Just do it.
Dragging this out will get you nowhere.
You can’t help him unless you tell him.
Tell him the truth.
“I know,” I say.
A crease forms between his brows. “Know what?”
I stab my fingernails into my flesh until that’s the only pain I feel. But why is this so painful? Because I feel like I’m about to open an old wound of his?
“I know what happened to you … How you … died.”
“That … That never happened,” he chokes out, that pain inside him amplifying.
I suck in a deep breath. “Kings, I know it did, and I want to help you. But before all that, I need to tell you something important.” I take another preparing breath. “When I died, I don’t think I came back right. I not only feel different, but I’ve started seeing … things.”
Silence ticks by. I can hear my heart screaming inside my chest.
“What sorts of things?” he asks, glancing at me.
“Shadows in the trees. Sometimes I hear voices. But mostly, I see the … dead … Particular, Beth.” God, I sound crazy. I know I do.
Please don’t think I’m crazy. Please feel that I’m being truthful.
He stares at me, his expression unreadable as so many emotions swirl around him at once that I can’t decipher what he’s feeling. “Beth? As in the girl who just went missing?”
I nod, hoping my instincts are right, that I can trust him.
“She’s dead, even though no one has found her body yet. And she talks to me sometimes, and she told me what happened to you. About how you were in so much pain that you tried to …” I swallow hard. “That you tried to kill yourself. And I’m so sorry that you felt that way. I’m so sorry that I didn’t save you.” My control is splintering, and words are trickling from my tongue like blood is suddenly trickling from the featherlike wound on my wrist. I can feel it, the warmth dripping out of it as the seams pop open. Beth had said the answers were inside it. Is this what it is? Are the answers weeping out in blood?
“I was a terrible person, just bailing out on our friendship like that. And I’m so, so sorry. I really am. I feel awful that you were in so much pain. I should’ve helped you. I should’ve been a better friend. I should’ve …” I trail off as tears burn my eyes.
It’s like I’ve been carrying these words around with me for the last couple of weeks, and now it’s all rushing out of me.
My guilt.
My worry.
My sins.
“Har, calm down.” He lifts his hand from the shifter and places it on my cheek. “What happened to me wasn’t your fault. And it was a while ago. I’m not … I’m not hurting as much anymore.”
“But you’re still hurting,” I whisper. Again, it’s not a question, because I can feel his pain tearing through his veins. And mine.
He shakes his head, as if to deny, but I speak before he can even try.
“I know you are.” I put a hand on my chest. “Because I can feel it.”
Again, silence skips by. And again, I question if he’s going to think I’m insane.
“Feel it how?” he asks, not seeming as surprised as I thought he’d be.
“It’s inside me.” I trace my fingertip down my arm. “Underneath my skin, in my veins”—I touch my chest—“in my heart. I can feel what you’re feeling.”
Pressing his lips together, he looks away from me and slows down the car.
“What’re you doing?” I ask as he flips on the blinker and pulls over onto a turn out that gives a view of that stupid lake that looks so black right now that it nearly matches the night sky.
He doesn’t answer, shoving the shifter into park, then silencing the engine. He remains quiet, gazing out at the lake, and I start to worry that perhaps he’s debating what to do with the crazy person sitting in the seat beside him. But then he whispers, “I can see them, too.”
My eyes widen. “Beth and the dead girls?”
He shakes his head, his gaze gliding to me. “No, the shadows in the trees.”
My heart rate quickens, deafeningly inside my chest. “You see them, too?”
He gives a shaky nod. “Ever since I … since I died …” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Fuck, that’s the first time I’ve ever talked about this aloud.”
“Ever?” I ask, and he nods, opening his eyes. “How? I mean … don’t your parents know about it?”
His jaw tightens. “Of course they do. They’re the ones who … found me and took me to the hospital where I was revived. And once they made sure I was good and alive, they made sure to tell me how disappointed they were in me, and that if I wanted to make things right, I would keep my mouth shut about it.”
I shake my head, in complete shock. How can this be true? How can my parents’ best friends, who are—were—almost like a second set of parents to me, be that cold and cruel?
“I didn’t know they were like that.” Although, I did get to witness a bit of their cruelty the other day when Kingsley was arrested.
It was like they were different people. Perhaps that’s where Foster gets his ability to cover up his true identity. Or maybe, like with Foster, I’d been blind to who the Portersons really are.
“Most people don’t,” he mutters. “And they’re only like that with me. And only because Foster has manipulated them into thinking I’m a bad person. Maybe they’re right, though …”
“They’re not right,” I stop him right there. “At this point in my life, you’re like the only person I trust, which is saying a lot.”
His gaze sweeps across my face, as if he’s searching for signs that I’m lying. “How are you so sure you can trust me? I mean, I know I saved you but, for years, you seemed like you hated me, and I …” He trails off, staring out at the darkness, the pale moonlight reflecting in his eyes.
Since he hasn’t freaked out too much about everything else I’ve told him, I figure I’ll tell him everything. I just hope he doesn’t finally decide to freak out.
“Beth—the dead girl that I see sometimes—she told me that when you …” God, I’m probably going to sound crazy. I pick at my fingernails unable to look at him as I continue, “She said that when you saved me that night, our souls became intertwined, and that if I don’t figure out who killed all the girls who died here, you and I … will fade away.”
The air is so silent that I can hear my heart beating loudly inside my chest.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” I mutter without looking at him.
When he makes no effort to say anything, panic courses through me.
Then he’s fixing his finger underneath my chin and angling my head up to look at him. “You don’t need to panic … I believe you. I’m just trying to process everything.”
I give a shaky nod, looking into his eyes. “How do you know I’m panicking?”
He carries my gaze. “How do you think?”
“You can feel what I’m feeling, too?”
He nods. “I’ve been able to for almost a week now. I just didn’t know why and, honestly, I kind of wondered if maybe I was going crazy.”