Chapter 33
Annica wins the short-story competition.
After two days in bed I turn my phone back on to a whole host of messages, including an email from Renner to the class breaking
the news. She must have submitted her final story before spring break. But since she’s dead, and a murderer, the second-place
story will get the prize.
Whoever that is, because it isn’t me.
I almost laugh at the irony. She wanted so badly to win, to beat me in something, and she finally did. But she’ll never know.
Or maybe she will. Maybe she’s looking down—or looking up, rather—at my life now, smug as the hell I hope she’s now an occupant
of.
I sit up, watching the small specks of dust float around in the morning sun before I make eye contact with the small trash
bin in my room. Miles Holland’s story sticks out at the top of it. He was right about one thing; it is not his story to tell.
I look over at my goals still taped to my mirror. The only one not crossed out: Write your first book.
It’s not Holland’s story to tell, because it’s mine.
I take my laptop from my bag and open it up. I won’t write a eulogy for everyone who broke my heart this year. I will write a whole damn book.
I let it all sink in. Adrienne smiling at me while seeing Miles behind my back. Annica’s soothing words after every murder,
the ones she committed. And Asher. I can’t even think of him without wanting to hyperventilate and crawl back under the covers.
I scroll through what has to now be hundreds of text messages and voicemails he’s left me in the past few days begging for
forgiveness. He says he loves me, but it won’t be enough. It will never be enough. He was the biggest liar of them all.
So here I sit at the final chapter of my senior year, the last ten minutes of the series, and I’ve decided for once, I will
choose myself. I didn’t get a love story, or even a happy ending, but I won’t close the book empty-handed.
After all, every ending is a new beginning, right?
My fingers hover over the keyboard as I take a deep breath. When I start to type, I imagine in the limited-series version
of my life, the camera would zoom into the screen as the letters began to appear one by one on the page, the blinking cursor
pausing at the end.
Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart