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Itwouldhurt them more, though. To think I never wanted to see them anymore. No visits, and rare phone calls, just so they quit pressuring me. I’m sure my mother would cry herself to sleep if that happened. Many more nights than if she thought I passed on, still loving my parents.
I am doing them a kindness.
The dive team has something rigged up to pull the car out of the water.
Here I am, thinking the lake is going to be dragged. No, they want the car for evidence. They want to know what happened to me that night. Silvery paint covered in muck rises into the air several minutes later—waterfalls cascade from every nook and cranny it can find, and I am reminded of drowning.
The second time.
Suppressing a shudder I redirect my attention to my parents, and instantly wish I hadn’t.
Mom buries her face into my dad’s chest. She can’t bear to see the car as smashed, dented, and twisted as it is. To imagine me inside it while it became that way. My dad looks like he is close to losing his grip. I love that he is her well of strength right now. Though my father is never afraid to cry at home when he needs to, I think this determination to keep his emotions at bay is just him putting my mother first. I think he accepts that I’m not returning. She is all he has left.
Police gather around and secure the car to a flatbed truck. They will take it back to the lab, run their tests, and find little evidence due to the water. Maybe some of my DNA, maybe fingerprints. I don’t know how those things hold up in a lake, but if they are there, they will be all that is left. There is no evidence of Spence doing anything to me like they suspect.
The worst he did was leave me there.
The news said they were looking for him as a person of interest and had searched his home. Charlee’s clean-up crew ensured nothing was found. The neighbors, however, had outed his violent tendencies. It must have made them suspicious about the nature of the car accident. Maybe they think it was intentional. Maybe they suspect he used it as an opportunity to be rid of me.
Whatever the police might think, I hope this will be enough to give my parents a sense of closure so they can move on.
There’s a flurry of activity as they prepare to leave, no search today. Goose Lake is large. Since my body hasn't surfaced yet, I expect they doubt it will. Right now, they’re focusing on the homicide angle.
Guilt rips through me.
I’m right here.
I want to show myself, and I almost do.
I have to be gone for my family, even though I am still here. I am gone in the way that matters. Gone in a life they will never understand. I don’t deserve their tears.
My parents are the last people remaining. With his arms wrapped around my mother, I watch my dad study the lake’s surface. I like the idea that he is saying goodbye to me. After a while, they leave to make the four-hour drive back to Staley. Folding my arms around my middle, I trek down to the road and stand in the last place I saw them.
“Goodbye,” I whisper to the wind.
This is the best goodbye I’ll ever get. I wipe my tears from my eyes and stare out over Goose Lake. Watching as the wind blows across the lake’s surface, causing the tiniest waves to shift along the water. As the deep currents swirl beneath the surface, I think about the pain I endured to see my parents today.
Worth it.
Entirely and utterly worth it.
Whatever suffering this has caused me, I had wished I could see them again. I got that wish, and no one can ever take it away.
The distant roaring of an engine tells me someone is heading this way. I step off the road and tuck myself into the tree line as the car comes around the curve. As the car stops in front of me, I swear under my breath. I’ve been seen. Hopefully, they don’t recognize me from the news. The driver rolls down the window to speak to me.
A stranger looking for directions?
The face that looks at me is almost too perfect.
A vampire.
I don’t recognize them. Maybe another member of our coven that I haven’t met yet?
“I’m looking for the house,” he calls, and I step forward. No use in hiding now. “I haven’t been there before and I got a little turned around. Am I close?”
I nod, “It’s about ten minutes that way,” I gesture higher up the mountain peak. He smiles, and I catch a toothy flash of fang.
“Need a ride back?” His smile seems overly friendly, putting me on edge. Ice settles in my stomach as I shake my head.
