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Raising his hands in surrender, Efrem leans away slightly but doesn’t step back. “You’re going to have to give me something, Dani, because I’m genuinely lost.”
“Ben’s dead. Someone shot him,” I spit, tears streaming down my cheeks as I voice the cold, hard truth for the first time. A devastated sob rips from me, my shoulders shaking with grief.
Efrem pales visibly, but he doesn’t seem surprised. Instead, his eyes drop to the blood on my shirt once more. “Were you there?” he breathes. “Are you hurt?”
The anxiety in his tone wrenches at my heart. But when he reaches for me again, I jerk away, taking a step back at the same time.
Because he didn’t ask the one question that might have made me believe he was ignorant of the plan: Who shot Ben? He doesn’t have to ask because he already knows. Maybe he didn’t know when it would happen, and apparently, he didn’t expect me to witness it. But he did know.
“Yes, I was there! I watched my brother die right before my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything to save him,” I sob. “You knew about it, didn’t you? And you chose not to tell me.” The accusation flies from my mouth as my pain and anger blast through me.
“What?” Efrem frowns, dropping his hands once again. “What are you talking about?”
My chin trembles, my face twisting with pain as I watch him lie straight to my face. “Don’t lie to me!” I scream, my pulse pounding in my ears as I lose it completely. “You said it yourself that it’s better if I don’t know some things. You kept it from me because you knew I wouldn’t let Pytor go through with it. So you killed Ben just as surely as that bullet did.”
“I…” Efrem falters, caught without an excuse.
Did he not think me capable of putting two and two together? Or did he think I wouldn’t confront him about it?
“Just how involved were you, Efrem? Were you the getaway driver? Were you holding the gun?” I wipe furiously at my tears, trying to pull myself back together.
“Dani, please. I didn’t—”
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Efrem.” I can see it on the tip of his tongue, his denial that’s supposed to just absolve him of guilt. Maybe at one point in the not-so-distant past, I might have believed him. But my eyes are wide open now.
Extending his hand palm up, Efrem tries to touch me yet again—like that’s going to prove his innocence. And I know how dangerous his touch might be to me. Because I can’t think clearly when I’m in his arms. But I refuse to fall back under his spell. I’m done.
Composing myself, I jut my chin up to glare at him with blistering hatred. “I never want to see you again,” I breathe.
“You don’t mean that,” he insists, stepping forward to close the distance between us once more.
I step back, shivering from head to toe, as I battle the cold air and the heat of my fury. “If you won’t be honest with me right here, right now, then I do mean it,” I say flatly.
Efrem’s lips part, but no sound comes out. And I can see the defeat in his eyes. He knows he’s been caught, and he has nothing for me except lies.
“That’s what I thought,” I mutter. “Goodbye, Efrem.”
“Dani, wait,” he insists, reaching for me as though he plans to stop me from leaving.
“Don’t.” I step back and point an accusing finger at him. “Don’t follow me.”
I turn then, rushing back through the doors and into the hospital to find my parents. Efrem and I are done, and I need help removing myself from his life before he has a chance to go back to his apartment.
* * *
To my relief, with the help of my parents, I managed to get all my things from Efrem’s place before he got off work for the night. Now, at my parents’ house, in my childhood room, sitting on the corner of my childhood bed, I stare at the Polaroid images of Ben that frame my makeup mirror.
Everything is exactly as I left it when I moved out weeks ago. The reminder of my brother, of all the happy times I spent with him, weighs me down, like a ball and chain dragging me deeper into the depths of the ocean.
Everything looks the same, and yet, it’s all different now, my old life a distant memory, a happy moment that seems so far from reality.
Rising from the bed, I go to my desk and remove a picture from my makeup mirror. I run my finger along the side of my brother’s young face, the carefree smile that parts his lips. I’m all cried out, my tear ducts as dry as sand after shedding countless tears for the loss of my brother.
I’ve never had to live life without him before, and suddenly, the world feels like a dark and ugly place without Ben to show me the way.
“Oh, Ben,” I breathe, a knot constricting my throat and suffocating me.
How did things go so wrong?
