“No, I was protecting us, protecting you.”

“No.” I shake my head roughly. “You weren’t.” I’m overwhelmed with anger—and regret. My stomach twists at the thought of everything I’d done in the name of protecting us, protecting her.

“He was making these decisions without you, like some kind of sick puppet master. He was obsessed with you, he wanted to control you. I know you can’t see that right now, but it’s the truth. And I was the only one who could save you.”

“No. Stop it.” I want it all to end. The lies, the half-truths, the manipulation.

“You have to trust me, Rem,” Elise says. “He was a monster.”

“Not everyone is a monster,” I say. “Not everyone is—” I don’t need to finish for her to know who I’m talking about. Your dad.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that? You’re acting like it happened to you,” she says, cutting me off. “But it didn’t. It happened to me. And you act like you’re this old soul, this broken spirit, this victim, but you’re not! You don’t have wounds, you’ve never bled. I’m the one who’s bled. Not metaphorically. Literally. And you think, what with your shitty parents and their fighting and how mean they are to you, you think that’s the same?” She laughs, jarring and bitter. “It’s not. Only one of us here has been truly damaged, and guess what, it’s not you.” She’s yelling now.

“So what, you decided you’d be the one to fix it? Kill Jack, make sure I was just as damaged as you?”

“You think I wouldn’t trade places with you in a heartbeat? Wake the fuck up, Remy.”

Jack asked me when I was going to wake up Sunday morning, on the day he died. Have I been asleep this whole time?

“Only one of us has been truly traumatized. And in the last few months, I’ve been blaming myself. I lie awake at night and replay every punch, every kick, every word, every agonizing second. I lie there and think, why wasn’t I smarter, why wasn’t I faster, why didn’t I report it?” she says, sobbing.

“Elise—pull over.”

She ignores me, driving through her tears. “But it wasn’t my fault! It happened because you weren’t there. Because I called you and you knew—you knew—I needed you and you just fucking ignored me. And for what? Some guy you’d met a few months ago? Well, Remy, was it worth it?” Elise says, leaving both of us in a stunned silence.

“What do you want me to say?” I finally ask, but I’m furious. She knows I was wracked with guilt for not answering her calls that night. She knows and now she isn’t even pretending it wasn’t my fault—she takes the knife I’d sharpened for her and buries it in me with a twist. “You want everything to be just you and me, forever and ever. You say things like love is need and tell me that we need each other, but what you really mean is you don’t want me to need anyone else. What you really mean is you don’t want me to love anyone else but you.”