Page 29 of You'll Never Know
I could have worked less.
I could have focused on them more.
I could have loved them as much as they’d loved me.
I could have stayed at that party.
But I hadn’t. I made them leave early, instead. I’m the one who’d insisted we go. And it was me who’d buckled Noah into his car seat, so bleary-eyed with exhaustion that I’d done exactly what I was worried Ethan would do if he took an Uber. I didn’t fully latch Noah’s harness.It’s why he’d flown from his car seat at the moment of impact. The sheer force of it had snapped his back in four places.
My beautiful, perfect son gone just like that.
Ethan never stood a chance. He took the brunt of the collision, was killed instantly. He didn’t suffer. That’s what the surgeon told me when I woke up in the hospital, anyway. Neither did Noah.Rest assured, they felt no pain. The man saying it with a sad smile like it would somehow help me cope.
It didn’t.
I’d suffered, though. Horribly. I’d nearly bled to death from a lacerated spleen in the ambulance. I’d shattered my collarbone and fractured six ribs. Four ligaments in my right shoulder ruptured and popped like rubber bands. I’d broken my ankle. The concussion I’d sustained left me with headaches so horrific, I wanted to die. Every single day I’d wished for it. And I still do.
My waking hours are a continual loop of those last few horrific moments with my family. I can see it all so clearly: The fear in Noah’s eyes after I forced him into his car seat and told him to,Stop it! Just stop!The way Ethan’s shoulders curved inward as I lit into him and called him selfish. The hurt in his face as he winced at the word. My eyes shifting to Noah in the rearview mirror when they should have been on the road. Ethan screaming for me to,Watch out!a second before the car sliced out of the fog.
The horrible shriek of brakes and the sound of rending metal.
The sick, empty blackness that followed.
Stop it, Noah!
He did stop. He’ll never speak again. Neither will Ethan.
And now I’ll join them.
Chapter 15
BAILEY
I grab the bottle of Ketel One by the neck and take a long, purposeful drink. The alcohol burns down my throat and coats my stomach in a warm bloom of heat. I set the bottle on the table and study the pills. Most of them are painkillers left over from my recovery after the wreck: Oxycodone, Percocet, morphine, and a bunch of muscle relaxers. I ate them like candy in the early days. I gladly welcomed their black-hole effect. They not only took away the physical pain, but the mental as well.
For a while.
Until I remembered the squeal of rubber and shatter of breaking glass. The relief never lasted long. The memories were always there, boiling just beneath the surface, ready to spill over as soon as the fog cleared.
Alcohol. Pills. Cannabis.
Running. Lifting. Yoga. Prayer.
Therapist after therapist.
None of it worked.
The only reason I’d even managed to hold on for this long was for my younger brother, Ben. He was my rock after the wreck. He did everything he could to nurse me back to life. Anytime I neededsomething, he was there. He slept on the pullout couch in the hospital for weeks, rushing to my side at the slightest sound, telling me he had me, that he wasn’t going anywhere. And afterward, during all the excruciating months that followed, he was right there too, holding me when I shrieked. Comforting me when I cried. Telling me we’d get through this together like we’d gotten through all the hard times that came before. But even then, as I nodded along, I knew there was no getting through this. Not for me. Not this time.
“I’m sorry, Ben,” I say as I sweep the pills into my palm. I know my death will break him, but he’ll be better off with me gone.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
I jerk back and drop the pills on the table. They bounce and scatter. But I’m not looking at them. I’m staring at my brother—who is right there, staring back at me through the living room window. I’d closed the blinds, but apparently not all the way. I’d left just enough room for my brother to peer in and seeexactlywhat I was about to do.
His palm smacks the glass again. “Bailey, open up!”
I shoot to my feet, trembling and unable to move.
