The Things We Couldn't Forget

Chapter 11.

How can any of this be happening?

I'm standing in my living room. I'm in the exact same place I was when my parents told me the news. When I found out that the girls weren't just going missing...they were being murdered.

I stare at my father's recliner and I can still see him sitting there. Like a ghost. He's there in his brown suit jacket, rocking back and forth. The boards creaking beneath the weight.

Back and forth he rocks, fingers steepled below his chin. His glasses low on the bridge of his long nose.

"We've got to tell them." He says and his voice makes me jump backwards.

Only when I turn I yelp. My mother is standing at my side, her eyes glassy, looking right through me. Looking where the sound of the recliner continues to creak creak creak.

I hear her voice calling my name. Calling my brother. I hear the ricochet of voices coming from upstairs. I hear the slamming of the door and the thunder of feet running down the stairs.

I'm both here and not here.

The voices just keep going and I scream and scream, trying to drown it out. Trying not to see myself sitting on that loveseat, my brown eyes staring through me.

"Dead?" I ask, face pale and lifeless.

Dead
Dead
Dead.

I'm screaming still as I push to my feet and run from the room. I slam open the door to my parents bedroom, slamming it behind me again. I push against the door. I kick it and slap my hands against it until something cracks.

I pull my hand back and feel something wet and hot running down from my fist.

"This isn't happening!" I scream, throwing my back into the door and sliding down to the floor. "This isn't real! It's not real."

I wait for the voice inside of me to tell me I'm okay. I wait for something, anything, but the voice doesn't come.

Just the voices in the other room going and going.

I'm not okay.

I just found a fucking body!

A body!

And I had told no one.

How much longer will that girl's body lay beneath that dumpster like trash? How long will she lay there freezing and alone? How much did she beg for life before it slipped away from her?

How much longer will her family have to search for her?

I fall over onto the floor and cry myself dry. I cry like I haven't cried in years. I scream and thrash and choke and vomit and cry. I cry so long and so hard I'm sure it will kill me.

Surely there are no longer tears running from my eyes but blood. All of the blood inside of my body must be pouring out of me right here in the floor.

"I'm sorry." I say to no one...

No, not to no one.

To her.

I plead that she will forgive me for leaving her there.

For leaving her alone again.

"I'm so sorry."

I cry until I feel like she feels.

Cold and alone.

Empty.

Soulless.

Nothing.