35. Caroline
CAROLINE
It’s been so long since I’ve been back in Washington that it doesn’t feel real.
The roads are familiar, but wrong somehow—like someone laid a memory over a stranger’s city.
The sky is the same dull silver I remember, heavy with unspilled rain, but the air smells different. Like possibility. Like endings.
It feels like another life. Or maybe several stacked on top of each other, all bleeding through the cracks.
I’ve been reborn too many times in this lifetime.
I was reborn the night I stepped into that underground club, both the moment they touched me and the moment I saw blood.
I was reborn when I got pregnant, and again when I moved to Washington, hiding in plain sight with Alaina like the world hadn’t ended behind me.
And then I was taken. And everything split again.
Now I’m back, somehow, but I don’t feel like the same woman who left. Sitting in Alaina’s driveway, still humming with the buzz of the private flight, I grip the steering wheel and stare at the quiet house like it might bite.
The boys are finally asleep in the back seat, their small mouths parted, cheeks pink from excitement.
During the flight, they smashed their faces to the windows, pointing at clouds and screaming about what the world looked like from above.
Every mountain was a monster. Every lake was a magic pool.
They asked if we were flying to the moon. No, just Washington, I said.
Now, watching them curled up in their car seats, soft and oblivious, I feel hollow. Not empty. Just…scraped out. Like something inside me keeps getting scooped away with every life I live. I don’t know how many lives I have left in me.
The porch light flicks on, and Alaina steps outside before I’m ready. I flinch like she’s a gunshot. A siren. A scream.
She moves like she’s been watching from the window, like she knew I was here before I even turned onto the street.
Her arms are crossed over her chest, and her mouth is a thin, pale line.
She’s barefoot, in worn jeans and a hoodie with a coffee stain on the sleeve, like she’s trying to pretend this is a normal night and I’m just any friend stopping by.
But we both know better.
Behind her, the door opens again. James steps into the porch light with his usual quiet calm, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s not sure if he should come out or give us space.
He’s in a gray T-shirt and plaid pajama pants, and his hair sticks up in the back like he was lying on the couch.
When his eyes find mine, he gives a small nod—no pressure, no questions. Just presence.
The last time I stood in front of Alaina, I was begging her not to ask questions. And she didn’t, despite her own quiet pleas. And now she’s taking them in. No contracts. No judgment. Just quiet, furious love that runs deeper than blood.
I open the car door slowly and step out.
My legs feel stiff, like they’ve forgotten how to move without urgency.
I open the back door and unbuckle one of the boys.
He stirs, mumbling sleepily, and I press a kiss to his temple before lifting him into my arms. He wraps around me like a sloth, warm and trusting, and I want to fall apart.
I set him gently on the ground, and he leans against my leg while I gather his brother. Same process. Same kiss. Same ache.
The door creaks open again, and soft footsteps pad down the porch steps. Aspen, now six, all long limbs and wild curls, bursts across the lawn in her pajamas, barefoot like her mom.
“Miss Caroline!” she whisper-shouts, flinging herself against my legs.
I laugh, a quiet, strangled sound. “Hey, Aspen, look how big you are!”
“Is the sleepover starting now?” she asks. “Mommy said it’s gonna be like sleepaway camp.”
I smooth a hand over her hair. “Just about. You gonna help your mom with the boys?”
She nods fiercely and immediately grabs one of their tiny hands in hers.
Juniper, barely four and dragging a blanket behind her like a cape, comes toddling out next. She blinks sleepily up at me and says, “We made cookies.”
James finally steps fully off the porch and crouches down beside Aspen, gently herding her toward the door with one hand while ruffling the boys’ hair with the other. “We saved some for you two,” he says. “Peanut butter and chocolate chip. The important kind.” He looks at me, “Hope that’s okay.”
“You don’t have to ask me for permission,” I say quietly, more to myself than anyone else. “You’re doing what I can’t.”
“They’re still yours,” he replies, just as softly. “And you should eat too. You look skinny.”
By the time I turn back to Alaina, she’s stepped off the path and into the driveway.
Her eyes are wet but steady. She opens her arms to me, and I walk into them without thinking.
I fold into her like I’m drowning and she’s the shore.
Like maybe, if I hold her tight enough, I’ll find the part of me I lost somewhere between pain and survival.
“You don’t have to do this,” she murmurs against my ear, her breath warm, her voice steady even as her throat works against tears. “You could run. I could help you disappear. Canada, Mexico, anywhere you want. Just point to a globe.”
I close my eyes. “I can’t,” I whisper back, even though it isn’t true.
Long ago, it was. When I was locked in a room, starved and studied.
When I had no say in what happened to me or my body or my boys.
But that’s not what this is anymore. This is a choice.
This is power. And that’s scarier than anything that came before.
“I can’t keep teaching them to be afraid,” I add.
“I won’t let them grow up thinking safety means hiding. ”
She pulls back to look me in the eyes, hands gripping my arms like she could hold me in place if she needed to.
“Then end it,” she says fiercely. “Whatever this is—this thing that keeps dragging you back—end it so you can come home. I hope you destroy it. I hope you burn it to the ground and walk away. I want you back. Whole.”
Her voice cracks on the last word.
“I’ll try,” I say. “That’s the plan.”
James is holding the front door open now.
Inside, the kids’ laughter is already echoing through the house, bouncing off the walls like nothing’s wrong.
Alaina heads in first, casting one last look over her shoulder.
I help the boys carry their little bags up the porch steps—stuffed animals and pajamas and picture books Alaina already has duplicates of.
I let them hug me one last time, whispering reminders to listen, to be good, to remember that I love them more than anything in the world.
I kiss their foreheads and try not to inhale like I’m memorizing them.
“You should stay for dinner,” Alaina says with a strangled voice, her head tilted. “You can end whatever it is tomorrow, can’t you? In the morning?”
I laugh. “No, I have to go. Thank you.” I reach for her and smell the lingering scent of shampoo in her wet hair.
“You sure you don’t want a cookie?” James asks.
I sigh, rolling my eyes dramatically. “Okay, okay, let me try one of these cookies.”
And a moment later, Alaina is waving from the porch as I back out of the driveway. My hand trembles as I raise it, and I force it to stay lifted until I turn the corner and lose sight of them.
Only then do I let it drop to my lap. The silence that replaces their laughter is deafening. Like a verdict. Like a sentence passed down. I tell myself that this silence is my penance for every choice I’ve made and for the blood on my hands. For what I’m about to do next.
And then I take a bite of the cookie my best friend gave me. No matter what I’ve done, she still thinks I deserve to be fed.