Page 73 of Even After Sunset

“What do you mean, you killed her?” Jackie finally breaks her silence. “That doesn’t… I don’t understand.”

I still can’t decipher her expression. I think because she hasn’t processed it yet. There is no emotion right now for her face to reveal.

God, that makes me feel worse.

“I lied,” I tell her. “About them being dead when I came home from school that day. They weren’t. They were all in the kitchen when I got home. Fighting. Your mom was freaking out. She had a gun. It was the first time I saw a real gun, and it scared the hell out of me. She was pointing it at my mom and I was just frozen. I didn’t know what to do, and none of them even saw me come in. They didn’t know I was there, in the doorway from the porch, watching.”

Jackie doesn’t say anything; just keeps listening. Her face doesn’t look frozen anymore, and she looks… anguished. And shocked.

I’m relieved. But also, I’m curling up inside with shame. Still, I carry on. I tell her the rest because she needs to hear it all.

“Your mom looked like she’d been crying,” I continue. “Her eyes were red and puffy. Her whole face was blotchy and covered in tears and snot, and she was screaming at my mom. Saying mom had been pretending and didn’t really care about her. She said she wanted to die, and she didn’t have any friends and no one liked her and stuff like that. She wasn’t making a lot of sense. She was just… freaking out and screaming and crying.”

“You werethere?You were there the whole time? When they… when everything happened?” Jackie asks, still a beat behind me, trying to process everything.

I nod.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I mean, I didn’t hear everything. I walked into the kitchen in the middle of it. I don’t know what started it or you know, what happened before. But yeah… they were all alive when I got home.”

I wait for Jackie to say something, but she doesn’t. She looks like she’s just waiting for me to say more. So I do.

“Your mom just started bawling. Full on bawling. She was yelling that she loved my mom. Screaming stuff like, ‘I loved you, and you lied to me!’… She was scaring the hell out of me. I’d never seen an adult act like that before.”

“My mom denied it. She was crying too, and I could tell she was scared. She said it wasn’t true and that she never lied and that she did care about her.”

“Then dad started talking, and that’s when I noticed he had a gun, too. He was pointing it at your mom, and all I could think was that I didn’t know he evenowneda gun. Because I never saw it anywhere in our house or anything before.”

“He wasn’t screaming, but he was talking to mom—saying that he told her that your mom was crazy… and that he told her it was a bad idea to stay friends with her when they knew she was unstable. That was the word he used: ‘unstable’.”

“That just made your mom even more mad. She said she hated them both. That they were both liars and two-faced and that they deserved to die too, because they had led her on, making her believe they cared about her.”

“Dad kept telling her to calm down, and to drop the gun so they could talk. Only that just made her more mad, and she pointed the gun at him instead. She told him to shut up or she would kill him…”

I take a deep breath. Remembering it all is even harder than I thought. It brings back every little detail. The way I felt and the total fear of knowing I needed to do something, but not knowing what.

“I ran over to where my parents were standing, then. And I begged your mom not to shoot anyone. I started trying to tell her that my mom did care about her and she needed to put down the gun, but my parents freaked out. They both started screaming at me to get out. My dad yelled at me to go get someone. Three times he told me to get out and call 911. And when I turned to leave, your mom yelled at me not to move.”

“Again, Dad told me to run. Your mom yelled not to call anyone and then it happened so fast… Your mom pointed the gun at me and dad whipped around and pointed his gun at her. And that’s when your mom… that’s when she shot him… And my dad… he… he um, he fell and… Shit, I don’t— I can’t talk about that part, Jax. But uh,—”

“Oh my Gosh, Silas…I’m so, so sorry.”

Jackie wraps her fingers around my forearm, and I am so confused about why she is telling me she’s sorry. Like maybe she’s not understanding everything I’m telling her.

And then I’m suddenly aware I’m almost done, and I need to finish. I need her to know everything so I can get this over with.

“Anyway, yeah… she shot my dad,” I continue. “And I dropped down on the floor next to him and I was shaking him and uh… He was…” I swallow. My mouth is suddenly really dry. But I finish. “He was dead.”

Jax squeezes my arm tighter. But why is she doing that? Can she really not see what I’m leading up to here? That I didn’t just see it all happen.I was part of it.

I pull her hand off me, determined to finish and get this over with, now.

“The gun dropped out of my dad’s hand when he fell. I picked it up and stood up. Your mom was still yelling. Worse than before. And mom was crying and pushing me behind her back and yelling at me to run. And then it all happened in a blur. Your mom pointed the gun at my mom and she fired… And then I fired.”

I suck in a breath and hold it for a second. Then blow it out. I look over at Jackie; right into her eyes, so I’m sure she hears me.That she gets it.Because I don’t want to go over this again. Ever.

“I killed her, Jax… I’m the one who shot your mom.”

I cling to Jackie’s teary gaze with every ounce of strength I’ve got, because Christ, I want so badly to look away. I want to be looking anywhere right now but into her eyes.

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