Levi picked me and Charity up from school, and we felt like rock stars, climbing into her big bro’s big truck. He was so proud of getting his license. So sure of himself and happy. It’s a beautiful thing, Levi happy.

My last class of the day was art, and I had paint on my shoes. When I climbed in, I accidentally left a blue shoe print on the floorboard of his new truck, and Levi was pissed.

I felt super bad, but I totally laughed at his attempt at anger. He was awful at staying mad at me. I took my shoes off and held them in my lap the whole ride home, my bare feet feeling oddly intimate against the soft floorboard beneath me.

It seems like a lifetime ago.

The wipers cut across the windshield again and I look down at my feet. The blue shoe print is still there. It’s a little faded by time and dirt, but I can still see it. A reminder of me.

I reach down and trace a finger across the brightest splotch of blue. It’s a gross floorboard and completely grimy, but I can’t help myself.

We stop at a red light, and I can feel Levi’s eyes on me as I stroke the blue stain. He probably thinks I’m crazy. Maybe I am.

Why didn’t he just get new floor mats?

I sit back up and chance a glance at him. The red stoplight glows into the cab as we stare at each other, listening to the sound of rain falling on the windshield. Constant. Steady.

Red turns to green and our eyes pull apart.

I haven’t been in a car with Pixie since the night of the accident, and it all seems too familiar. My shoulders are tense and my knuckles white as they grip the steering wheel.

I clear my throat. “I’m sorry. For taking off after Charity died. I shouldn’t have left.” I clear my throat again because it’s starting to close in. “I should never have left you.”

She watches me for a long moment. “It’s okay. It’s not like I stayed by your side either.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Silence.

I inhale deeply and attempt to make light conversation. “So Ellen says you might transfer to NYU this fall.”

“Yeah. Maybe. If I get in. What about you?” she asks. “Ellen said you dropped out of college after the season ended and haven’t reapplied yet. What happened?”

Dropped out. That’s a nice way of saying it.

“Studying wasn’t exactly my top priority last fall, and I don’t know if I really want to return.”

A long lull follows as we stare at the dark road outside and the rain that blurs it. I manage to get her back to the inn without maiming her and slowly pull into a parking space. I don’t move to get out and neither does she, so we’re sitting in the dim light shining in through the windshield from the inn’s front porch. I can smell her lavender shampoo.

“Thanks for the ride,” she says, still not moving from the car.

I nod. “I’m sorry about everything tonight. Sorry I implied that you were mine. That was lame. I know you’re not anyone’s. I wasn’t trying to be a Neanderthal, I swear. I was just… God, I was pissed at Daren for trapping you in that car and scaring you like that and—”

“I’m glad you were there.” She smiles and shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sorry I hid my scar from you. That was… immature.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know why I pounced on you about it. It’s really none of my business.”

More silence. More rain.

She shifts again. “Do you still want to see it?”

I blink and then nod, even though the idea scares the hell out of me.

She slowly unties the dress cover thingy she has on and slips it down her shoulders until she’s wearing only her bikini top. And cutting a thick diagonal through her chest is everything I did wrong. Red and jagged, it looks out of place against the flawless skin of her breasts and stomach.

I can’t pull my eyes away from it. I can’t.

“Levi.”

I broke her. I broke everything.

My heart starts to pound in my ears.

“Levi,” she says again, and I meet her eyes. “I’m okay.”

“I’m so sorry.” My voice cracks as my eyes fall back to the scar. I can’t help myself as I touch a hand to her skin. I lay my palm flat against the center of her chest, my fingers in line with the diagonal, and feel her heartbeat pulsing beneath me.

She covers my hand with hers. “I’m okay.”

I stare at her small hand, covering mine, for a moment. Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, I gently slip my hand out from under hers.

She looks down and puts her hand on the door handle, biting her lip before looking back at me.

“And I am yours,” she says quietly. “Even when you don’t want me. I’m still yours.”

She exits the truck and walks inside the inn as rain continues to beat on the windshield.

I don’t regret it.

I’ve been so afraid of Levi seeing my scar, so scared that the red reminder of Charity would destroy him, that I failed to realize how healing showing him might be for me. The sight of my scar might have cut into Levi, but it patched up a bleeding piece of my soul that I didn’t think I’d ever get stitched; the part of me that refused to see Charity’s death in Levi’s eyes; the part of me that denied his pain.

So I don’t regret it.

Even now, ten days later, when Levi still won’t look at me or speak to me, I don’t regret it. Charity is dead. I am scarred. Levi is haunted.

These are the real things, the true things.

And the truth is easier to breathe in than the lie. Uglier perhaps. But far less suffocating without the cloud of denial I’ve kept around me all this time. Denial is thick and sweet, and for the past year it filled up my lungs until they threatened to burst. But truth… truth is clean and pure. And yes, it hurts when I inhale it, it hurts to cleanse out the sweet smoke, but breathing out is like new life.

With black paint staining my fingers, I step back from the small canvas I’ve been working on all morning. It’s not perfect. It’s not even close. It’s a mess of gray, with shards of black and slits of white, but it’s what I want to see.

With careful hands, I hang the canvas up to dry beside the three other similar paintings I’ve been working on for the past few days.

Four paintings. One subject. A million unspoken things.

When she was nine, Pixie found a dog on the side of the road and brought him to my house out of pity. She was always finding stray, ugly animals and taking them in like she was some kind of angel of all living creatures.

Of course we fell in love with the mangy puppy immediately, and Maverick—Charity named the mutt Maverick—became a member of our family. But two years later, Maverick died, and everyone, including myself, was devastated.

The night we lost Maverick, Charity and Pixie crept into my room and crawled into my bed with tears streaming down their faces, convinced the heartbreak would hurt less if the three of us stuck together and slept beside one another. They were right.

And in junior high, when Charity and Pixie snuck into that horror movie and were terrified that an ax murderer would come for them in the night, they crawled into my bed again, sleeping soundly under the illusion of my protection. They came to me for bravery and strength.

I don’t feel brave or strong anymore.

It’s the crack of dawn and I’m in the garden fixing a planter wall that’s been lopsided for two months. Ellen didn’t put it on my list of things to do, but it’s been driving me crazy, so… yeah. The planter will be fixed today.