Arthur, blocking our exit, standing in the rubble of building and bodies, his face pebbled with water and holding his father’s hunting rifle across his body like the bar a tightrope walker uses to keep his balance. Dean was slumped against an overturned cash register, his right arm, the arm that had been closest to the blast, marbled with white muscle and blood that had come from a place so deep it could have been tar.

“There you are,” Arthur said to me. His smile scared me most of all.

The Shark said, “Arthur,” and began to cry.

Arthur looked at her, disapprovingly. “Get out of here, Beth.” He pointed the rifle at her and waved it behind him, at the quad. Her freedom.

The Shark didn’t move, and Arthur hunched down, so he was level with her peculiar eyes. “I mean it, Beth. I like you.”

The Shark turned to me and sobbed, “I’m sorry.” Then she tiptoed cautiously around Arthur, broke into a run when he screamed at her, “Don’t you fucking apologize to her!” I watched her feel the dry grass beneath her feet. She went left, one final sprint toward the middle school parking lot. Then I couldn’t see her anymore, just heard her rabid scream when she realized she was still alive.

“Come here.” Arthur used the gun to beckon me like a long, witchy finger.

“Why?” I was ashamed that I was crying. I hate that I know how I will react when it’s all over. That I know I won’t be brave.

Arthur pointed the rifle at the ceiling and shot, and both Dean and I screamed in alliance with the fire alarm, still wailing, furious it hadn’t been attended to yet. “Come here!” Arthur snarled.

I did what I was told.

Arthur pointed the rifle at me, and I begged. I was so sorry I took that picture of his dad, I said. I would give it back. I had it in my locker. (I didn’t.) We could go. It was his. Anything to delay what I knew he was about to do.

Arthur glared at me, his wet hair hanging in his eyes, not even bothering to push it away. “Take it,” he said. At first I thought he meant “take it,” like just take what’s about to happen to you, a call for me to man up. But then I realized Arthur wasn’t pointing the gun at me, he was handing it to me.

“Don’t you want to be the one to do it?” He looked to Dean. Fear had misshapen his ape-like features into someone new, someone I’d never met before and who had never hurt me. “Don’t you just want to blow this cocksucker’s cock off?” Closer to Arthur now, I saw that a white crust had hardened in the corners of his mouth.

I made the mistake of taking the bait, of reaching out and trying to take the gun. “Nah-uh.” Arthur pulled it back. “Changed my mind.”

Then he pivoted, surprisingly graceful, and shot Dean between his legs. Dean made an inhuman noise as blood and water shot straight up in front of his face like a fountain at Epcot Center.

The steak knife slipped underneath Arthur’s shoulder blade. But it was a shallow puncture, a sideways slice, the way you’d run a letter opener underneath the flap of an envelope. It came out the same way it went in with almost no effort at all. Arthur turned toward me, arched his lip, and actually said, “Huh?” I shifted my weight back, the way my dad taught me to do before I threw a ball, the only useful thing the man has ever taught me in my life. I slammed the knife into the side of his neck, and Arthur stumbled sideways, making a noise like he was trying to clear out phlegm in his chest. I went with him, pulled the knife out again, and lunged once more. I knew I’d hit sternum, heard the crunch as I submerged the blade in his chest, and this time I wasn’t able to pull it back out. But that was okay, because I didn’t need to. Arthur managed to gargle something like “I was only trying to help,” and the bright blood spilling over his lips rushed faster.

That’s where I always end the story, and it’s where I ended it for Aaron.

But there’s one more thing, the part I never tell anyone. Which is that I actually thought, They have to forgive me now, as Arthur landed on his knees, the weight of his upper half propelling him forward. At the last second survival instinct kicked in, some flickering circuit in the brain realizing that if he landed on his chest it would only drive the handle deeper into its resting place. He tipped backward, but the tight muscles in his thighs caught him, and he ended up on his side with a large splash, one arm stretched out underneath his head, one leg stacked over the other, a soft bend at his knees. I always think of Arthur when I get to the thigh work portion of barre class, when I assume that exact same position to tighten my saddlebags. “Give me ten more!” the instructor demands, perkily, as I lift my leg, the muscle failing me and the desire to give up so great. “You can do anything—anything!—for ten seconds!”

CHAPTER 13

Incredible.” Aaron clapped his hands and broke the room’s still spell. Crew members stretched and roamed. I heard “Grab a drink?” and wiped my face.

Aaron came at me, his hands steepled together. “Thank you for being so open and vulnerable with us.”

I hurried to erase the story written all over my face. “Sure,” I mumbled.

“You probably need a drink or something.” Aaron dipped low and squeezed my arm, tenderly. I made sure he felt me stiffen in his grasp. He drew away.

Aaron reminded me of an ambulance chaser I dated in college. This emo fucking break dancer who’d ask me about the tendons in Peyton’s neck and the slow drop of the curtain on his blue eyes—had the sparkle gone out slowly or had he known? Accepted? I thought this was love, too, once, this vested interest in all that was gory in my life. Now the pendulum had swung the other way.

Aaron cleared his throat. “So, get yourself a drink!” He laughed stiffly. “But remember, seven A.M. call time in your hotel room tomorrow.” That was for the hair and makeup people. Then they’d pack up their round brushes and eyelash curlers and we’d all drive over to Bradley for the “location shots.”

“Got it.” I rose and brushed myself off. I’d almost made it to the door when Aaron stopped me.

“Argh, okay,” he said. “I’ve been debating asking you this all afternoon.”

I glared at him so he wouldn’t.

But then he leaned forward and told me something I hadn’t expected at all. Something that put that familiar acid taste on my tongue. When he finished with his proposition, he held up his hands—Don’t shoot!—and said, “Only if you’re comfortable, of course.”

I let him squirm in my silence for a moment. “Is this a trick?” I folded my arms across my chest. “To get your money shot or something?”

Aaron appeared startled. Hurt, even. “Ani, oh my gosh, of course not.” His voice dipped low. “You know I’m on your side, right? We are all”—he gestured around the room—“on your side. I can understand why you wouldn’t think so, after what you’ve been through. Heck, I’d be suspicious of everyone too.” The word “heck” felt warm on my ears, like something a granddad would say. “But I hope you come to trust me. This is not a trick. I would never trick you.” He backed away and gave me a little bow. “Why don’t you think about it? We have all weekend.”

I pressed my lips together and studied his wedding ring again. Recast Aaron as kind, rather than leering. Wondered if that had been the reality all along, and, if it was, what else I’d read wrong.

I opened the studio door and stepped into the cool belly of September. I was so glad summer was over. I hated it, always had. It may seem odd, given the memories that are tied to fall for me, but whenever I catch the first edge in the air, notice the leaves flushing, I shiver with joy. Fall will forever be an opportunity to reinvent myself.