Page 286 of What We Burn

“Amy—”

“I’m serious.” She wraps both hands around her coffee mug like it’s a hand warmer and a weapon. “I can’t go back there and just be fine. I can’t pretend it’s normal that my throw pillows and my murder trauma are in the same room.”

“I know.” And I do. God, I do.

Her eyes flick to mine, searching for any hint that I’m about to minimize it, make it tidy, tell her healing is linear and brave women bounce back by brunch.

I don’t.

So she keeps going.

“I keep having these stupid little moments,” she says. “Like I’ll be doing something completely regular—washing my face, looking for a hair tie, whatever—and then it hits me that I killed someone.” Her voice drops on the last word. “And not in a metaphorical girl boss way. In a very literal, very bad, very prison-worthy way.”

I set my coffee down. “You saved me.”

“I know that,” she says quickly, with a hand that says don’t interrupt, I’ve already argued with myself about this. “I know why I did it. I know if I hadn’t, Tyler would’ve killed you. I know all the logic. I just . . .” She stares into her coffee. “I didn’t know I was capable of doing that.”

The words land between us and ring.

I lean my hip against the counter. “Yeah.”

Amy gives a short, humorless laugh. “Cool. Great. Love that for us.”

I watch the expression on her face drop until her eyes lose focus, and I can tell she’s back in the memory, the night replaying right in front of her.

“Do you remember much from after?” I ask, watching the focus snap back to the present as her eyes meet mine and a furrow creases her brow.

“You mean when Milo got here?”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice a whisper.

Amy nods slowly. “Yeah. I remember that part.”

She takes a drink of coffee. It gives her something to do with her hands.

“He was . . . ” She exhales through her nose. “Upset? Which somehow made it weirder. Kind of like when one of my sunshine students absolutely loses it. Except he was covered in blood, and—” She presses her lips into a thin line. “Then you left and they started unloading the truck—Tyler’s friends, a bunch of other dudes. I lost count. But I . . . I sat there and watched the whole thing.”

I don’t say anything for a second, because there isn’t a version of that memory that feels survivable from the outside.

I can still see Milo that night too clearly—wild-eyed and incandescent, smiling with blood on his face like his body had mistaken catastrophe for fuel.

“He does that sometimes,” I say finally. “When things get too intense. He turns it into motion. Noise. Action. If he stops moving, he has to feel all of it.”

Amy studies me. “And what’s your excuse?”

I blink. “For what?”

“For how calm you were during all of it.”

“About that . . . ” I look down at my coffee. It’s gone lukewarm. “Amy, I have something I need to tell you.”

The silence that follows is different from the others. Less brittle. More dangerous.

Amy nods, wiping her fingers on a napkin slowly. Like she’s buying herself time.

“What happened to Brock, Sage?” she asks. “The real version.”

I look at my hands.