone. Lily is screaming inside me. Don’t do it! And then suddenly she’s out, walking around in River’s now clean office—he must have had someone clean up in here.
“No Glen, I don’t think this is a good idea.” He shakes his head as I stand in the doorway and wait quietly while he talks on the phone. “I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.” A pause. “Look, I don’t fucking care if I owe you, this is wrong… not to mention illegal.”
“Hmmm… interesting…” Lily says, watching him have the heated conversation. “He’s doing things with Glen, the drug trafficker.”
I want to ask what she’s implying but that would require talking aloud and making me look as insane as I am. So instead I stand there, listening to River argue with Glen while Lily wanders over to a shelf, glances at a stack of papers, then grins at me and says, “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
I’m about to go over there when River sees me and his face drains of color. “I have to go. I’ll call you later.” He quickly hangs up. He stares at me for a moment or two then casually says, “We seriously need to get a bell on you so I know when you’re coming.”
I don’t respond, trying to measure him up before I go any further into the office. He looks the same as he always does, faded jeans, a dark grey shirt, a hint of scruff on his jawline, and he has a beanie on his head. He doesn’t seem afraid, like he thinks I’m a killer.
But then why did he need to talk to me?
Don’t trust him. No matter what.
“You look tired,” he notes, taking in my appearance as I inch closer to his desk. “And wet. Is it raining outside?”
“It is… and I haven’t been sleeping well.” Deciding I should sit down, I cross the room, combing my fingers through my wet locks of hair. “So what did you want to talk to me about?” I take a seat across from the desk.
He reclines back in the chair, crossing his arms, studyi
ng me with his head cocked to the side. Always watching you. “The police came to talk to me this morning,” he says. “They wanted to ask me a couple of questions about Sydney.”
“Oh yeah.” I pick at my nail polish, pretending to be blasé, even though I’m a nervous wreck. “Do they have any leads yet on who they think did it?”
“I don’t think they do yet.” He pauses, making heavy eye contact with me. I know what’s coming even before he says it. “They wanted to ask me a couple of questions about you, too.”
I drop my hand to my lap, refusing to look away from his penetrating gaze. No eye contact shows a guilty conscience. “Oh, yeah? What about?”
“About how you said you were here that morning because apparently we spent the night together.”