When She Was Me

by Marlee Bush

But sometimes I still touch the trees, if only to remind myself that even the most identical things have thumbprints.

I believe in ghosts more than therapy. Not that I’d ever tell Lenora that.

But I’ll never let slip the smell that seeped through the cracks of his front door. I know this from experience. After all, Wayne isn’t the first person I’ve known to become a corpse.

Dam

He doesn’t understand that I’m the reason she’s ruined.

did she light her sister on fire 🔥

On that night fifteen years ago, Lenora and I walked down a hallway together. But when the door opened, the scene unfolded like a sick feature film.

The need to squeeze my eyes shut against the images is there. That’s what I’ve always done, isn’t it? Closed my eyes when looking became too uncomfortable. When the truth had the power to corrode my insides, looking away was the only way to save myself.

Every time a new crime documentary airs or there’s a newscast on the anniversary, a flurry of tips come rolling in.

🤔

I want to tell her more. The truth. That there’s a battle in me. A war waging in the deepest pit of my stomach. The thing I did versus who I am.

Keeps all my bullshit inside. Keeps me normal.

sweetie no one is normal

Yes, I remember the old scraggly dog. I also remember what happened after. Cassie is humming to herself, oblivious and in her own perfectly normal world. “The dog died,” I whisper.

“The dog,” I say, louder this time, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why I have to ruin things. “I killed him.”

But the thoughts linger, one piercing through worst of all, a vision of me standing in that hallway, my hands slick with red. Cassie’s high-pitched voice from behind me. Lenora, what did you do? And the fear. Burning hotter than the blood on my hands.

WTF?!?

When I sit in front of the camera, I like to wear their skin. The victims. Slip them on like an evening coat and pretend their lives and mine are the same. I’m not just me anymore. Not just Cassie—a woman who lives in the middle of nowhere, avoiding a sordid past, taking care of her sister.

WTF?!?! My jaw dropped when reading this OMFG did she kill her sister and is wearing her skin as a suit

That perspective is what made my channel grow. The comments on my videos were mostly alike. Telling me how refreshing it is to learn about the victims. To focus on them. To remind ourselves that they are not defined by one single moment. They were alive once. People who loved and hurt and lost.

Jesus... this book is gonna be a fucking ride. WTF

“So is looking through people’s windows at night, and yet here we both are.”

My sister. Wide awake and standing in the window. Wispy hair parted down the middle, curtaining her face. A white cardigan wrapped over thin shoulders. Waiting on me. Searching for me in the night, and for one second, one brief moment, I consider turning around and running. Going anywhere except that cabin. Instead, I lift my hand in an apologetic wave and walk toward my sister. And I can’t help but wonder how much she saw. Or why it seems to matter so much.

The most basic question is there. Right there. Burning—no pun intended—incessantly on my tongue. Who did this? Who would do this? But it’s almost as if the question is being asked just as a steel door slams. I can’t let myself answer it. Can’t even think the answer.

Which sister is a pyrotechnics?

“Did you do this?” There it is. The words burst out of me as the dam breaks. “Of course not! Are you serious?” You’re appalled. Honestly shocked I’d even insinuate such a thing. The guilt gnaws at me. Maybe I spoke too soon. Jumped to a ridiculous conclusion. “Who did it then?” “It must have been another animal.” Your voice lowers into a near whisper. “I can’t believe you’d think it was me.” Since we were kids, I’ve admired that about you. Your ability to think on the spot. To smooth over hard situations with delicacy and finesse. Your ability to make me feel like an idiot. “Another animal? It’s been—it’s been burned.”

“You come here often? To Wellesley House?” You glance behind me at the crumbling foundation of what once was one of the grandest homes in town. Last summer hangs over us. The balmy night air. The mosquitos. The smoke. Finally, the mirth leaves your eyes. I regret my question instantly. I never mean to upset you. “Same as you.”

You’re right. You must be right. Maybe not about everything but at least right about what happened to Aswell. Another animal. A kid playing a joke. You’re not defined by what happened last summer. I can’t judge you for one mistake. That’s the antithesis of my own beliefs. I should know better.

Get her help...you think she started it

We both pretend a lot, you and I. Only I think, Sister, that you’re a little better at it than I am.

Buckel up we are in for a wild ride

But I didn’t do those things. Not really. Not when I’m still stuck at the end of that hallway. Not when Cassie is the one who left me there. Rage pools inside me until I can swim in it. There are more words I want to say, but I swallow them back, pick up my spoon, and force a smile. “It’s OK. It’s been a stressful few days.”

