But Beck’s parents are going to have to identify another body. This one may not be eaten down to the bone, but it will show signs of eight months of malnutrition and infection. It’ll have a bite mark in the shape of their other daughter’s teeth.
Their kid killed two other families’ kids in cold blood.
I can’t sayit’ll all be okay.
“Can you come here?” I ask.
Beck does as I say, moving so close that the railing of the bed digs into her stomach.
I lean over and pull her into a tight hug. “You couldn’t have known, and it wasn’t just your responsibility to have seen. So many people failed her. So manyadultsfailed her. Please don’t beat yourself up about that. These last eight months have been torture enough.”
We let Paisley die. We’ll have to live with that decision for the rest of our lives. I can’t pretend to know what guilt Beck’s dealing with even if she was the one who suggested it.
“My parents will—”
Her words are lost as she presses her face into my neck. Her skin is so hot against mine and I’d give anything to never let her go.
I hold her until our parents arrive.
Forty
In the end, Beck’s parents pull her into what could be the biggest hug of her life. Her mother is sobbing, but she never says Paisley’s name. She just holds Beck, petting her greasy hair and muttering, “My miracle baby.”
It’s going to be a long, hard road for them, but I have faith they’ll make it through.
As for mine, well, they wheel me into my dad’s car and let me fall asleep as soon as we head out of the hospital parking lot.
By the time I wake up again, we’re getting off the freeway at Buena Vista Blvd., Walt Disney Studios to my right and Forest Lawn Memorial, where two of my friends rest, to my left.
“You awake, hon?” Dad asks.
I groan and say, “Yeah.” The painkillers are wearing off and the pulsating ache of my leg makes it hard to wake up and feel clear in the head.
“Enough to tell us what the hell you were thinking?” Mom asks.
I can’t have this conversation without more painkillers and sleeping in my own bed first.
I don’t know if I can have this conversation even after that. Because how the hell do you explain that you embroiled yourself in a multi-homicide and never seriously attempted to get any proper authorities involved? There’s no way to justify that, even if it felt right in the moment.
So, I’m honest. I don’t know if it’s what my parents want, but it’s what they’re going to get.
“There’s no point in explaining,” I say. “I know that it won’t make sense to you both.”
Mom and Dad exchange a look.
“I’m sorry for how I worded that,” Mom says.
Tension releases from my shoulders. Mom really is taking the blame?
Mom sighs. “We really do want to know,” she continues. “We know grief turns us into versions of ourselves we hardly recognize. It can make us do things we never would’ve done before. In that context, I think what you’ll tell us can make some sense.”
I’m still too exhausted to tell the whole story, but something blooms in my heart in that moment. I know my parents aren’t perfect. I know we still have so much left unsaid that’ll continue to cause disconnect and conflicts if we don’t address those things. But I’m no longer the only problem. I’m not the only one who needs to change. If we both have work to do, I can get behind that.
So, I start telling the story.
“I was supposed to be on that camping trip,” I say. “But Paisley, Harlow, and Opal went without me.”
I only get through explaining how I saw the woman in the parking lot by the time we pull into the garage.
