Page 60 of Watch Me Burn

I had a nightmare.

I was on the road that led to Anna’s house. I walked into her neighborhood from the gate that wound through a nearby farmer’s market.

The last I’d checked, that area was turned into a Whole Foods many years ago. And looking at the big, blocky wheel tracks that smeared the roads, I had to have gone back at least a couple of years.

“Hello?” I called out. The streets were empty. The sky overhead was gray—I couldn’t understand why I even wanted to come out in this weather.

But then I looked down. This was the outfit I wore on the day of the murder. A gray raglan shirt and khakis. Those sleeves would be drenched with blood in a matter of minutes, wouldn’t they?

I gulped when I reached Anna’s Cape Cod–styled house. I didn’t hear anything yet. I didn’t want to. This was my chance to turn back and reverse everything that’d jacked up my life for the past decade.

You could act like it never happened.

I wouldn’t hear the scuffle in the backyard, so I wouldn’t end up going to check what happened. I wouldn’t find John’s bloodied body near the bottom of the patio stairs, so I wouldn’t cradle his head as I frantically searched for some way to aid him.

I wouldn’t be spotted by Anna, whose witness statement would lock me behind bars for longer than I’d lived up to that age.

I could get a second chance at adulthood.

A ghost on the other side of the walkway was taunting me. He looked like me but in a prom suit with shiny shoes and a gelled hairdo. And wrapped under his arms, a smiley Anna was playing with his tie flirtatiously. And behind them, out of the blue, was another me passing by them with Anna holding my hand. We looked older than the other two, but still fresher-faced than I appeared now. I had no tattoos, and my body was actually kind of scrawny. But I looked happy—happier than I felt right now. I had a backpack hooked over one shoulder and a university sweatshirt.

“Fuck, no way that could’ve been me.” I chuckled sourly. But did I really know that? Anna was wearing her own sweatshirt from the same school, and we looked tighter knit than ever. It must’ve been nice to have a boyfriend who could articulate on the same wavelength as her. Or able to just apply for a passport.

“Leave him behind,” I heard someone whisper into my ear. I looked back and almost jerked to the floor out of fright. Anna’s bloody father was standing behind me, grinning like a madman. “You have a good future ahead of you. Why throw it all away?”

Stumbling away anxiously, I stammered, “Get away from me!”

I was clutching my hands into fists so hard that my knuckles went white. Blood from John’s head dripped onto my sneakers, coloring my laces a bright crimson. He was regarding me wildly.

I staggered backward, fleeing on the hot cement sidewalk—but then something flashed before me.

Running away won’t solve the past.

You’re only trapping yourself because you don’t believe things could get better. The things that happened to you were awful and unjust, but they freaking happened. And it is time to accept this fact as a part of your life, so you can finally allow yourself to heal.

A sweet, familiar scent overtook my nostrils. It overwhelmed the deathly smell from John’s body and gave me strength. I was a child, so I didn’t stand as tall as I would’ve now. John could’ve shoved me back down to exactly where I started.

But I was determined, and I refused to remain small.

I stumbled toward that eerie house and into its kitchen, pausing to listen for the sounds echoing from that doomed afternoon. My dream replayed the events with haunting precision, the muffled arguments between Anna’s dad and another voice blending together. But then, rising above the din, I clearly caught that one word John had yelled louder than the rest.

“Scarlett!”

My mouth went agape.

Scarlett!

That was what Anna’s dad had screamed. The one word I was unable to make out.

The world faded around me as I shot my eyes open to the bedroom’s bright walls. It was already past dawn, and I had all the energy in the world to spill this discovery.

I rushed to the living room where I found Anna preparing pancakes on the stove.

“I hope I didn’t wake—”

“I remember!” I interrupted. “He said Scarlett. Someone was back there with your dad in the backyard, in a heated confrontation. And your dad yelled ‘Scarlett’ before all hell broke loose.”

I had hoped Anna would leap into my arms, her eyes shining with the surprise that we finally had a damn name to work with. But instead, she just stood there, looking utterly shell-shocked.

---