Page 142 of The Night Shift

There’s something about the way she says it that instantly disarms me. Like she already knows the answer but wants to hear me say it. For some reason, I don’t object. I feel myself starting to give her whatever she wants to know. “A building in Brooklyn. We — Theo and I decided to check out a lead.”

“Did you find anything?”

I nod.

“What was it?”

A lump forms in my throat. I can barely swallow past it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She gently squeezes my hand. “Try.”

I take a breath. “I met an old friend tonight.”

Audrey nods, her eyes never leaving mine, urging me to go on. Her thumb rubs slowly against the inside of my wrist, and something inside me flips. Like a switch. It feels almost unnatural. Like I’m not talking to Audrey anymore, but some extended version of myself.

It feels easier to speak than to protest.

“Sid,” I say. “I didn’t realize how much it would hurt to see him again. His face looked exactly like hers.”

“Hers?” Audrey asks.

“Aanya,” I tell her. “I couldn’t bear her brother looking at me with so much pity as if I’m the one who needs to be told that everything’s going to be okay. It’s not. It hasn’t been for a long, long time. Tonight was too much. It’s been a decade, but it still hurts.”

“There’s no hard and fast rule about this, Holly.”

“Isn’t there? I mean, I can't even be sad without being guilty first, because what the hell do I have to be sad about?She'sthe one who isn't here anymore. Meanwhile, the man who raped her gets to walk free and work a job as if nothing ever happened. He fuckingrapedher, and I can’t even bring myself to face him because I’m scared of what it might do tome. Like if I see him, I’ll undergo some permanent emotional damage. I’m not sure that hasn’t happened already.”

“What do you mean?”

“Today. I was so scared to talk about Nate that I kissed Theo again. Yes, again.” My face goes hot with shame. “I kissed the one man I shouldn’t be kissing under any circumstances, and it was all because I didn’t want to talk about the other man — the only one — who terrifies me to death. How fucked up is that?”

“It’s not.”

“You don’t get it.” I shake my head, swallowing hard.

“Did you not want to kiss Theo?”

There’s a long pause. I look up. “I…well, I don’t know.”

Audrey raises an eyebrow.

“No. No, of course, I didn’t.”

“But you did it anyway.”

I nod. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I feel like it’s getting bad again. Sometimes it feels like it has been this way forever. I don’t remember a time when itwasn’tbad. WhenIwasn’t bad.”

“Holly, you are not bad.”

“Yes, I am. Everything good and kind about me died with her. I’m so exhausted of pretending to be fine. Maybe I do deserve all this. Being stalked and tormented and losing sleep until I can barely function. It eats at me every single day. What if I had said something different? What if I had noticed the signs in time? Reached out to her more? It doesn’t matter how long I wait or what heinous thing I do to cope with my own mental fragility — the wound never fucking closes.”

“Holly.”

“You know, I didn’t even cry at her funeral?” I cut in. “Not a single tear. I cried three months later walking to my dorm from the library. I cried for five hours straight. I don’t even know why.”