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I take a deep breath. I know what he means. I pause, considering. The words I’ve kept locked up for years strain to get out, the admission I’ve refused to share with anyone.

And then I decide. If Declan was brave enough to tell me his story, then I can at least return the favor.

“I had a…rough childhood,” I start, slowly.

“My brother was the golden child. Jimmy was straight out of a teen movie from the nineties. He was handsome, got good grades, was the quarterback of the school’s football team.

He could do no wrong. But that was in public.

Behind closed doors he was someone else entirely.

It was like he flipped a switch as soon as we were alone.

Any time my parents left the house, he became someone else. A monster.

“He’d say horrible things to me. Tell me I was nothing, that I had no friends, that I didn’t deserve love.

I don’t know where it came from, this apparent hatred he had for me.

But what he said stuck.” I remember his words lodging like a knife between my ribs, worming their way through my flesh, until they infiltrated my bloodstream, becoming a part of me.

“I became incredibly shy; I removed myself from all the public situations I could. I was an outcast in school. All because of him.”

I clock Declan’s shocked face, and a small part of me takes pride in the fact that I was able to bury that version of myself deeply enough that no one would ever suspect. But I look away, not wanting to see his reaction to what’s coming next.

“Apparently that wasn’t enough for him. When I was about thirteen, it started turning physical. Jimmy would sneak into my room at night, long after my parents were asleep. And he would do…things. And the entire time, he would whisper in my ear, ‘You are nothing, you are a disgrace.’”

I hear Declan inhale sharply.

“There was no way I could stop him,” I continue.

“No way anyone would believe me. He was the perfect one, and I was the weird, nerdy little sister. They would have said I was desperate for attention. That it was a sick way for me to get back at him. I remember I asked my parents to put a lock on my bedroom door. I told them I’d been having nightmares. They laughed in my face.

“When I got to high school, it started happening more and more.” I squeeze my eyes shut as if to force out the memories.

The sounds of his footsteps in the hallway outside my bedroom door, the way my muscles would lock up when I would hear him turn the doorknob.

“I knew I had to do something. That if I didn’t find a way to end it, I wasn’t going to survive.

“And then, one night, I went to a birthday party. It was for a girl in my grade who had a massive crush on Jimmy. She had no interest in me whatsoever. It was just a way for her to get closer to him, by befriending his social disgrace of a sister. I hadn’t planned to go, but she must have mentioned something to him, and he brought it up to my parents, who were over the moon.

Being invited to parties wasn’t a regular occurrence for me, if you hadn’t already guessed.

They thought this was my chance to start being more ‘normal.’

“So, they forced me to go, and it was terrible. A group of us huddled in this girl’s basement.

Everyone ignored me at first, until someone pulled out a bottle they’d stolen from their parents’ liquor cabinet.

Peach schnapps or something like that. Someone passed it to me, and I declined.

And that’s when the fun started. All the comments Jimmy used to make to me were suddenly coming from those girls.

And they were just as relentless as he was.

“The party was supposed to be a sleepover, but I couldn’t stand to be there a single minute more.

Even the idea of going home, to risk a run-in with my brother during the night, was more appealing than staying and being their punching bag.

So, I called my parents, asked them to pick me up.

They were out, some fundraising gala or something, and Jimmy answered the phone. He agreed to get me.

“He picked me up with a big smile and a heartfelt apology to the girl and her parents.” God, I can still remember her swooning as he appeared in her front doorway. “But as soon as we got in the car, it started. His hand on my leg, steadily working its way up my thigh as he said disgusting things.”

Even now, I cringe as I hear his words in my head. You are pathetic; even those girls think so. The feel of his skin on mine.

“Before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed the wheel. He only had one hand on it, and between that and the shock, it turned easily. We swerved directly into this big old oak tree. He would have been fine if it was just the collision. In fact, after the shock wore off, he started screaming, grabbing at me. Blood was rushing from his head, but he would have made it if…”

My mouth grows dry, and I struggle to swallow.

“The tree came down.” It was sick, I learned later, one that the owner planned to have cut down just a few days later. “It split from the force of the collision, and it crashed down on the car, directly onto the roof over the driver seat. He died instantly.”

I leave the story hanging between us, not daring to speak, to move, to breathe.

Until I feel Declan’s hand crawling into mine, his fingers wrapping around my knuckles.

“You did what you had to do to save yourself,” he whispers.

I thought coming to Australia was the escape I needed, but that clearly didn’t work.

And now it’s almost time to go home, back to that house in Atlanta where my parents pretend not to know me.

The police never formally charged me with causing the crash, there wasn’t any clear evidence to do so.

But they also didn’t believe that Jimmy swerved to avoid a deer in the road, like I’d told them. Neither did my parents.

And word got around, as it always did. Not only did I become even more of a social outcast—something I hadn’t imagined was even possible—but I was now the girl who killed her brother. The star quarterback, the charming high school senior that everyone loved.

I had become the monster.

***

Declan’s words ring in my head long after we go back inside the bar, and I still hear them replaying as our group stumbles back to the Inn hours later.

You did what you had to do to save yourself.

I did it once; I can do it again. And it’s not just me who needs saving now. This little baby growing inside me does too.

And as I lie there, in my uncomfortable twin bed back at the Inn, the threads of a plan start to weave together.

A way to save us both.