Epilogue
Six months later
The cold steel bench bites through my jumpsuit as I survey the yard. The snow is gone, leaving behind damp soil and the scent of thaw. Dead leaves skitter across the concrete, restless in the breeze. They call this place the Central Square. But let’s be honest: It’s a prison yard.
Tilting my head, I let the March sun warm my face.
It’s been a long winter. I was beginning to forget the feel of heat.
Nearby, a basketball thuds in a steady rhythm as six women play a sluggish three-on-three.
Others drift along the perimeter in white uniforms, chatting, laughing, pretending this is anything other than what it is.
I prefer to be alone. Alone with my thoughts.
Alone with nature. At my feet, a blade of grass fights its way through a crack in the pavement.
An ant scuttles up its length, frantic, searching.
Dr. Moeller says I have dissociative identity disorder.
Not multiple personalities, he’s quick to clarify.
Not like the monsters in the movies. Just me, splintered into jagged panes, each one reflecting what I couldn’t face.
He calls the shard that carried the sharpest edges my “alter.” I call her CharBar.
She was never separate though. She was just the part I wasn’t allowed to be.
He says Olivia was different. Not an alter.
A hallucinated companion. A trauma-born ghost my mind conjured to hold the guilt I couldn’t carry.
I saw her because I couldn’t accept the truth of what I’d done at the Ferris wheel.
He calls her a “visual projection of unresolved grief.” A coping mechanism. A child’s trick dragged into adulthood.
I know she’s not real now.
Integration. That’s his word. He says we’ve made progress, stitching the pieces together.
He expected me to weep. That’s what they want when they press your trauma into words, squeeze it through the therapeutic sieve: tears, apologies, guilt.
But when I saw CharBar whole, I didn’t feel guilt.
I felt recognition. Like finally catching my reflection in a broken mirror and realizing it was me all along.
We—I mean—I remember everything now. The Ferris wheel.
Olivia beside me, teasing, always making me feel small.
Not as pretty. Not as athletic. Not as charming.
She broke the rules, but I was always the one who paid the consequences.
That day, she stood on the edge of the gondola, taunting me, taunting death itself. So, I taught her a lesson.
I let her fall.
She paid the consequences.
Mom said she’d take care of it. And she did.
I thought Olivia’s death would bring me peace. Let me grow out from under her shadow. Instead, it brought loss. I lost Eric. He was more than a crush. He was everything. The only man I’ve ever trusted.
But deep down, I always knew he’d come back to me.
I remember my father. In Boston, things went from bad to worse. He hit my mother. He hit me. Did other bad things. One day, I decided the bad things needed to stop. So, I shattered that Smirnoff bottle and drove a hooked edge into his throat.
Then he was gone, and I was free.
Mom said she’d take care of it. And she did.
She called Tom Kim and spun a story about self-defense. My father was an abusive drunk. No one questioned it. No one missed him.
After that, life was good. College. Grad school. Consulting. I kept to myself, and people let me. I was busy. I solved problems. I helped people. There was no time for dark thoughts.
Then I saw Eric.
Part of me hoped age had taken its toll, enough that I could let go. Give Carlos a spin.
But it hadn’t. He was better than I remembered. Gorgeous. Funny. Kind. Effortless.
Unfortunately, Laelynn and those two little brats kept him from me. And the dog. That damn dog.
Looking back, it was Heathcliff who brought CharBar back. When that Saint Bernard slobbered on me and humiliated me in front of Eric, I knew he had to go. A few grapes before bedtime took care of that.
It reminded me how easy it was to kill. One day he was here. The next he was gone. And the world was a better place afterward. Just like my father.
Of course, Laelynn wouldn’t let it go. She wanted to call the police. I tried to talk her down that morning before she left, but she wouldn’t listen.
So, I choked her with the boat rope. Then went back to bed.
To be honest, I would have done it anyway. Eric and I could never be together while she was alive. The moment her breath ceased beneath my hands—pure peace.
The Adwanis were even easier. Sneak out in the night. Grab the axe. Doors were open. Swing. Swing. Swing. Whistle while you work.
With Laelynn and the Adwanis gone, only the twins stood between me and Eric.
I’ll admit we—I—got a little sloppy on that one.
But when I found out they were pranking me, playing their little ghost tricks, and then Emma mentioned my “secret,” I lost it.
Those smug, gaptooth smiles. Laughing at me, trying to hold me down, just like Olivia used to.
They were pretending to be ghosts. Well… now they are.
Actions have consequences.
That’s what my mother always said, but I don’t think she understood what it really meant.
Not like I do. The poor woman. She feels that this is all her fault.
That she’s the reason I’m this way. But the truth is, CharBar’s always been inside me.
You just had to look for her. Beth, the babysitter, saw her. I think that’s why she locked me away.
I think Carlos saw her too. That’s what freaked me out about him. But he also saw the good in me. Ah, what could have been? I’m glad I pushed him away. I wouldn’t want him to get hurt.
The ant climbs from the blade of grass onto my shoe, then up my pant leg. I reach down, letting it scuttle into my palm. Then, in one swift motion, I press my hands together, feeling the tiny body crush between my palms. I rub them together, smearing its insides, ensuring it’s dead.
That’s what I do. I eliminate problems.
Now, there’s nothing left to eliminate. Laelynn, Emma, Penelope, the Adwanis—they’re all gone. It’s just me and Eric now.
Finally.
And now I know he’s like me. He has secrets too. Scaring people out of their homes so that he can become the king of Big Island. Who knows? He might have killed Marjorie Neuman too.
I hope he did.
Then we’ll be bonded not just by love but by blood. King and queen together.
I write him a letter every day at noon. Two pages exactly. Each time, I imagine his hands trembling as he unfolds the paper, his breath catching on my words. He hasn’t responded yet, but he will. He has to.
We will be together someday.
I just know it.
It’s destiny.
A ripple passes through the air beside me, a shift in the light. I turn my head, and there she is—a whisper of warm air, a flash of curly black hair. Olivia. In the distance. Across the basketball court. Slouched against the prison stone. Blowing a bright-pink bubble.
I wave.
She waves.
I watch as her lips curl into a knowing smile.