My brother’s eyes widen. I swear, even through the pounding rain, I see the calculation behind them.
“What keys, Liam?”
“The ones to Dad’s Explorer.”
Drew shakes his head. “So what? Even if you do, so what!?”
“Did you forget? I never touched them. Only you did.”
This time, he laughs. It is too fast. Too loud.
“You’re lying,” he says. “Besides, even if you did have them, they’ve been under the water. Any fingerprints would be gone.”
“You’re wrong,” I say, smiling. “I’ve been paying attention. I’ve been waiting.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A few years ago, I found an article. It was about identifying fingerprints on metal after it’s been in stagnant water. They have new methods now. Ones that can pull prints from metal that has been in the water for weeks.”
“Weeks! It’s been years!”
I look him right in the eyes. “No, it hasn’t.”
He recoils. It is slight. Less than a step, but I see it. I feed on it.
“I went back, Drew. I went into the water. I saw him, before he was just bones. The keys were under the water for less than a week. I’ve been holding on to them. Keeping them safe. But when I found the article, I went to someone. An expert.”
“No, you didn’t,” he says. “I would have known.”
“Not to the police,” I said. “To an investigator. He took the prints. He has a whole report.”
Drew snaps. I see the control breaking. His hands curl into fists. I take a step back and I pull the gun from my waistband. I raise it between us, my hand shaking. He looks down the barrel and then into my eyes. His head cocks to the side.
“You’re going to kill me?”
I take another step back. My finger slips into the trigger guard.
“You’re going to shoot me?”
“Shut up,” I say.
I make my voice shaky. The gun waves wildly. I stagger back a third step. I see his eyes narrow. His mouth set. He steps toward me.
“You can’t do it,” he says.
“You know I can,” I say.
He laughs again. “You can’t finish it. You couldn’t then. And you can’t now. You don’t have it in you. We both know that.”
I want more than anything to put a bullet into his face. I think about my life, every moment of it. I see the knife. The blood. I see their faces . . . because I never stood up to him. Never stopped him.
But he’s more right than he knows. I can’t hurt him. No matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. It is the easy answer. I could shoot him, kill him, and it would be over. Patsy would be safe. I would be free. It would finally be finished.
Every muscle in my body tenses, except that finger. It remains frozen, paralyzed by years of lies. I try. I do, but even before this all started, I knew I couldn’t. If I did, it wouldn’t really be over. The cycle would just continue. And it would swallow every shard of innocence now and forever forward. That is the emptiness. And that is the cycle I will break, whether anyone can understand or not.
On the fourth step, I slip on the muddy bank of the water. For a second, the gun points to the sky. That’s when Drew moves. His hand shoots out. He grabs the barrel. The handle slips from my hand. I fall back, throwing an arm behind me to break the fall. I sprawl with one leg folded below me and one jutting straight out between Drew’s feet. One arm is free. The other is pinned behind me, sinking into the mud.
I find my gun in my brother’s hand. The barrel now, finally, pointed at me. I look up into his face. He thinks it is over. He thinks he’s won.
“Get up,” he hisses.
“No,” I say.
His head jerks. “What? What did you say?”
“No,” I say calmly.
For just an instant, I see myself through my brother’s eyes. I lay prone in the dirt, but my eyes are soft. My jaw is lax. The fear is gone. So is the pain and even the numbness. I look up at him with the eyes of truth. I see him. And he sees me.
“Get up!” he screams.
“No,” I whisper.
He kicks me, hitting the inside of my thigh and my groin. The pain fires through my stomach, into my chest. I fight to find my breath. But I do not move. I will not do what he says.
“I’ll . . .”
“No,” I say again.
I know my brother. In a way, I am him. We are, and always have been, mirror images of one another. I have pulled the trigger for him his entire life. I have done what he needed to have done. And he has done whatever it took to keep his hands clean of it. The last thing he will do is pull the trigger himself. For he stands alone out here, no one to point to, no one to blame. No story to build up that portrays him as the hero. And me as his bumbling villain.
For my brother to pull the trigger, he needs to see no choice. He needs to have no story. I need to take that from him. I need to leave him naked and exposed, with only one choice moving forward.
I look him in the eyes. “I’m going to confess.”
He scoffs. “You don’t have the guts.”
“I do,” I say, a half smile creeping up my face. “I am going to tell them I stabbed him.”
“You’re right,” he says. “You did. You stabbed him. Not me.”
“I’m going to tell them everything. I’ve already talked to Lauren. And Patsy. I’m sorry, Drew,” I say. “I have to do it. I have to end all the lies.”
“They won’t believe you,” he says.
“I have proof now, Drew.”
“You can’t,” he says. “We’re family.”
“I know,” I say, closing my eyes. “You were right. I couldn’t shoot you. I couldn’t hurt you. But I can’t let anyone else be hurt now, either. Not anymore. Never again.”
It is the only way we can be free. That’s what I realized that night watching Patsy fall victim to my brother’s will. It is the only way to end this loop. To cut it clean and true.
The rain falls around us, between us. The sound fills my head as my brother says nothing. Slowly, I open my eyes again. I see his face. I see his pain.
“No, Liam,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
The gun shakes again, but this time in my brother’s hand. “I can’t let you. You know that.”
He is pleading with me now. But I say nothing. I just look up to him, up into the rain. It’s time.
“Liam!” he shouts.
“It’s over,” I whisper.
It’s funny, in a way. I swear I can see the weakness he must have seen in me all those years. But it is not written on my face. Not anymore. No, it is painted brightly within my brother’s wide eyes.
“I love you,” I say, but not to him. To her. “But you’re just like him. You can’t do anything yourself. You just sit there with your job like he used to sit there playing with his model. But he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, either.”
“No!” my brother yells.
I smile, something full and pure. “You’re just like Dad.”
That’s when everything changes. His eyes seem to refocus. That thin smile returns to his face. It’s like my words remind him. Maybe he was born into it. Maybe my father made him. Nature or nurture, it doesn’t matter. Drew is my father now. He has been for a long time. And just like my father, he can’t let the secrets out. He can’t let people know the truth. He can’t let a light shine on the monster inside. No matter what.
I stare at that smile. And I know I’ve won. I did it. It took me so many years to finally understand. He’s just like my father; there was no beating him at his game. Unless you played his game better.
My hand moves slowly. I reach into my pocket and pull out the keys. There are no prints. Time swallowed them years ago. There is no detective. There is just a lie, just my final move. The endgame.
He sees the evidence. The truth. And Drew believes. Everything I have done leads to this. My question will finally be answered. Either he will walk away, and I will know the depths of my weakness. The decades of lies I’ve told myself. Or he will pull the trigger. End this. And I’ll finally know for sure. I will finally be free.
My smile burns brighter than the lightning in the sky. And then my brother pulls the trigger. I hear the gun fire before pain flares just below my breastbone. The force drops me the rest of the way to the ground. My head hits the pond’s edge and I look up through the branches, at the slate-gray sky.
“Good-bye, Liam,” my brother says.
Faintly, I hear the sirens before the gun fires again. And I am still smiling.
“Thank you,” I whisper.