No. I do knowwhy.
Mom’s standing right beside Violet, smiling softly at me as tears stream down her face.
“I’m sorry,mon trésor.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom,” I say, but I’m not sure she hears me or if my mouth even moves. “It’s mine for being a little slut.”
I don’t think. My body just…moves.
One second, Violet is in front of me, her eyes wide, her breaths coming in short gasps, and the next, my fingers land on her shoulders, and I yank her around, spinning us, putting my back where her chest should be.
The gun goes off.
There’s a sharp, ugly crack that punches the air and then my lungs.
Heat detonates in my chest as if someone shoved a fist straight through bone and cartilage, ripping through me in one brutal go.
My legs give out, and the ground disappears.
I’m falling…falling and keep fucking falling long after my body hits something hard.
Noises blend together—tires, screams, and shouting. There’s a lot of shouting, but I can’t tell who the sounds belong to as blood bubbles in my mouth, metallic and warm and…soothing.
My heart stutters as my lungs give out.
And just like that…the noise in my head dies.
No static.
No whispering demons.
No self-hating comments.
No footsteps in the hallway that don’t exist.
No ghosts, no noise, no thoughts eating me alive from the inside out.
Just…nothing.
Oh.
So that’s what quiet feels like.
Peace doesn’t come in a soft bed or a therapist’s office or tucked against Marcus’s chest like I pretended it might.
It comes on cold grass with a hole in my chest and someone else’s life pressed behind my ribs.
How poetic.
How sad.
If I’d known it would shut everything up this cleanly, I would’ve stepped in front of a bullet sooner.
Would’ve stopped swimming so hard to stay above water.
Would’ve just…abandoned breathing.
Then why is a part of me rebelling against this fitting ending? Why is my heart clawing, reaching, trying to stay afloat?
