51. Rowan
ROWAN
Iran until my lungs burned.
I made a choice that split my life in two.
Forgiveness felt like betrayal. Like letting go of the only thing that tethered me to my sister. If I stopped blaming myself, then what did that say about how much I loved her? If I loosened my grip on the guilt, did that mean she mattered less?
So I carried it.
Every day. Every breath.
I carried the what-ifs like scripture. I replayed the moment she shoved me away and told me to run. The sound of her voice—sharp, frantic, unmistakable. I told myself I should have stayed. Should have fought harder. Should have died with her instead of living without her.
That was the lie I built my life on.
And lies are heavy burdens to carry. They bend your spine. They warp your vision. They make you mistake punishment for penance.
My hands are shaking, because the truth is finally clawing its way up my throat—and it hurts worse than the lie ever did.
Missy didn’t die because I ran.
She died because monsters found us.
She died because evil men crossed our path. Because the world raised them to believe they could take and take and never be stopped. Because money, power, and silence protected them and the lack of those things punished the innocent.
I fold forward, my forehead pressing into my hands, and the sound that comes out of me is ugly. It’s raw. It’s the sound of something breaking that’s been cracked for years. My chest caves in on itself, breath stuttering, sobs tearing through me like they’ve been waiting their turn.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though I don’t even know who I’m saying it to anymore. Missy. Myself. The girl I was before everything ended.
I’ve spent years punishing myself for being alive.
As if survival were a crime.
As if my sister’s last act—saving me—was something I needed to atone for instead of honor.
Missy knew what she was doing.
That truth lands hard. Final. Undeniable.
She made a choice. Not out of fear. Out of love. She understood what was happening faster than I did and she pushed me away because she knew one of us had to make it out. One of us had to live long enough to remember. To tell the truth. To avenge the other.
And I turned that gift into a weapon against myself.
God, I’ve hated myself for it.
I’ve measured every breath since then like it was stolen. I’ve built my identity around rage because rage felt productive. Rage felt like movement. It gave me something to do with my hands so I didn’t have to feel the hollow ache in my chest.
But rage never asked me to heal. It just asked me to burn. And now that the fire is dying, I’m left with the truth underneath it: I was never meant to die that day. I was meant to live.
The thought cracks something open inside me, and the grief comes in waves so violent I think I might drown in it.
I mourn her all over again—not just the way she died, but the life she never got to live.
The woman she would have become. The sound of her laughter ten years from now.
The way she would have rolled her eyes at me for being dramatic.
“I miss you,” I choke. “I miss you so much.”
And for the first time, I let myself say the next part without my soul breaking.
“I did everything I could.”
Running wasn’t cowardice. It was obedience. It was love.
The responsibility was never mine to carry. Accountability doesn’t belong to the girl who escaped. It belongs to the men who hunted. To the system that protected them. To every adult who chose silence over justice.
Not to me.
The realization doesn’t come gently. It comes like an avalanche, burying years of self-hatred under its weight. I cry until my body gives out, until the sobs quiet into something softer—something almost like breathing again.
Forgiving myself doesn’t mean I forget Missy.
It means I stop using her death as a sentence I carry out on myself every day.
It means I live in a way that would have made her proud.
I wipe my face with shaking hands and look up, eyes swollen, heart bruised but still beating.
And for the first time since that day, the thought of tomorrow doesn’t feel like an act of betrayal.
It feels like permission to live.
The river hasn’t changed.
It’s the same slow current as the water flows, and the same crooked willow leaning over the water like it’s harboring a secret.
It’s the rest of the world that feels different now—emptier, lighter, as we walk the bank in silence, boots sinking into soft mud. The sun’s low, caught between a golden goodbye. Justin’s beside me, hands in his pockets, coat unbuttoned, wind tugging at the edge like it wants to steal him back.
We stand at the edge where the ground falls away into the water, the sound of the current folding over itself in endless repetition.
This is where they found Missy’s body.
The police cleared the bank hours after they took her away, but I swear the earth remembers.
I swear it still carries the shape of her where she lay.
My breath ghosts in the cold air. My hands shake even though I’m gripping my sleeves so hard that the stitches strain.
Ten years. Ten years, and I still can’t breathe here.
I crouch and touch the wet grass. The ground is soft. Damp. Alive. Everything she isn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though I’ve said it a thousand times and it never feels like enough.
A breeze moves through the reeds, making them sway like they’re nodding.
It feels like she’s forgiving me.
My truth sits under my ribs like a stone I swallowed.
If I hadn’t run… If I’d stayed… If I’d screamed louder… If I’d been braver… She wouldn’t have died alone…
A ripple moves across the water.
For a moment, ridiculous or not, I pretend she’s there. Watching me. Telling me to go home, Rowan.
Telling me it’s not my fault. A single tear hits the river. The water swallows it whole. Just like it swallowed her.
We stay until the sun drops behind the trees, until the river goes dark and the world forgets we’re there.
When we finally turn away, I don’t look back. Because some things deserve to stay buried—and some things, finally, deserve to be free.