I knew that the slow-motion moments from the accident told only part of the story, but what moments told the rest? My pathetic boxing match? The limp punches and distracted footwork? Maybe what really mattered was everything that happened before we got into the car, before the match. Each moment I believed my dad when he told me I was strong. That I needed to be stronger. When he taught me what it took to survive and protect myself. Or maybe the most important moments were when I let myself side with Thatha. When Amma’s way seemed so weak and powerless. Or did the story exist in smaller moments? A baseball bat swinging into a golf stroke. Backyard boxing matches. Amma’s careful, exact folding—way before everything else—the silk shaping mysteries and magic around her body. “Lunu Dehi” in the car and the hissing of dark leaves in hot water?

What really matters in the end?

Those moments swept through my mind, thin and tattered like cloth windblown across miles. Sitting there on my bed between Priam and Vicki, though, I couldn’t get them to drift from my lips. When I tried, they became tangled in the present moment—the one where no matter what I did, I made a mess of everything.

I stared across my bedroom, feeling vacant. My eyes came to rest on the drawer with that damn journal in it.

Write down what it is you want to say but don’t feel you can.

I had nothing to lose at this point. I dragged myself over to my desk, pulled out the journal and a pencil, and came back to sit between Vicki and Priam. I could sense them sharing glances across me as I snapped the book open to a random page in the middle. I stared at the bare space and gripped the pencil like I was trying to squeeze the lead onto the paper.

I finally dragged it across the page and wrote the words: They died because of me.

Once I’d written it, I slammed the journal shut, a fit of panic overtaking me. What am I doing? They’ll hate me. Everyone will hate me. No one can know.

“Daya?” Vicki murmured. “Can we see?”

But they had to know. Then I’d get what I really deserved. I’d been trying to punish and protect myself by bruising—trying to dole out my own justice while pushing away all those moments. But what I hadn’t realized was that the most fitting punishment would be to invite all those moments back. Let them wash over me. Let others see how I’d ruined everything.

I threw the journal onto her lap and then slipped down to the floor, stretching out my legs and letting my arms fall to my sides, opening up to what was bound to come.