Chapter Text
JUNE – TWELVE MONTHS AGO
The setting sun cast golden beams across the room, seeping between the half-closed blinds. Soon it would dip below the horizon, and the room would be plunged into the solitude of night. Lisa tucked her long blonde hair behind an ear, eyes idly tracing one fading beam as it stretched over the soft sheets of her bed, following it longingly to the window.
She untucked her leg, letting it slide off the bed as she set the wrinkled paper down, where it sat stiff against the soft sheets. The lamp flickered to life with a gentle click as Lisa pulled the cord, the yellow light competing with the last beams of sunlight as they continued their slow withdrawal.
Lisa sighed, standing by the bedside table, arms wrapped around herself, nervously biting at her nail. She looked down to the letter as it lay on the bed, its words staring back. Silent. Condemning.
She had read the words enough that they drifted through her memory in jagged little fragments.
‘I don’t care what you might think of me or my part in this. I’ve accepted what happened, and what is going to happen next.’
‘If I had been more cautious. Less naïve. Maybe then we could’ve avoided all of this. But choices were made, and there’s no taking them back. We all have to live with that.’
‘Your silence, as well as my own, were inevitable, really. I don’t blame you, and I hope you don’t lay any blame on me. I’m prepared to face my reckoning. Some day it will come for you, too.”
Someone knocked at the door; three aggressive raps accompanied by a man’s voice speaking Lisa’s name. His voice taut, sharp, anxious. Lisa looked from the letter to the door, still nipping at the tip of her nail, her breath quickening. She shifted, uncertain, but made no effort to answer. The door handle jiggled. The lock held. The movement ceased.
Lisa unfolded her arms and reached forward to the bed, picking up the letter, scanning it one more time before folding it and setting it neatly on her dresser, as the knocking returned, more urgent, more aggressive than before. The weight of an entire body pressed heavy against the door as someone thrust themselves against it.
“Open the Goddamn door!” The voice called out, loud and angry. “Right now! Let me in!”
Lisa rested both of her palms firmly on the dresser’s flat surface, dipping her head forward, her hair slipping from her shoulder and hanging like a veil in front of her. She flipped her right wrist up, glancing at the fresh tattoo; a wilting white rose, petals falling from the flower as it died on her arm. The pounding continued behind her. She focused on her own thoughts, drowning out the sound from the hall, forcing herself to find the strength to do what needed to be done.