It’s as though I’m coming back into my body after a long absence, finally awake and aware of everything. My skin feels like my own again, and it’s a relief and a burden at the same time. I’m able to breathe after being starved for air for far too long.

And then I register what’s just happened—the reason I blacked out in the first place.

I’m standing at the cliff’s edge, hanging on tightly to a tree, the bark rough beneath my skin. I peer over the edge, barely able to make out a disfigured body lying at the bottom. If I squint hard, I can see a gaping mouth and wide eyes that stare at the starless sky, unseeing.

My senses return one by one. Scent follows after touch and eyesight, the smell of pine needles mixing with blood and sweat reaches my nose. Finally, the sound comes back.

Zoe is screaming, crouched on the ground a few feet away, clutching the grass and staring over the edge of the cliff, face caked with dirt and tears. Mason has gone pale, looking haunted, as James vomits into the bushes.

Mason takes a shaky step backward, and I find my gaze drawn to Damien’s body again.

“You killed him!” Zoe screams, scrambling to her feet. She fumbles for the knife again, holding it out in front of her, but she’s unable to hold it steady.

James quickly approaches her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and stepping in front of Mason. “It’s over, Zo,” he says, voice hollow. “Give it up.”

The fight leaves her and she drops the blade, letting it thump to the ground as she collapses against James’s chest. In trying to destroy me, the only person she truly cared about wound up getting destroyed instead.

Mason doesn’t even seem to notice her, looking in my direction instead, and somehow that’s the thing that breaks me. A sob bubbles up from my throat, and I let go of the tree trunk, throwing myself at him. He catches me in his arms, and we stumble backward as he tightens his grip, burying his face in my shoulder.

I can’t find it in me to speak, I only continue to wail as I cling to him, my fingers tightening around the material of his sweater. He whispers in my ear, his voice soothing, though it’s impossible to hear what he’s saying over the sound of my tears.

Both my mind and body are unable to process anything that just happened, and it all feels like a bizarre dream, like something I’d access during a hypnotherapy session with Dr. Meyer: absurd and murky. All I know is that I nearly plummeted to my death, and somebody else took the fall.