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Back Never Look Back Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
  48. About the Author
  49. About the Book
  50. Also by Alison Gaylin
  51. About the Publisher

You watch movies where someone kills another person for the first time, and if it’s a girl like me, they get hysterical. They scream and cry and say “Oh my God, what have I done?” again and again until some man has to slap her across the face.

Aurora Grace, it wasn’t like that for me.

I could hear Gabriel saying, “Oh my God, babe, oh my God.” And he sounded like a baby, like someone who needed taking care of. It made me want to slap him across the face. Or better yet shoot him. I might have done it too, if he didn’t know where Jenny was.

I didn’t say a word, didn’t feel a thing, until we got closer to the cop, and I saw his face. His eyes were big and still, the eyelids unblinking. His mouth was open, like he was about to say something but had forgotten what. That’s when it all became real for me—what I had done. The Timex watch. The wedding ring.

I hadn’t done God’s bidding. I hadn’t saved us from a monster. I had killed a man. I looked into his still, staring eyes and without saying a word, I told him I was sorry. I told his wife I was sorry. His kids, if he had them. I hope he didn’t have them. I put my hand over his eyelids, and I closed them so he could sleep.

Gabriel told me to cut it out. He warned me about fingerprints and went for Officer Nelligan’s gun, his handcuffs, and his wallet. I hope that shows you how different we are—that I’m not really like him. I think that spending all this time with Gabriel has made me turn a little, like when you leave a glass of milk out in the sun.

I think about that day in the future when you are born—when Jenny will be in my life and Gabriel won’t be, and I will be free and safe. In that future time, I will go to church every day. I will pray for Officer Nelligan and Papa Pete too, who when you think about it, wouldn’t have been killed if I hadn’t used him as an excuse to break up with Gabriel. I will even pray for Ed Hart. Every day, I will do something good for a person or an animal. I won’t go to sleep until I’ve made someone’s life better. And all those good deeds will turn me back.

For now, though, I just have to live through this. I have to be what I have become.

Love,

April

Twenty-Four

Robin

“I’M SO SORRY,” Renee said again, and it felt as though that momentary outburst had been a passing cloud, a few drops of rain, nothing more.