Far From You

12

THREE MONTHS AGO (SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD)

It takes only a few days at Seaside for it to really sink in: Mina is dead. Her killer’s running free. And no one will listen to me.

Nothing has ever made less sense.

So I sit in my room, on my cramped little bed with its polyester sheets. I go to Group and am silent. I sit on the couch in Dr. Charles’s office with my arms folded, staring straight ahead as she waits.

I don’t talk.

I can barely even think.

At the end of my first week, I write a letter to Trev. A pleading, cramped soliloquy of truth. Everything I’ve wanted to say for so long.

It’s returned, unopened. That’s when I realize I’m all alone in this.

There is no one who believes me.

So I force myself to think about it, tracing back every second of that night. I ponder possible suspects and motives, both logical and wild.

My head is filled with one sentence, an endless loop of the words he’d said right before he shot her: I warned you. I warned you. I warned you.

I let it push me forward, hour by hour.

I still don’t talk to Dr. Charles.

I’m too busy planning.

On my fifteenth day at Seaside, my parents are called in for the first family therapy day.

My father hugs me, enveloping me in his husky arms. He smells like Old Spice and toothpaste, and for a second I let the familiarity of it comfort me.

Then I remember him throwing me in the car. The look on his face as I begged him to please, please believe me.

I stiffen and pull away.

My mother doesn’t even try to hug me after that.

My parents sit on the couch, relegating me to the slippery leather armchair in the corner. I’m grateful that Dr. Charles doesn’t make me sit between them.

“I brought the two of you in early,” Dr. Charles says. “Because I think Sophie is having some trouble expressing herself to me.”

My mother pins me to the chair with her gaze. “Are you being difficult?” she asks me.

I shake my head.

“Answer me properly, Sophie Grace.”

Dr. Charles’s eyebrow twitches in surprise when I say, slowly and clearly, “I don’t feel like talking.”

My parents leave frustrated, only a handful of words spoken between us.

Nineteen days in, I get a card. An innocuous thing with a blue daisy on it and the words GET WELL SOON in big block letters.

I flip it open.

I believe you. Call me when you get out. —Rachel

I stare at it for a long, long time.

It’s weird what three words can ignite inside of you.

I believe you.

Now I’m ready to talk. I have to be.

It’s the only way out of here.