“Jealous,” Maya said.
They got in the car and Maya started the engine. “So...give me the real deal on why you came back. And why you want to go to the fair. This is about the cotton candy, isn’t it?”
Hannah laughed.
Maya eyed her. “Spill,” she said.
“Huh?”
“I don’t buy that you just changed your mind on the train out of nowhere. I know you.” She backed the car out of the driveway.
Hannah bit her lip, looked out the window. “You’ll make fun of me.”
“Probably. But tell me anyway.”
Hannah shifted to face her. “Remember last time? That psychic we went to?”
Maya thought. “Vaguely. Called herself Oracle something?”
“Oracle Lauren. She’s there. Tonight. I want to see her.”
“You came back to see a carnival psychic? I don’t get it.”
“Because she predicted everything...that night. The fork in the road. The decision to go to Henry’s. Everything.” Hannah looked at her earnestly.
“Hmm,” Maya said. She’d thought that Hannah’s return was a positive sign, one of growth, but now she was a bit worried that psychics might be a new manifestation of Hannah’s neurosis. She’d seen that kind of thing happen before. A perfectly normal girl she’d once worked with had moved to Los Angeles and returned with a suitcase full of crystals, a self-diagnosed gluten allergy and a boyfriend who channeled fairies. It had all started with a tarot card reading on the Venice Beach Boardwalk. “Okay. Well, can I ask you something?”
“That depends,” Hannah said. “Is it a real question or just a setup for you to give me unsolicited advice?”
Maya considered this. “Maybe both?”
Hannah sighed. “Go.”
“What are you hoping to get out of this? Would you rather find out what happened was inevitable? Or...”
“I’d rather it never happened.”
“But she can’t give you that.”
“I know,” Hannah snapped. She sat back and leaned her head against the side window. “I know that,” she said again, quietly. “I just need to know if she’s for real. And I know she probably isn’t... I just need to know for sure because of the things she said...if it was just a lucky guess...or if there was something I could have done to change it. And if somehow she is real—”
“Then she can tell you if Henry will ever wake up.”
Their eyes met.
“Yes,” Hannah said.
Maya felt a small ache, almost like a bruise, in her solar plexus. She wanted to say “I can answer that.” She wanted to say “No, he won’t wake up,” because she was certain that he wouldn’t. But then, what made her so sure? Miracles happened. Medicine really was advancing every day—she’d seen that firsthand at work. It was just that to wait for either of those things meant sitting every day for twelve years in failed hope with no end in sight. Maya preferred to cut her losses. Snip, snip, just like her relationships. Get ahead of the letdowns and inevitable goodbyes. Now she considered that maybe false hope and no hope were two sides of the same coin—a way to avoid the uncomfortable ambiguity of uncertainty.
The traffic was crawling as they neared town. The shadow of that night hitchhiking along, creating a dusky gloom inside her. “What if you knew there was something you could’ve done differently?” she said. “Something that would’ve stopped it from ever happening?”
Hannah looked stricken.
“Hypothetically. I’m not saying you did—you didn’t. I’m just saying what if. Like, if you knew you messed up. If you were sure it was your fault. Could you ever forgive yourself?” There was something wrong with her voice. It sounded strange to her own ears.
“I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.”
“Forget it,” Maya said. “Dumb question. We should definitely talk about something else.” This was why she never wanted to talk about Henry. It made her blood move too fast, like she was dangling over the edge of a steep precipice, a dark swallow below.
“Would you?” Hannah said after a long silence. “Forgive yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Maya said. “I don’t know if you’re supposed to.”
They were both quiet for a moment.
“Anyway,” Maya said. “It wasn’t either of our faults, so no need to think about it. Those dirtbags are rotting away in prison—right where they belong.”
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “If only that made me feel better. I mean...obviously I’d feel worse if they weren’t, but...”
“It doesn’t change anything.”
“Exactly. Yeah.” She bit at a cuticle, stared off. “Do you ever think about the fact that they’ll be eligible for parole in a few years?”
They shared a loaded look.
“No,” Maya lied. Sometimes the thought ambushed her in the most random places—at work or the grocery store or standing in her kitchen. She’d feel a prickle in her spine and she’d turn suddenly, half expecting to find them standing there, a gun in her face. She knew it was irrational. Blue kept frequent tabs on their parole status and the lawyers had assured them they’d be unlikely recipients of early release based on their long rap sheets. But still, the possibility shadowed her. “It’s not happening, trust me.”
Hannah nodded, worried her lip.
“And even if it did, it’s not like they’d come looking for us. It wasn’t some personal vendetta. It was meth.”
“True,” Hannah said, though she hardly looked reassured. “Hey, I’ve been wondering about something. Do you know why Blue’s shirt was bloody that night?”
“Huh?” Maya took a sip from her water bottle, trying to wash away the black feeling. She really, really wanted to change the subject. But how many times had she done that on Hannah? It wasn’t fair.
“I had a memory of Blue from that night. Her sweatshirt was ripped and bloody,” Hannah said.
Maya shook her head. Tried to recall—or rather found herself recalling before she could stop herself. She’d been in the bathroom when the men came in the house, had crouched by the door, fear-still, all the life in her turned off so they wouldn’t hear it. Her purse was in the car, her phone. She was frantically calculating a way she might get to it. Or at least to the gun in Henry’s closet.
She rolled down the window to let some air in. “Maybe it was Henry’s blood?”