The drive back to the apartment felt like a descent. The further we moved away from the open marshlands and the abandoned bridge, the more the air seemed to thicken with the familiar, stagnant scent of Rivers State. The neon signs of the liquor stores and the flickering streetlights on Lake Street acted like spotlights on a stage I was no longer sure I wanted to perform on.
Jordan's hand remained over mine on the center console. He didn't speak, and for that, I was grateful. He knew that the silence wasn't a void anymore; it was a pressurized chamber. One wrong word and I might shatter right there in the passenger seat.
When he pulled up to the curb of my apartment building, the engine's idle hummed through the floorboards, vibrating in the soles of my feet. I looked up at the third floor. My mother's bedroom light was on. She was home early. The thought hit me with the force of a physical blow.
"Do you want me to come up?" Jordan asked.
I looked at him. The golden-boy facade was completely gone now, replaced by something raw and hauntingly beautiful. He looked like he was ready to carry me up those stairs if I asked. But this was a weight I had to carry alone. If I brought him into that room, into that history, it would be like dragging a witness into a crime scene that was still being written.
"No," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "I need to do this."
"Avery," he called out as I reached for the door handle. I turned back. His grey eyes were like storm clouds, dark and turbulent. "Don't let them make you feel small again. You're the only one who gets to decide how much space you take up."
I nodded, the words sinking into my skin like ink. "I'll see you tomorrow, Jordan."
"Tomorrow," he promised.
I stepped out of the car and didn't look back. I walked through the heavy glass doors of the lobby, the smell of Pine-Sol and old cigarette smoke hitting me like a familiar enemy. I bypassed the elevator—I couldn't stand the thought of being trapped in that small, moving box—and took the stairs.
*One step for the girl at five.*
*One step for the girl at eight.*
*One step for the girl who was never enough.*
By the time I reached the third floor, my lungs were burning, but my mind was a sharp, cold blade. I walked down the hallway, past Uncle Lenny's door. I stopped for a heartbeat, staring at the brass numbers. I waited for the usual wave of nausea, the phantom feeling of cold water on my skin. It came, but it was smaller. It was a memory, not a command.
I turned the key in our lock and stepped inside.
The apartment was quiet, but the air was charged. My mother was sitting at the small kitchen table, a mug of tea between her hands. She looked up when I entered, her eyes red-rimmed and sunken. She looked like she had aged ten years in a single night.
And sitting across from her, his back to me, was my father.
The sight of him in our space—the space he had abandoned, the space I had fought to keep standing—felt like a violation. He was wearing a clean shirt, his hair neatly combed, looking every bit the "person" he had screamed about wanting to be twelve years ago.
"Avery," my mother whispered, her voice trembling. "Your father... he came over. He wanted to wait for you."
I didn't move from the doorway. I kept my backpack on, the weight of it a grounding reminder of the world outside.
"I told you at the diner," I said, my voice echoing off the thin walls. "I have nothing to say to you."
My father stood up slowly. He didn't look like the giant I remembered. He looked like a man made of paper, easily torn. "I know you're angry, Avery. You have every right to be. But I didn't just come back to say sorry. I came back because I'm sick."
The words hung in the air, thick and unwelcome. My mother let out a small, broken sob, burying her face in her hands.
"I don't care," I said.
The cruelty of my own voice surprised me, but I didn't take it back. I had spent seventeen years caring about everyone else's pain—my mother's exhaustion, my father's "suffocation," Lenny's "games." I was done being the sponge for their disasters.
"Avery!" my mother gasped, looking up. "How can you say that? He's your father."
"He's a man who left a five-year-old to figure out why the world was falling apart," I shot back, stepping into the room. I looked directly at him, meeting those blue eyes that I had once searched for a hint of love. "You don't get to come back and use your sickness as a hook to pull me back in. You don't get to be the victim here."
"I'm not trying to be a victim," he said, his voice cracking. "I just wanted you to know why I'm here. I wanted to see you one last time before..."
"Before what? Before you leave again?" I laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "You've been gone for twelve years. As far as I'm concerned, you already left 'one last time.'"
I turned to my mother, who was watching me with a look of absolute horror.
"And you," I said, the words spilling out now, unstoppable. "You let him in? After everything? After the nights I sat in the dark listening to you cry? After the way we had to scramble just to keep the lights on? You just open the door because he says he's sick?"
"Avery, you don't understand," she pleaded.
"I understand everything!" I shouted. "I understand that I've been the one protecting you! I've been the one staying silent so you wouldn't break! I've been carrying the weight of this whole house while you looked the other way!"
The silence that followed was deafening. My mother shrank back, as if I had physically struck her. My father looked at the floor, his shoulders hunched.
"I'm not staying silent anymore," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Not for him. Not for you. And definitely not for the man down the hall."
My mother froze. Her eyes widened, focusing on me with a sudden, sharp clarity. "What? What are you talking about? What about Lenny?"
I looked at the door, then back at her. The secret was right there, sitting on the tip of my tongue like a bitter pill. I thought of Jordan's hand. I thought of the stone in the marsh.
"Ask him," I said, pointing toward the hallway. "Ask the 'nice' neighbor why I haven't been able to take a shower without shaking for nine years. Ask him what 'games' we played while you were at work."
The air left the room. My mother's face went from pale to a ghostly, translucent white. She looked at me, then at the door, then back to me. The realization hit her like a slow-motion car crash, the pieces of the last decade finally clicking into a horrific, undeniable picture.
"Avery..." she breathed, a hand flying to her mouth.
"I'm going to my room," I said, my voice cold. "I'm going to pack a bag. And then I'm going to leave. Because I'm done drowning in this pond."
I walked past them, my shoulder brushing my father's as I went. I didn't look back to see his reaction. I didn't look back to see my mother fall apart. I went into my room and slammed the door, the sound echoing through the apartment like a gunshot.
I pulled my old duffel bag from under the bed and started throwing things in. Sweaters, jeans, my notebook. Mr. Rabbit sat on the pillow, watching me with his one good eye. I picked him up, looked at him for a second, and then gently placed him on the dresser.
"I don't need you to protect me anymore," I whispered.
I grabbed my phone and dialed the only number that made me feel like I was still tethered to the earth. It picked up on the first ring.
"Jordan?" I said, my voice finally breaking. "Come get me. Please."
"I'm already at the curb," he replied.
I zipped the bag, slung it over my shoulder, and walked back out into the living room. My mother was standing by the door, her face a mask of agony. My father was gone—perhaps he had stepped out, or perhaps he had run. It didn't matter.
"Avery, please, don't go," she sobbed, reaching for my arm.
I stepped back, out of her reach.
"I love you, Mama," I said, and for the first time, it didn't feel like a burden. It felt like a goodbye. "But I can't breathe in here. I have to go find somewhere where the water isn't so high."
I walked out the door and down the stairs. I didn't stop at the third floor. I didn't look at Lenny's door. I burst through the lobby and out into the cool night air.
The black SUV was there, the headlights cutting through the darkness of Rivers State. Jordan was standing by the passenger door. He didn't say a word as I approached. He just took my bag, put it in the back, and opened the door for me.
I got in. I didn't look back at the apartment window. I didn't look at the town.
"Where to?" Jordan asked as he climbed in and started the engine.
I looked at the road ahead, stretching out into the unknown, away from the ghosts and the silence.
"Anywhere," I said. "Just drive."
As the car pulled away from the curb, I felt the first spark catch. The loop was broken. The fire was lit. And for the first time in seventeen years, I was the one holding the match.