Page 47 of Rush
I stop moving and I look at her. She needs to know how desperate this is. She needs to feel what I’m feeling.
“I can help you,” she says.
Her voice is calm. Still trying to pull me back. Still trying to save me.
“No,” I shout. “You can’t. This is all your fault. You did this. You called CPS and now mom and dad are under investigation.”
“Rush, I did that to help you. I know that you’ve been hurt while in their care.”
Wrong. That’s the wrong thing to say.
I feel it snap inside me. Everything twists.
“Your fault. You’ve done this,” I shout again.
And then my finger moves.
And the world breaks.
I come back to myself in my kitchen. My coffee is cold and there are tears on my face.
I wipe them away with shaking hands.
That memory is always there, just under the surface, waiting to remind me what I'm capable of.
The smell of gunpowder, the boom of the shot, the wet sound of her crying out.
The blood on the floor, on her shirt, on my hands when I tried to help.
I can still feel the weight of the gun, can still hear Cage screaming, can still see the way Ms. Michaels looked at me like she understood.
Like she forgave me even while I was hurting her.
And that's what kills me; that's what I can't escape.
She was kind and I shot her.
She cared and I hurt her.
She tried to help and I made her bleed.
I stand up and walk to the sink, splash cold water on my face until my hands stop shaking.
But it doesn't wash away the memory, doesn't change what I did.
Doesn't change the fact that I'd do it again.
The sun comes up around six and I'm still sitting at my kitchen table. I haven't moved in hours.
My phone buzzes with a text from Tank.
Clubhouse. Now.
I get dressed and ride over. The Dublin streets are empty this early on a Saturday.
Tank's in the garage when I arrive. "You look like shit."
"Didn't sleep."
