“You know what happened.”

“No.” I shake my head, a frantic gesture. “I don’t.” This is a distraction; we need to return to the other conversation, deciding whether or not I will end up in a padded cell.

“You do. You’ve just blocked it out. Either you have residual effects from your stupid stunt during your fight with Jeremy or you have dissociative amnesia. It can happen when a person blocks out something, normally a stressful or traumatic event that they can’t emotionally deal with.”

“I don’t know what happened.” A thousand repetitions will make it true.

“Deanna, you don’t have to be afraid. It is what it is. The unknown is worse than reality.”

“That is, quite possibly, the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.” Reality is a thousand times worse than a blank stretch of time. Reality will give me a clear vision of his pain, of my guilt, of the horrific moments that changed everything forever.

“Unless you’re innocent.”

“I’m not innocent.”

“We need to find that out.”

“That’s the cops’ job.”

“You already pled guilty, Deanna. What could it hurt?”

“Another stupid question. You’re two for two, Doc.”

“Let’s go through a quick meditation session. See what we can unlock.”

“Let’s not.” I don’t want to unlock hell. I’ve got enough going on without it.

“You need to at least try to remember.”

I’m scared. That’s the truth of it. Scared that once I know what I’ve done that I won’t be able to move past it. How will I ever be able to forgive myself for that? At the moment, despite the psychological disaster that lies between my ears, I still love myself. Still think of myself as a good person. Can still look in the mirror in the morning and approve of the person that I see. But once I go into Sunday night, once I pull back that mask and see my actions underneath… I can’t undo that discovery. And I don’t think I can live with the knowledge of what is there.

“There’s probably a reason my brain doesn’t want to know it.”

“I’ve never known you to be scared before.” I hear it, in his calm and controlled words. The challenge that stands on a box and screams at me through the space.

“I don’t want to be hospitalized, Derek.”

“Unless you remember, I’m not supporting your guilty plea.”

I stay quiet, my chin stubbornly set, my mind clicking through my options, the worst of it all the tiny speck of feeling that he is right. I know what happened that night. I know how Jeremy ended up in the hospital. I’ve seen the photos, heard the details. I just need to find that information inside of me. And, to be quite honest, I’m pretty sure I’ve hidden from that knowledge. In all of my mock attempts, I’ve boarded up that door and thrown a mountain of shit before it.

But maybe I should dig through that mountain. Pry open the door and look through. Stare into hell’s face and suffer for my sins. I swallow. “We don’t have long enough.” Thirty minutes, max. That is what the guard had said. We’ve already eaten up fifteen, easy. Maybe more.

“Don’t worry about that.” When he speaks, it’s a tone that relaxes, and for once, I yield.

“I’m scared.” I don’t look at his face.

“Do you remember your mantra?”

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this transcendental meditation bullshit to relive hell. “It’s the concussion,” I object. “I think that’s why I can’t remember. Dr. Pat said it was possible.”

“Close your eyes, Deanna. Just give me ten minutes. Start the mantra slowly.” I hate this voice of his, this calm peaceful tone, melodic in its syllables, entrancing in its push. I think of Mike, I think of what if. And then I close my eyes, for no reason other than to drag vengeance to its rightful owner, and start the mantra.

CHAPTER 71

Past

I WAS SO drugged, at that moment, pulling Jeremy into my apartment, toward my bed, his laugh tumbling after me. Drugged with love, with lust, on a high from our date and our kiss and the moment that was about to occur. So drugged that I almost missed the box, tipped over at the foot of the bed. The kitchen drawers, two of the six open, their cheap guts exposed to the fluorescent light. The safe, which I may not have shut, its door open wide, my knives dumped unceremoniously out, like fallen chopsticks, the guns still tucked inside in neat order. But what I didn’t miss was the person, by my window, the cardboard ripped off, the open sill letting in the night breeze yet doing nothing to clear the stench of violation.

Simon was in my apartment, his head whipping to me, his hair a wild mess of spikes, his eyes widening when it made the connection with mine. I stopped, a sudden motion that had the strong chest of Jeremy colliding with my back. I didn’t have time to speak, to react, before Jeremy’s hands grabbed me and shoved, his body pushing forward and in between me and Simon, his arms spread out as if to create a wall to protect me.

That irritated me, my surprise at seeing Simon replaced with an anger at Jeremy. I don’t need protecting, especially not in my own apartment, my home. I did take advantage of the moment of protection, my eyes taking in the details I initially missed, Simon’s search not missing an inch, disarray stretching from one mildewed wall to the other. Good lord, he even dumped out my dildo drawer. I’m sure that gave him quite an eyeful. My gaze paused on the pile of knives, my yellow Spyderco knife carelessly along the top of the pile, and something inside me clicked to the “On” position. I felt it happen, felt the switch of my mind, felt the closure of my focus, the flee of my sanity, the takeover of my mind. I felt it all and ignored it, ripping my eyes from the knife and ducking under Jeremy’s arms, stepping closer to Simon.

“Explain to me, right now, why I shouldn’t kill you.” I spoke carefully, a thousand sensors in my body taking notice of my state. A thousand notices, all ripped from the walls and discarded by my current state of mind.

“I found them.” Simon’s eyes shone, a medicated shine, and when he lifted his hand, I looked, at the clear bag in his hand, duct tape still stuck to its top, the orange bottle inside. I’m surprised. Then again, it looked as if he’d taken a while with his search. My eyes flicked to the window, to the pile of cardboard shreds littered on the floor beneath it. He saw me look, and smiled. “Almost had given up. But who covers up a window, right? It drove me crazy, the longer I stayed in here. I don’t know how to you do it. The damn thing was taunting me.”

Funny, it taunts me too. Maybe the reason isn’t my insanity. Maybe it taunts any living thing. I felt Jeremy’s hand wrap around my arm and I shook it off. Held my hand out to him in a cool your shit gesture.

“So I ripped it off. Opened the damn window. Stuck my head outside. And that’s when I saw it.” He shook the bag and it began to swing, a pendulum before me. “Taped to the outside brick. You sneaky little bitch.”

It is true. I am sneaky. I had also really, really wanted an excuse to stick my head outside, and that hidden place had offered it. I said nothing and wondered how hard I’d have to shove the blade to break into his chest.

I took a deep breath and stepped back. Smiled. Raised my hands in defeat. “You got me, you found them. Now please get out, it’s almost nine.” Nine, the deadline we had rushed home to meet, our schedule carefully organized in order to fit an hour of sex in before my curfew, an hour that was slipping from us with every second I dealt with this asshole. It was already dark out. The knives were behind me but I’d only need one.