Page 131 of The Only One Left

It was more than recommended, but sometimes rules had to be broken.

This, I concluded, was one of those times.

“Just one,” I said.

Then I placed the pill bottle back on the nightstand. Even thoughI’m sure it barely made a sound then, in my memory it’s as loud as the front door to Hope’s End slamming shut behind me.

When I went to bed that night, I had a sickening feeling my mother intended to take every pill in that bottle. Call it a sixth sense. Or a premonition. Yet I convinced myself that she knew better, ignoring how extreme suffering could cloud someone’s judgment. I wanted to think she wouldn’t purposefully overdose, so that was what I believed.

As a result, my mother is dead.

All because of my actions.

I hop into my car and drive off, the steering wheel unsteady beneath my shaking hands. I refuse to treat my father the way Virginia treated me. Pretending to be innocent. Forcing him to live with nagging doubt for the rest of his days. Driving a wedge between us until we’ve become exactly like the Hope sisters—stuck with each other in a cycle of suspicion and guilt.

The truth will set me free—even if it might also send me to prison.

I bring the car to a stop at the gate, which blocks the driveway like the bars of a jail cell. I get out of the car and hit the button embedded into the wall. As I walk back to the car, the gate shimmies open.

Then it rattles.

Then it stops.

I pound the roof of the Escort in frustration. Not this. Notnow.

As I march back to the gate, determined to push it all the way open, I hear footfalls fast and furious in the grass, followed by Carter’s panting voice.

“Kit? Where are you going?” I spin around, squinting in the glare of the car’s headlights as Carter emerges from the darkness. “I heard you driving away and ran to catch up. Are you leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I was wrong,” I say. “Wewere wrong.”

I pull on the gate, forgetting Carter’s warning when I first arrived.

This place can bite.

He was at least right about that. Because when I give the gate another tug, I touch the wrong place at the wrong time. The story of my life. My hand’s already wrapped around one of the bars before I feel it—a spot of rusted wrought iron, weathered by salt air into a razor-sharp point.

The metal pierces the skin of my left hand. Swearing, I jerk my hand back and examine the damage. Although small, the cut’s bad enough to leave me bleeding. At least it wasn’t for nothing. The gate is now open enough for my car to ease through it.

“Wrong about what?” Carter says.

“Lenora’s not your grandmother. She’s not even Lenora. She’s Virginia, Lenora’s sister.”

Carter’s face pales as he reels backward like a man who’s just been shot.

“I—I don’t understand.”

I start walking toward the Escort. “Get in and I’ll tell you.”

Carter doesn’t move as I slide behind the wheel and rev the engine. I understand his shock, just as clearly as I understand the need to leave this place before it can cause further damage.

Not just to me, but to Carter as well.

“Come with me,” I tell him. “Just for tonight. Come with me and we’ll—”

---