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I sink to the floor in Zoey’s arms. Crying against her shoulder, partially into my hand, and I want to grip onto the woman I love while she’s holding me—but I’m repulsed with myself. With the person who abandoned a drowning girl. And I can’t ruin something as beautiful as Zoey Durand with my flesh and bone and heart.
“It’s okay,” Zoey whispers against my ear. “I love you. I love you. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I choke. “She’s dead, Zoey.”
“No one would’ve survived those conditions,” Parry says to me. “Not where you were in the lake. You were too far out.”
Colt had our coordinates.
“It’s a miracle you even survived,” Brian tells me.
“Did Aunt Effie bury her body?” Babette asks in a quiet squeak.
I draw my head away from Zoey’s shoulder, my face wet, and I realize I’m gripping one of her hands. I’m unable to let go. She wipes my splotchy mascara with her sleeve. Her eyes say, you better not let go.
Under different circumstances, I’d tell her that I prefer making the demands. And then I look to my sister. “No.”
“Did you?”
I shake my head. “Her body never surfaced or washed ashore.” From too far to reach, I saw Katie sink into the darkness of the water, and I never saw her rise. “The current brought me to shore, and I walked to the nearest building. A Dollar Store. I asked to use the phone, and I called my aunt.” I speak more to Zoey. “She met me at the shoreline where I ended up. Barely any beach. No one was there. Pieces of the boat were already washing onto the rocks. I was…” I stare off again. “I was distraught, soaked, and as soon as I told her everything, she said, I’m going to take care of this, October. Don’t say a word to anyone. You tell no one.”
My nose flares, restraining another onslaught of tears. “And I said, we should find her, shouldn’t we? And she caught my chin and told me, do you know what you are to people here? You’re the girl who saved history books and your little sister from a burning building. You’re a hero. What do you think will happen if you tell everyone you were running away from this town that loves you—and you let a girl drown? I…” I can barely speak. Can barely move anymore. “I was scared…of the possibility of losing the last thing I had left in this town. Respect.” I wince. “But I’d lost everything anyway. I didn’t care about anything anymore when I came home and things were supposed to be back to normal. Like nothing happened. Like my aunt didn’t cover up the drowning. Like we didn’t fake my curse in the books. I didn’t want to be here while Katie was dead, knowing I did nothing. I wished it’d been me.” I force back a sob, but my voice catches again.
Zoey cups my wet cheek. “Kenobi. Kenobi, look at me.”
With raw, burning, guilt-ridden eyes, I do. And she says, “I’m glad it wasn’t you.” She’s crying with me. “I needed you here. I want you here, and your aunt sucks—”
I choke on a laugh. How is she making me fucking laugh? “Zoey.”
“She does. She really fucking sucks, even if she helped you in this sick twisted way. I had no idea she put pressure on you to maintain some hero status, but as someone who loves a good hero, Kenobi, as someone who nicknamed you after one—you should know that the best heroes don’t always know exactly what to do. They don’t always make the right choices in the moment. The best heroes are the most imperfect ones because they remind us of what it’s like to be human.” She wipes the tears off my cheek, and I wipe hers; my heart is filling up again.
“You shouldn’t be making me feel better,” I whisper, our hands on each other’s faces, foreheads touching.
“I don’t care,” she whispers against my lips. “I will and I am.”
“Zoey,” I breathe, an apology already written in my eyes.
“What?” Confusion is in hers.
“I have to make this right, sweets.”
For Colt.
For Katie.
For myself.
And I say, “I’m going to go to Sheriff Carmichael and confess what happened. I’m going to turn myself in.”
CHAPTER 27
Zoey Durand
“You can’t,” I choke out, broken at the thought of October taking the fall for her aunt’s cover-up.
“I have to.” October slowly stands, and I follow suit, her fingers still hooked with my fingers. That counts for something. She’s not pushing me away. I should be relieved that I finally know October’s real curse and the truth about Augustine, but this isn’t how this is supposed to end.
“October—”
“The town shouldn’t be punishing your brother for something I did.”
“You didn’t kill her.”
October glares like she’s trying to bludgeon the words into the world, I let her die. She could’ve gone back for her body, but she couldn’t have saved her. The only wrong she made was letting this girl become a missing person…letting her vanish.
