Chapter 2

The footage shook.

The first second showed flames filling the screen.

In the second, I saw myself from six years ago.

Eighteen-year-old Iris.

My face was covered in blood.

I was kneeling beside the overturned car door, bracing my shoulder against the twisted frame and shouting over and over.

"There are still people inside!"

I suddenly forgot how to breathe.

For the past six years, I'd doubted myself too.

After the crash, I'd inhaled too much smoke and suffered a head injury. When I woke up, my memories were fragmented.

I remembered fire.

Pain.

And the vague feeling that I'd dragged someone out.

But everyone told me I remembered it wrong.

Vanessa cried and said she'd saved them.

Dad said, "You were already scared out of your mind."

Bennett said, "Vanessa burned her shoulder saving me. Don't try to compete with her over this."

Graham had even stroked my hair and comforted me.

"It's okay that you didn't save anyone. I'll still protect you from now on."

They'd sounded so certain.

Eventually, even I believed them.

In the video, the first person I dragged out was my father.

The second was Bennett.

The third was Graham.

He was already unconscious, half his body trapped by the seat belt.

I sawed at the belt with a shard of broken glass until it finally snapped.

By then, the flames had reached the back seat.

An officer rushed forward and grabbed me.

"Miss, don't go back in! The car's going to blow!"

The girl on the screen ripped herself free.

"There's still one more!"

Three minutes later, I dragged Graham out inch by inch.

Then I collapsed.

Someone shouted behind the camera.

"Help the girl first!"

"Move! She's not breathing!"

My fingers slowly curled into my palm.

So it hadn't been a dream.

I hadn't remembered it wrong.

Another ten minutes passed before Vanessa came running from the other side of the highway.

She threw herself toward the stretchers, sobbing.

The injury on her shoulder hadn't been a burn.

She'd rushed forward too fast after the paramedics arrived and cut herself on a piece of twisted metal.

It wasn't a burn.

And it definitely wasn't an injury she'd gotten saving anyone.

When the video ended, I didn't feel the satisfaction I'd imagined.

I didn't even want to rush to the hotel and throw the footage in their faces.

Maybe the eighteen-year-old me would've done that.

She'd desperately wanted someone to believe her.

But I didn't anymore.

If someone's love for you had to be justified by video evidence proving you deserved it, then the proof itself had already become meaningless.

I closed the video, saved the file onto a USB drive, and pushed it into the back of a drawer.

My phone buzzed again.

Graham had sent me a photo.

Vanessa was sitting in what should've been my seat, her eyes red.

Graham crouched in front of her, tending to a cut on her finger.

There was only one line beneath the picture.

[You upset her so much she cut her hand on the cake knife.]

I stared at his hands.

I knew those hands too well.

For four years in college, they'd held umbrellas over me in the rain.

They'd mixed medicine for me when I had a fever.

The night we set our wedding date, Graham had held me and said, "Iris, I'll treat you right for the rest of my life."

Now those same hands were carefully bandaging another woman's finger as though he were repairing something fragile and precious.

And suddenly, I understood.

It wasn't that they didn't know how to care about someone.

When it came to me, they simply thought a little pain didn't matter.

At one that afternoon, everyone finally came home.

The first thing Mom did was confront me with red-rimmed eyes.

"Do you know how many guests came today?"

"Your father has never been this humiliated in his life!"

Dad slammed his car keys onto the table.

"The wedding's been moved to next week."

"You're not going anywhere for the next few days. Stay home and think about what you've done."

I lowered my eyes and took a sip of water.

"There won't be a next week."

The room went silent.

Graham was the first to laugh.

"Come on."

He walked over and instinctively reached out to ruffle my hair.

I moved away.

His hand stopped in midair.

"Still mad?"

"Okay, we went a little too far today. I'm sorry."

I looked at him.

"You think you only went a little too far?"

He was silent for two seconds.

"Vanessa was trying to make you happy."

"She didn't mean any harm."

"She saved my life. I'm not going to blame her over one joke."

Vanessa's eyes immediately filled with tears.

"Graham, stop. It's all my fault."

"I just thought Iris laughed in the end the first two times. I thought she'd like this too."

Mom immediately wrapped an arm around her.

"This isn't your fault."

"Iris's temper has just gotten worse lately."

I watched them.

Then I remembered the girl in the video.

Eighteen years old.

Blood all over her face.

Running into the flames for the third time.

Apparently, when your heart truly died, you didn't scream or break down.

You simply became too tired to explain.

I set down my glass.

"Vanessa."

She looked up.

"Yeah?"

"Who was the first person you pulled out of the car six years ago?"

Her expression stiffened for a split second.

Bennett immediately stepped in front of her.

"What are you trying to do now?"

"Just asking."

Vanessa clenched the hem of her dress.

Tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Iris, do you still blame me?"

She pressed a hand to her chest.

Her breathing suddenly became rapid.

Mom panicked.

"Vanessa!"

Graham rushed to her almost instinctively.

Bennett shoved me aside.

My lower back slammed into the corner of the dining table.

A sharp bolt of pain shot through me.

Nobody noticed.

Everyone surrounded Vanessa.

"Where's her medication?"

"Go get it!"

"Vanessa, breathe slowly. Look at me!"

She buried herself in Graham's arms, shoulders shaking with sobs.

Graham looked up at me.

His eyes were colder than I'd ever seen them.

"Iris."

"Don't bring up the accident to upset her again."

Holding onto the table, I slowly straightened.

"Okay."

That was the last time.

From now on, I wouldn't even ask.