There are infinite stories and infinite endings, but they all lead to the same place.
Daddy thinks we all get reincarnated to repeat suffering over and over again until we figure out the magic trick to not worry about our pain anymore.
Papa thinks we turn into dirt, into dust, and eventually back into atoms, into energy. We turn from biology into physics. We are stardust that will eventually get turned back into stars. The universe is expanding now, but it will probably reverse course at some point, like a rubber band that gets stretched too tight and snaps back in on itself. A reverse big bang. Nothing into something into nothing again. Energy gets recycled, but not souls.
Daddy calls it samsara. Papa calls it science. Daddy says the Buddha was the original psychologist. Papa just sighs.
Some endings have a surprise twist. Everyone loves surprise twists, even the tragic ones.
Of course the police figure out who owns the car. Ash called and told them it was Ivy. But still, they take their time, and Ash is already on a plane going somewhere without us, on his way to some frozen island like Iceland, somewhere Tami won’t have to break a sweat. In first class, they will have their own room, their own bed with satin sheets, walls to separate them from their neighbors, and the noise of the plane’s engine will drown out any sounds they might make to distract themselves from what they’ve left behind.
There’s a fine line between feeling shame and having a conscience, and maybe Ash and Tami have always been able to buy their way out of both.
They end up together because that’s how destiny works. You’re born on a path and it does not diverge, no matter how much you want it to. It is a law of science that the simplest solution is the best one. A river always finds the easiest path to the ocean.
In the end, there is always equilibrium. There is always balance in the universe. Vaughn is dead and Ash’s punishment is he will give up Ivy. In the logic of their world, that will make him and Tami even.
And what about Ivy?
There’s the version we all know, the classic: Pick the most innocent among us and destroy her. Find the victim and throw tragedy at her. Or worse, make her the destroyer too. Beat her up so bad, she breaks. Turn her into one of us.
That’s the choice when you are broken. Either you turn into dust, or you start breaking things.
But what is left for us to break?
I wake up to the smell of smoke.
This ending is different, but it leads to the same place. In every ending, someone always has to pay.
I hear the gunshots. Somehow I run down the hill even though I still can’t feel my feet.
Some people have lost so much, they don’t have anything more to lose.
I beat the police to Ivy’s house, but someone else got there first.
You would almost think someone colored the pool water pink on purpose. A few drops from some giant squeeze bottle of food coloring, mixed around with one of those long nets people use to pull out leaves and dead bugs. If only there weren’t that bullet-ridden body floating in the middle of it, facedown, long dark hair fanned out like a shroud.
And there, a few feet away, is Raine, Vaughn’s newly widowed wife, a handgun next to her, lying on the burning tile in a pool of blood with half her face gone.
What were Ivy’s final thoughts before she died? Was she still waiting for Ash? Did she still think they were going to run away together? Was she planning their escape to that other island half a world away, the place where all this began, where she believed she could go back in time and become unbroken? Did she die with her dream intact?
Or maybe that is just the story we think we know.
Maybe she finally realized Ash wasn’t coming. That she had packed her suitcase for nothing. Did she ever figure out that he was never worthy of any of this?
Maybe someone else had to figure it out for her. Maybe she was too far gone to realize it for herself.
Sometimes we need help to make us see the truth. Sometimes it has to hurt.
Maybe Ivy did figure it out in time.
Maybe someone helped her.
Did we ever really believe Ash loved Ivy? Or did he merely see someone beautiful and charming, another name to add to the long list of people who worship him? Someone warm and open, someone who would sometimes listen? Someone who made him, for the briefest of days, more complicated?
But Ash has chosen to not be complicated. He likes comfort too much. And he’s not that brave after all. At this very moment, he is somewhere above us all, unburdened by the weather or the people he left behind, in first class with the girl who doesn’t trouble him with wanting to know who he is.
And now, if Ivy didn’t figure it out, if no one could help, then Ash has this story he can tell, the story of a star who loved him so much, it killed her. He can take that trophy with him wherever he goes. That will be the extent of his depth and damage.
He’s gone, back into Tami’s arms where he came from, the privilege of his destiny untarnished, and Ivy has met the tragic ending waiting for her at the bottom of her dream.
Ivy and Ash were my dream.
Alive or dead, they’re both gone.
So what does that mean for me?