The gunshot didn't hit me.
But it might as well have.
It parted the room, alive, fierce, deadly, colliding with the stone wall inches from my face. Dust exploded into the air. Micro pieces of concrete dicing into my cheek. It sent shockwave through my body so intensely that my knees buckled.
Bang.
The echo swallowed everything.
It didn't fade. It didn't soften. The words embedded in my brain, repeating like a metronome of punishment ad infinitum. My chest constricted as if I had forgotten how to breathe — or if my lungs had forgotten how. The air came in short, staggered gulps, too quick, too shallow, searing all the way down.
I slid down the wall, my skin scraping against stone until I crumpled to the floor.
My hands flew to my ears.
Bang.
I pressed down even harder, as though I could tamp the sound to silence. All of me shook—violent, uncontrollable vibrations that rattled my bones. I shivered not from the cold but from a far worse kind of dread and my teeth clacked together.
Fear.
No—terror.
Kieran was saying something.
I could see him in the distance, standing still and tall, the gun cocked a little lower on his side. I could see his lips shaping words directed at me but they never reached my ears. The sound was distorted and far away, like he was talking from the bottom of the ocean, drowned out beneath the ringing in my ears.
I gazed at the drywall.
That could have been my head.
I was alive.
And I didn't understand why.
Then why he pull the trigger, if he wasn't going to finish it. Why make me feel the reek of death seeping into my skin only to draw it back once more? Was this an act of mercy—or something much more brutal?
My breath fractured into sobs.
I rocked back and forth on the floor, a scream tearing out of me — all banshee and guttural, and shredding my throat. I screeched again, more loudly, until my voice broke and failed, dissolving into choked wheezes.
I pleaded, though I knew not to whom I was talking, "Stop. "Please… make it stop."
The ringing only grew louder.
I fell backward against the wall with a dull sound. Tears flowed down my face burning and unstoppable, matted in my hair, wetting my collar, my skin. I gritted my teeth,
The present fades away.
"You good-for-nothing child."
My mother's voice hit me like the stick. "You can never be like Liora"
I'm sixteen again. I was standing in the living room, shaking my report card in my hands, the hope inside me too intense and wanting to break out. I had listened to the radio for as long as I could bear. I had gone to every lecture there was to attend. I had studied until my head even read if it could be a bad thing. Until my fingers ached around pencils and textbooks. Until sleep, it seemed, might only belong to other people.
I had done everything right. I had breezed through the tests.
But that night when my father came home and my mother took the papers out of my hands, her face first a mask of confusion then contorted with rage.
"What is this?" she snapped.
Before I could say something, Liora floated up next door just in time wearing that sweet smile she practiced in front of mirrors.
"Daddy," she murmured, passing her arm through his. "Did you see my results?"
As he read, my fathers face lit up.
Pride.
Warmth.
Love.
"That's my girl," he said. "And I know you will never disappoint us."
My heart plummeted into my gut.
"That's… that's mine," I whispered. "She switched them. Those are my results."
The room went silent.
Liora's eyes immediately began to well up. Perfect, glistening tears.
She whispered, "I can't do that." Enora, why would you be so crooked to tell such a big lie about me?
My mom blasted me like a storm.
How dare you even call your sister she screamed. "After all that we do for you!"
Dinner was worse.
I wasn't allowed to eat.
I spent a long time sitting on the kitchen floor, my belly a rumbling pit of hunger, watching them laugh and tell Liora how good she was being, how lovely she was, as she ate. They spoke of her undoubtedly bright future, of being a doctor, of being great, of their pride in her.
My mother suddenly snapped at me, gently combing the hair of Liora. "You failure. Come get the dishes."
The food that I was forbidden to touch was removed from their plates by me.
Just when I was about to walk out, my father stopped me.
He pulled me over the wooden floor, splinters embedding into my skin, until he tossed me down the basement stairs. Above him the light swung back and forth, vibrating, as he unbuckled his belt.
I begged.
I cried.
I tried to explain.
He never listened.
The pain burned. Every strike made himself at home in my back, my legs, my soul. I yelled until the echoing concrete walls swallowed my screams, until I had lost my voice.
I saw her at the top of the stairs.
Liora.
Watching.
Smiling.
As old man said to me in a cold tone, You will sleep here. "No food. Two days."
The light went out.
The door slammed.
The lock clicked.
I huddled small on the cold ground, knees tucked against my chest w/ arms wrapped around them.
I cried into the dark, please please please don't leave me here "Please."
No one came.
"Enora."
That voice sliced through the recollection like a knife through mist.
"Enora!"
I opened my eyes.
The room clicked back together The walls. The floor. The storm is still raging outside. I was still blocking out the sound with my palms cupped over my ears.
It was Annie on her knees directly in front of me.
She looked pale and her eyes were swollen with tears. A gentle tug of my hands from my ears, warm skin, grounding.
"Hey," she whispered. "You're here. You're safe."
I snorted a weak laugh, which came out cracked and empty.
I whispered, He shot the wall. "I felt it. I thought—"
"I know," she said softly. "I saw."
My body pitched forward and a gasping sob wrenched from my ribs. I held on to her sleeve, my fingers trembling.
"Why didn't he kill me?" I cried. "Just get the guy to close, already."
She didn't answer right away.
She just stayed.
And, somehow, that was almost as painful.
I whispered, barely voicing the words: "I don't want to be here anymore." "Please… just let me die."
Annie's breath hitched.