Fuck I wanna know the back story so bad I think Cassie is a serial killer and Lenora a pyromaniac

Daphne is practically screaming in my ear about the importance of communication, but I force her voice away. It’s much easier to pretend.

Who the fuck is Daphne?

Two strangers in the night. I want to tell her I understand. I want to tell her it’ll get better. That mothers misbehave too. I get it more than anyone.

WTF

“Lenora, what did you do?”

Did she fucking kill Tilly

It hurts to remember. Not because of what I saw but because of what it means. Even now, it can’t be true. At least not all of it. A dream, I tell myself. Only a dream. A memory.

I have to act quickly and quietly. It’s not that I don’t want Cassie to know I sleepwalked again; it’s that I don’t want her to worry about it. To worry about me more than she already does.

Bitch I don't think you are sleep walking I think your insane

I fight the urge to shut down. But I can’t. I can’t let Cassie see me like this. I have to move, have to keep going. I throw all my sheets into the washing machine first, then grab my coat, slip on my boots, and walk to the back door. My whole body is trembling, and I haven’t even opened it yet. I never go outside at night. Something about the dark, about the shape of the trees. It makes me see things. Makes me remember things.

I can still smell leftover bonfire and another type of burning that reminds me of things it shouldn’t. A life gone up in flames. The person I no longer am.

“No.”

Liar

It’s a secret. And I know Cassie must have one too.

There is an unshakable pressure on my rib cage. The last time I felt like this was when I awoke that night fifteen years ago. That pressure hadn’t ceased, but as years passed, I learned to bear it, carrying my sister’s weight, dragging us both just a little further.

Your hair is wet, Lenora.

It’s there that I see the flash of silver catching the early morning sun. Nearly hidden by brush and bramble. A coin. The image doesn’t connect at first. It’s something I see every day, that coin with the face rubbed off. The perfect indentation of Lenora’s thumb. Not like it’s alien to me. But it being outside. Sitting here on dead grass beside my rock. That’s what doesn’t make sense at all.

WTF Lenora

And maybe the last time I really knew what Lenora was thinking was when she was me.

Not because Lenora was in those woods that night. Not because her silver dollar—

The coin itself is tucked into one of my drawers, and I can hear it rolling around in there all the way from the kitchen. Banging against its enclosure, screaming at me to just let it out. I can hear it chanting a simple truth. Lenora was in the woods. Lenora was in the woods. Lenora was in the woods.

Damn

She lied, and we promised each other we wouldn’t do that. Not to each other. Never to each other. And she’s still doing it.

“It hurt me, Cassie.” She says, “It hurt that you lied about him. It hurt that you need him.” “I lied to protect you.”

“Something else that happened last night. I think—I think I may have seen her.” With that, the glass splinters. “Around the time I was awake. I think I saw Tilly leave her cabin.” “You saw Tilly last night?”

Feels like another lie

She doesn’t want to tell me the truth, but I’ll take it from her anyway. Because she’s me and I’m her and we’re the same. “This has something to do with the nightmare, doesn’t it?”

Especially when none of this is her fault. Because if every bad thing stems from that night, then I’m the catalyst. I’m the one who ran. Who could really blame Lenora for what happened afterward?

“Just a shower,” I repeat slowly. “You’re sure?” Lenora’s mouth tightens in a line. “I wouldn’t lie to you. Not about this.”

Forcing myself to take a calming breath, I think of the day before Tilly went missing. The way Lenora watched her out the window. Then I think of her coin on the Blacktop. Now sitting in a dark drawer in my room.

There has to be another explanation for it all.

Not necessarily

Just because Cassie doesn’t like it or understand it doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong. Besides, this is different from last time.

Her knowing I was out there that night would only stress her out and make things worse.

So we know Lenora was at the blacktop and we know she saw Tilly and we know or we think we know that Tilly and her mom got into an altercation and Tillys mom slapped her across the face.

This is about Tilly, and nothing about her being missing makes sense.

I remember her. The look on her face as she confronted me at the window. The sound of her voice standing up to her mother. The slap reverberating across the hill. I heard it. I saw it. Tilly was hurt that night, and what do hurt, rebellious teenagers do? They run.

That Tilly is free. Tilly got away.

So did you kill Tilly?