I know I’m not getting an apology. I know that it’s never going to come, that I’m never going to get what I want from her. She doesn’t have it to give. And still, I’m waiting. I’m hoping.

That’s the problem. I know, but I can’t truly accept it because I’m holding on to this hope.

“Rory?”

I grip the steering wheel. My pulse quickens. The gallop of my heart is earsplitting.

I inhale. Through the open window, I smell roadkill. Meat. Whatever it is, it hasn’t been dead for long.

Saliva pools under my tongue.

There was a rabbit. The night of my transformation. I remember now. It was fast, but I was faster. It was easy to skin with my teeth, sleek underneath the fluff of its fur. Very pink without its coat.

I can taste it. Metallic. Sweet.

I’m so hungry.

“Rory?”

My vision tints red.

“You should have told me,” she’d said back then. Should have, should have, should have.

“I loved him,” I heard her say. She was crying at the kitchen table the week after Dave had been arrested, crying to a friend on the phone. “I really loved him.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

And I was. I was very sorry.

“Rory, are you all right?”

The taillights ahead of me blur. The highway blurs. They’re lost in the swell.

There’s no more roadkill. That scent is gone. There’s only Chanel No. 5.

And my heartbeat. That’s gone, too. I listen for it, but it’s lost to me. I can hear hers, though. I can hear hers so clearly.

Knock, knock, knocking inside her chest, among fluttering lungs, arteries, a tangle of veins. And blood. Her blood. Warm, warm blood.

Her neck. Her throat.

She wears a silver chain. From it hangs a Tiffany locket. Inside there’s a picture of Scarlett and a picture of me.

The picture of Scarlett is from when we were little. She wears a black turtleneck. She’s missing her front teeth.

The picture of me is from my college graduation. I wear a cap and gown and a funny face.

She says these are her favorite photos of us. But I wonder if it’s not a coincidence that I’m older in my picture. That I’m not a child.

I blink. In the fleeting dark, I see myself. I see my goofy face in that graduation picture.

“I don’t hate you,” I say. “I love you. And I forgive you.”

She rolls up her window.

“You don’t need to say anything. But you should know that I forgive you.”

I’m not sure if it’s true. It feels true. It also feels transient. Like I want to add the caveat that I reserve the right to change my mind.

“Thanks, baby,” she says. Her reaction is mild, like I just offered her a mint.

But I guess the forgiveness isn’t for her. It’s for me. Because it’s either that or taking her head off with my teeth. There’s no more in-between.