Page 866 of Lessons in Cruelty

“I love him, Bash. I’m going to marry him and have his children. Twins, a boy and a girl. Blond, beautiful twins, and we’ll be so happy, Bash. All of us. You, and me, and our beautiful babies.”

I give her a squeeze, happy that she’s regaining some of her strength. At least I won’t have to haul her out of the bathtub by myself.

Then my mind catches up with her words.

“You mean Tommy. Tommy’s babies. His…twins or whatever.”

I can’t see the bar of soap, and Billy’s gone quiet, so I look up at her.

My heart stutters at the heart-wrenching despair in her eyes.

“No, Bastian,” she whispers. “Our babies.”

Billy pulls my hand deeper into the water until I’m touching her thigh.

I don’t know what she’s doing until she flattens my hand against her leg and drags it up and in.

“Hey, stop!”

Water sloshes against the side of the tub as I tug my fingers free. Billy’s hand falls down hard enough to splash water on my face.

“What the hell?” I spit out.

She huffs out a bemused laugh.

Suddenly she’s twice her age—so jaded, so broken, not even God can save her.

“It’s just a silly dream, Bash,” she says flatly. “All I’ll ever have are silly dreams.”

We stare at each other across the cooling bathwater, the truth I’ve been avoiding for months suddenly blatant.

My sister is gone.

Whatever was left of her after years of Evelyn’s torture has finally crumbled away, leaving behind this hollow thing that dreams of birthday parties and believes in a God who has never, ever answered her prayers.

“I can’t kill myself,” she says suddenly, as if reading my thoughts. “It’s a sin.”

Not this again.

“You can’t just decide to be Catholic one day and⁠—“

“I can, and I did.” She says it simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “God loves me, Bash. Even if no one else does.”

“I love you, Billy. But not…not like that.”

“I know.” Her voice sounds hollow, her eyes suddenly empty.

“Billy—”

“It’s okay.” She reaches up to touch my face. “You did everything you could. You…you were my guardian angel. But even angels can’t fight God’s will.”

I hate hearing her speak about God. I get that she needs to believe there’s a higher power so that her miserable life will make sense on some cosmic level, but in my mind, it only proves there is no God.

“So God’s will is for you to suffer, even though you’ve never done anything wrong in your entire life?” I say bitterly. “Sounds like a great guy.”

“God’s will is for me to transcend.” Her voice hitches on the last word.

“Today was rough, okay, but enough of this transcending bullshit. It’s over already. We’re going to get into bed, and when we wake up tomorrow, it’ll all be in the past.”