“No, this isn’t true.”Kit steps toward me, but I shrink back, tossing Dandy’s cell.I don’t want to see anymore.“Get away from me!Both of you.”
Kit swallows, torn and broken.“Tonight, it was just you and me.There was no Jupiter.It was just us.”
Now I know he’s lying.
I remember her taste and the way she felt.
“Why are you doing this?”I stagger back, sagging down the wall and crumpling to the floor.
Kit kneels before me, surrendering.“Because I love you.”He wets his lips, taking a moment.“I love you, Hallie.I think I fell in love with you the moment I bumped into you…I just didn’t know it.”
“You love me?”I whisper.
He nods, cupping my cheek in his warm palm.“I love you…so fucking much.Please, believe me.Think back to the first time you met Jupiter.Think about every single moment spent with her.”
I do as he says, and I think back to the first moment we met.
I see us.
I see her.
“He’s lying!”Jupiter shouts, rushing for me.But she’s nothing but a ghost.
“Don’t listen to her,” Kit says, his voice calm, my anchor in a withering storm.“You’re stronger than this, Hallie.Fight it.Fight her.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, and suddenly, my life flashes before me in fast-forward.I see myself lost, desperate to survive.I see the sisters.The orphanage.Ronnie.They’re all real.I can remember the smell.I can feel the air on my cheeks.
The hollowness never went away, however.
It ate at me until I was numb, an empty shell who didn’t care if she lived or died.I found the flyer for the support group for sexual assault victims when doing chores in town.
I thought it was worth a try.
And it was there I met her.
We bonded over the same things…
She told me her story.
It was so reflective of mine.
But she never went into detail about her past.
And that’s because…she doesn’t exist.
“Oh my God,” I whisper under my breath.
I see blood on my hands, hands that killed those men for revenge for what they did to me.
To their victims.
I was tired of being silenced.
I was their voice.
I was my own.
Finally, I look into the mirror, and beside me, I turn to see Jupiter, but she’s not there.The only person staring back at me is…me.
