Chapter 30 Ten Years
I woke up before the sun. For a few seconds I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the soft tap of rain against the window. The room was dim and still, the kind of quiet that made it too easy to think.
I already knew I wasn't going to school. Yesterday had been the same. Cassidy's texts sat unanswered, along with Jackson's. I didn't have the energy to pretend I was fine or explain why I wasn't.
Today marked ten years since that night.
Ten years since my mother and sister died.
Ten years since Harper Mitchell died with them.
Don’t go, a part of me whispered. But another voice followed right after. It’s been ten years.
Ten years, and I had never visited their graves. Not once.
At first I physically couldn’t. While they buried my family I had been lying unconscious in a hospital bed two states away, doctors rebuilding my face and body piece by piece.
By the time I woke up, Brian and Janet had already faked my death.
Harper Mitchell was officially gone. They had transported me back to their hometown during the coma, risking everything so the story would hold.
After waking, I spent another six months in the hospital. When I finally got out, visiting Lincoln Cemetery had been too dangerous. Someone could recognize me. Someone could put the pieces together.
So I stayed away. I trained. I healed. I learned how to survive. And I told myself every October that next year would be the year I went.
By 6:00 I was dressed. By 6:30 I'd rented a car using the third of my four fake IDs. By 7:00 I was on the highway heading toward the neighboring town of Lincoln.
The windshield wipers scraped rhythmically across the glass while the headlights cut through the gray. Trees blurred past on either side of the road, black silhouettes against the pale morning mist. The drive was an hour. I didn’t turn on the radio.
Halfway there I pulled into a small florist on the edge of the next town.
The bell over the door chimed softly as I stepped inside.
The woman behind the counter didn’t ask questions when I picked out three bouquets.
White roses for my mother. Yellow tulips for Harmony.
A small spray of lavender for my father.
She wrapped each bouquet separately in brown paper, tying them with twine. I paid in cash and my hand was already on the door before something tugged at me. I turned back.
“And one more,” I said, pointing at a single white chrysanthemum in a bucket near the register. I didn’t think about why. I just knew I needed it.
The rest of the drive passed in silence. The rain softened to a mist, then thickened again as I got closer to Lincoln. The sky stayed low and gray, pressing down on the horizon like it wanted to keep everything quiet.
Lincoln Cemetery sat on a low rise at the edge of town. The wrought-iron gate stood open, hanging slightly crooked on its hinges. No cars in the lot. No people. Just rain and fog and quiet.
I parked near the old oak tree and killed the engine. For a moment I just sat there, hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield. My pulse thudded painfully against my throat.
The last time I had been here, there had only been one headstone. My father’s. Now there would be more.
I pulled my hood up and stepped out into the cold morning air. Rain soaked through my sneakers almost immediately. I grabbed the flowers from the back seat and walked the rest of the way.
The cemetery smelled like wet earth and dead leaves. The gravel path crunched under my feet for the first stretch, then gave way to flagstone as I moved deeper into the older section where the oaks grew massive and the stones leaned slightly in the soft ground.
I knew where they were. Dad had been buried near the back beneath a large oak after the accident that took his life.
I remembered his funeral. I had been eleven.
Black tights that itched behind my knees.
A coat too tight in the shoulders. My mother’s hand wrapped around mine the entire walk from the parking lot to the plot.
Harmony trailing behind us, fourteen and trying not to cry where adults could see her.
The priest’s hands. The wet sound of dirt hitting the coffin. My mother’s hand never letting go.
My sneakers sank into the damp grass as I approached the graves. The silence made each breath sound too loud. My cat pressed her head against my ribs, a quiet wordless comfort.
When I finally stood in front of them no words came. I had imagined this moment a thousand times. In every version I cried immediately or collapsed or said something meaningful. Instead I just stared.
Ten years. Ten fucking years.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My throat tightened. “I should’ve come sooner.”
That wasn’t entirely true and I knew it the second it left my mouth. There had been years where survival had been the only thing I could afford. Years where revenge consumed everything else.
“I survived.”
I went to my father's grave first. His was the oldest of the four. Twelve years now. The letters were a little softer at the edges than the others, weather doing its slow work, the date underneath cut clean.
Daniel Mitchell. Husband. Father. Forever loved.
I set the lavender bouquet down gently and brushed wet leaves from the base.
“Hi, Dad.” I looked down at the stone. “I wish you could see what I’ve become. I think part of you would be proud. The rest would be horrified.” A faint, bitter smile crossed my lips. “You always said I was too stubborn for my own good. You were right.”
I reached out and touched the top of the stone. The granite was cold and slick under my fingers.
“Brian took me in after everything. He trained me to fight, to survive, to make damn sure no one could break me the way they did before.” My voice dropped lower.
