Jaime ran into the flames.
Holland took the shot for that kid.
And I cowered in the background.
What made me different? Why didn’t I act? In that moment of utter panic where the spirit is supposed to take flight and legends are supposed to be produced, why didn’t that superhuman conviction take over? What went wrong in my brain, in my soul that made me unable to defend her?
Jaime got third degree burns.
Holland lost mobility below the chest.
I remained completely unharmed.
Well, that’s a lie. I’m scarred inside. PTSD, I guess you’d call it. But still, that’s a lot better than what she got.
It wasn’t her fault, or my fault. It was those vandals’ fault. Blame the perpetrator, right? People don’t always do that, but I don’t get why. Maybe they feel like if they’re more lenient with the suspects then they’ll get more leniency if they ever screw up and do something dumb themselves. Karma, or whatever. But I think that’s bullshit. Well, no, it’s not total bullshit. I see what they’re thinking, but when something like that happens… you can’t blame anyone but those godforsaken animals.
No, that’s not right either. You can blame the bystander. You can blame me.
Jaime got a medal of valor.
Holland goes to that kid’s recitals and has dinner with their family.
I go to bed every night with her twisted body behind my eyelids and I wake every morning with her blood on my hands, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I deserve it. There wasn’t anything you could have done, I tell myself, they were huge and strong and had freaking metal bats. But still, I could have tried. I could have gone for it. I can’t go and blame my brain or God or whatever for what happened, that’d be removing myself from the situation. And I don’t deserve that. I should be accountable for what I did. What I didn’t do.
Jaime doesn’t like having bonfires anymore.
Holland won’t ever be able to run the marathon.
And I’ll keep eating toasted marshmallows and going on Sunday morning jogs for the rest of my life. How is that fair? Somebody tell me how it’s fair that the heroes, the people who managed to save lives for no reason other than that it was the right thing to do, have to live without their favorite things while the cowards live on in luxury. I’m not stupid, that’s just how the world works, but how can God sit by and let all this happen? How can people live with themselves in a world like this?
Jaime put his medal in a box in the attic.
Holland insists the whole thing is really no big deal.
And I can’t move on.
But I guess that’s what makes it fair, in the end. The torment that stays every moment of every day for the rest of eternity. That’s what makes it fair.