I wanted the pain to come, then. I needed to see the blood and the evidence of it but now I wish I hadn’t. I wish away the inevitability of what will happen next. The darkness. The simple, simple answer. The shame. I am so sorry I’m so very sorry

I want Kristina to know about Supernova, I want people to read it, for Elisabeth, for Kristina, for me, for Trine, for all of us, could it be that if people did it could turn all of that destruction into something beautiful?

Even now it’s the word I can’t let go of. The images. A big star and a little one, together in a celestial dance. The little white dwarf star stealing material from the big one until it has too much, too much to carry and to hold, drawing both stars into a gigantic thermonuclear explosion so bright it can light up anything, anything at all.

And afterward, a black hole, a rip in the lining of the heavens.

Lights out

I’m going to the lake, it’s so beautiful, there is nowhere more beautiful in this world, not to me, so I’m going there and I will stay there forever until I become part of it, disintegrating into its deep, cold water, infusing it with the very essence of me.

Ask Linda and Anton and Kristina to forgive me. Most of all Kristina. It wasn’t meant to happen like this, none of it

*

I crush the note in my hand, then smooth it back out – I’ll need to hand it over to the police. I glance around the sad room one last time and immediately wish I hadn’t – I know I’ll never forget this.

I rush back down the pine corridor and through the bathroom and the vestibule with the empty gun cabinet; I’ve seen enough and I need to get out of here. I burst from the cabin into frozen air, bustling and wet with thick, swirling snowflakes. I’m crying with shock and the horror of the afternoon and the tragedy of Leah’s last hours – all those hours she waited for me before she went to the lake. To think that she wrote those words after losing her baby, and waiting, hoping, that I’d come help her – I can’t bear it, in spite of everything.