There is a very, very long silence.

Aimee’s lips part briefly and then her attention is drawn away from me. I see that Kiera is sitting up.

I can tell that she heard.

I look back at Aimee. “I’m sorry,” I mutter, uselessly, completely at a loss for what else to say.

Aimee and I both inhale at the same time, and then she shuts her notebook and says, “I think I’m going to go.”

“Aimee—”

“No,” she says firmly, in what is clearly her mom voice. “I’m going. It’s all fine, I need to—I—Theo’s had the kids all day and I—I’ll see you at the rehearsal tomorrow, yeah?”

And then she’s gone.

The door shuts behind her, and then it’s Kiera and me.

She looks a million times better than she did earlier, the pink having returned to her cheeks, the rheumy look gone from her eyes. She stands up and comes over to me, no hesitation in her posture as she puts her arms around me and squeezes me tight.

“Did that mean what … I think it meant?”

“If you think it meant Aimee died in the world I came from, then yes.” I’m freezing cold from the inside out, a shiver rattling me from my core. “Aimee died. Aimee is dead.”

I have never said the words out loud. I never had to. Everyone who needed to know was there after it happened. Our parents and everyone in town. I never told anyone else she even existed. I danced around it in therapy. Thusly defeating a lot of the purpose of being there in the first place.

I feel sick and cold and tired and like I will never eat again, my hair hurts and my muscles are sore and my brain is completely empty and my heart is hollow. I feel like I was just in the car crash all over again. How strange it was to hurt all over, inside and out, but have hardly a scratch on me. Hardly a scratch while Aimee …

Fuck.

I’m amazed when my arms manage to lift and hug Kiera back. She hugs me even harder and says, “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It literally was,” I say. My eyes prickle with unfamiliar tears. It’s been years since I’ve cried off-screen.

“It wasn’t,” she says. “It wasn’t your fault, Meg.”

I bury my face in the thick cotton of her soft hoodie, gritting my teeth hard to keep from fully sobbing, afraid that if I topple over into the sadness, I’ll never come out. “It was,” I say. “She was driving, but it was my—my fault.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”