“I think you would have liked him. He never tried to step into your place. He’s gruff and honest, the kind of man who says exactly what he means. Reminds me a little of you.”
The rain fell steadily around me.
“I miss you,” I whispered.
I moved to my mother’s grave next.
Donna Mitchell. Wife. Mother. And beneath it, in smaller letters: She loved them with everything she had.
I set the roses down and smoothed the wet paper. For a long moment I didn’t speak. The rain fell steadily between us.
“Hi, Mom.”
I swallowed hard.
“I should’ve come sooner. I know. It wasn’t safe before, and it still isn’t. I drove an hour under a fake name just to stand here. I’m telling you that because I want you to know I’m not reckless. I’ve been careful. Ten years of careful.”
My thumb caught on the carved edge of her name.
“Brian trained me. I know you wouldn’t have loved that part, but I think you might have understood why I needed it. Janet pretends she doesn’t see most of what we do.”
A faint, tired smile tugged at my mouth and then disappeared.
“I found them, Mom. The ones who did this.”
Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.
“I already killed two. They knew why it was happening. The second one — I made him say Harmony’s name before he died.”
My throat tightened.
“I won’t apologize for it. Not to you. You always told me to be kind, but I think even you would have made an exception for them.”
My eyes tracked the inscription cut beneath her name.
She loved them with everything she had.
“Sometimes I wonder if you’d even recognize me.”
I rested my palm against the top of the stone. “I hope you would.”
I left my hand there for a long moment.
The wind picked up, carrying cold air across the cemetery.
I rubbed my hands together and stood.
My sister’s grave was last.
Harmony Mitchell. Beloved daughter. Beloved sister. Your song lives on.
I set the yellow tulips down. They looked too bright against the gray stone.
“Hey, bug.”
The old nickname slipped out before I could catch it. I hadn’t said it in ten years.
“You’d hate this,” I said quietly. “Me kneeling in the wet grass talking to a headstone. You’d tell me to stand up before I caught pneumonia. You’d complain about my coat, then fix my hair without asking.”
A breath escaped me, almost a laugh.
“You’d want me to tell you everything. Nothing ever stayed a mystery with you for long,” I said.
“You used to climb into my bunk at midnight with whatever magazine you’d been reading and force me to listen while you went through it page by page.
By the time you finished I always had an opinion on some celebrity I’d never even heard of. ”
I touched the corner of the plaque.
“There’s a boy.” The words came out small.
I brushed a few rain-soaked leaves away from the base of the headstone.
“You’d have been ruthless about him. Stolen my phone to read our texts. Asked me the same questions every single day until I gave up and told you everything.”
You never forgot anything. Except that twenty dollars you still owed me.
A small smile tugged at my mouth. I shook my head.
“You cheated at cards and somehow always convinced me it was my fault.”
I tried to picture her at twenty-six, the age she would have been now. I imagined her with messy hair, bare feet on my kitchen table, and her phone in her hand asking me what color his eyes were.
“I didn’t plan for him. I came here to do one thing, and he’s… something I didn’t account for. He’s good to me. But I can’t stop. You know I can’t. I just wanted to tell someone, and the only people I tell things to are dead.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“He’d have liked you. Or maybe he wouldn’t. You would’ve given him hell for the first month, then decided he was okay after all. After that we never would’ve heard the end of it.”
My hand tightened on the edge of the stone until the granite bit into my skin.
“I feel guilty,” I whispered. “For being alive. For wanting him. For letting myself care about someone.”
My cat stirred inside me, unimpressed. She had never understood guilt for surviving.
The silence pressed in until I almost laughed at myself. Did I really expect Harmony to answer?
A gust of wind tugged at my braid, loosening a strand of hair across my face.
I let go of the stone and stood up slowly, then turned to the fourth grave.
My stone.
Harper Mitchell. Beloved daughter. Beloved sister. She was loved.
The dates were right. The shape matched the others. Janet had chosen the same gray granite, the same finish, the same font. She had made sure we looked like a family, even underground.
I kneeled in front of it. My fingertips traced the carved letters of my name. It didn’t feel like mine anymore. I wasn’t sure when I had stopped being her.
I laid the single white chrysanthemum at the base of the stone.
“For the girl who didn’t make it,” I murmured.
I stayed there until my legs went numb and the cold had worked its way deep into my bones.
Over the years, the memories of their faces and voices had grown softer, the edges blurring.
Their hugs. The sound of their laughter.
Even the way they smelled. You never notice how much you’ve lost until those details start to fade, replaced by the things you never wanted to become.
I looked at the four stones one last time.
"I'll come back."
The walk back to the car felt longer than it should have. I sat in the driver’s seat for a long moment with my hands on the wheel before I finally turned the key and drove back toward Ridgeview.