first. They weren’t sacrifices at the time. He took care of me, treated me like his queen. So of course I’d rather spend time with him than go to the science club. And my friends, they were nothing compared to him.”
“The brainwashing.” A light went off, things making more sense.
“I don’t know if he even meant to do it. He was that good. I was that stupid.” She stared at the floor. I felt her disappointment with herself and could hardly stand it.
“Looking back, it’s easy to see everything. But it all comes down to me. I wasn’t strong enough.” Her voice was bitter. “I was twenty-five when it happened. I didn’t have an excuse of being young and naïve anymore.”
“You were with him ten years?” The question sounded like it had been shredded with razor blades.
She nodded. “It never occurred to me to get away. Not until he started stockpiling guns,” she said hoarsely. “I-I need some water.”
I retrieved a bottle out of the fridge and handed it to her. She gulped greedily.
“He dealt in weapons. I was used to his runs in the middle of the night. But he always came home to me. Kept me shielded from it. Made me feel safe.” She got a faraway look. “We lived in a townhouse in Georgetown.”
Like she couldn’t grasp how one world and the other were one in the same.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do. Only something. I went to the police. Told them what I knew. They seemed to take me seriously, but weeks went by and they never came.”
The plastic bottle crinkled under her grip.
“I tried again. They said they’d look into it. Nobody did until I managed to wreck the car.”
She closed her eyes and sucked in air as if she couldn’t get enough.
“You stopped it.” I searched through my memories for the footage I’d seen of that day. A mangled car upside down in a ditch surrounded by police cars came to mind. No one should have survived that crash. I remembered thinking that at the time.
“When Kyle started shooting, I didn’t really believe it was happening. It was like this bubble. Where I was inside was real. Out past the shimmer was an illusion.” Her lids opened to reveal haunted eyes. “Twelve people died and thirty-seven were injured before I tried to do anything.”
The sentence crescendoed with self-loathing.
I tried to imagine being in that car. Watching someone you idolized terrorize a city.
“He pulled the trigger over and over while he drove. Even told me he loved me as he reached for another gun. Seven minutes. That’s how long it took me to grab the wheel of the car.”
“He wasn’t killed in the accident.” I recalled that now.
“They shot him when he managed to crawl out of the car. I was hanging upside-down by the seatbelt. There was blood. A river of it.”
“There was never any mention of you.”
“Once the police realized I was telling the truth, that I’d tried and tried to warn them, they kept me out of it. I was in the hospital a few days with a head injury and a broken arm. My parents are pretty high ranking in the federal government. They made sure it stayed buried and disowned me for good. One of the detectives set me up with Mrs. Quinn. Promised me I’d be safe. And I was.”
I set down my beer bottle and closed the distance between us. I slipped my fist under her chin, gently forcing her to look at me.
“If you want to forget about the past, we’ll never mention it. If you want to talk about it, we can all you like. I love you, either way.”
Her lips parted as a V formed between her brows. “What I just told you—”
“Doesn’t change a thing.” I framed her face with my hands. “I can’t even begin to imagine what any of that was like. The last thing I’m going to do is stand here and judge you. Were there things you wish you could have done differently? I can see that in your eyes. If you could go back and change it? You’d give up everything you have to do it. All you can do is respect the people who were hurt while you move forward and live your life.”
“It seems so unfair,” she whispered. “People died. Were paralyzed. And look at me. I couldn’t have dreamt of what I have now.”
“You can’t pay the penance for his sins.”
She studied me,