Chapter 9: The Confession
I stood still. “I’m not sorry.”
“Say it!” she screamed, stepping closer.
“I’m not sorry I’m alive,” I said, my voice shaking but steady. “And I’m not sorry you finally got caught.”
She swung the lighter toward the dry hay stacked against the wall. “Then burn with him!”
“Colleen!” Elias’s voice cut out loud—he’d worked the gag loose. “You know what happens if you do this? You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. Is that what you want?”
“I want her gone!” she sobbed. “Everything was perfect until she came back!”
“Nothing was perfect,” I said soft. “You were always scared. Always jealous. Always waiting for someone to see you for who you really are.”
For a second, the lighter wavered. Colleen looked at me, really looked at me, and all the anger drained out—replaced by emptiness.
“I just wanted them to love me,” she whispered. “My parents. Everyone. I thought if I was better than you… they’d see me.”
“They loved you,” I said. “You just didn’t believe them.”
Sirens blared in the distance. Colleen looked at the lighter, then at me, then dropped it in the dirt.
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