My stomach felt cold. Like I drank ice.
Rowan watched me. His eyes didn't blink much. "Explain," he said. His voice was flat. Not mean. Just… waiting.
I opened my mouth. My tongue was dry. Like paper. "I was there," I got out. The words were sticky. "Earlier. On the bridge. I talked to her. Then I left. I went home. I wasn't there for… for that."
"The time on the picture says 9:47 PM," he said. His finger tapped the photo. Tap. Tap. On my paper face. "She died around then. 9:45 to 10, the doctor says. This is you. Right next to her. And you're smiling."
"I don't remember smiling." It sounded stupid. Kid stuff. I don't remember.
"Do you remember being there at 9:47?"
I tried. I squeezed my brain. The bridge. The black water. Her back. Not moving. The feeling in my guts. Like a fist. Then turning. Walking away. My shoes on the gravel. Crunch crunch. Then… fuzzy. A patch. Like when you wake up and the dream is running away and you can't grab it. A blank space between the bridge and my front door. Maybe twenty minutes. Gone.
"I… there's a gap," I said. My voice was quiet. A mouse-voice. "A short one. I might have… stayed. Looked back. Something. But I didn't hurt her. I don't know how to do… air in veins." Saying it felt weird. Air. You breathe it. You can't kill with it. But you can.
Rowan kept looking. The light above us buzzed. A fly was hitting the window. Tick tick tick.
"Memory," he said finally. "It's a tricky thing. Under stress… it breaks. Hides pieces. Sometimes it hides pieces from us. To protect us."
"From what?" I asked.
"From ourselves."
The words hung in the air. They mixed with the buzz and the tick-tick. I got it. The hollow feeling. It wasn't just empty. It was a hole where a memory should be. A guilty memory.
"Am I a suspect?" I already knew.
"Everyone is a suspect until they're not," he said. He leaned back. His chair squeaked. "You found her. You were the last to see her. And now this picture." He waved at it. "You're a 'person of interest.' Big interest." He paused. "But. I've been a cop a long time. People who kill like this… clean, no mess, like a doctor… they don't usually stand around on cameras. Smiling. It's weird. The killing is invisible. The person on the bridge isn't. It's like… two different people."
"Or one person," I said. The idea came fast. "But in two different… minds."
Rowan's head moved. A slow nod. "Yeah. That."
He let me go home. "Don't go far," he said.
Home didn't feel like home. The couch was gone. The cops took it. A white rectangle was on the floor. Dusty. A couch ghost. I didn't sit there. I sat at the kitchen table. The chair leg was wobbly.
Krivya.
Now I knew her name. Before she was just the girl. The one from the accident. The one in class. The one on the bridge. Now she was Krivya Sharma. 17. Lived with an aunt. Quiet. Had a life. And her life ended and I was in the picture.
Literally.
The texts had stopped. No more "You don't remember." Silence. The silence was worse. It was heavy. Like waiting for a shoe to drop. But you don't know where the shoe is.
My phone buzzed. Rinos.
Rinos: heard. u ok?
Me: no.
Rinos: need anything? i can come.
I stared. My first thought was NO. Go away. Let me be hollow alone. But the hollow ached. It was a big, quiet ache. I needed a voice. A real one.
Me: yes. come.
He came quick. He had a plastic bag. Smelled like fried stuff. And a six-pack of FizzUp soda. Orange. He didn't say hey or anything. Just put the food on the table. Two containers. He opened them. Rice. Some chicken curry. He pushed one to me. Gave me a fork. A napkin. The napkin had a stupid cartoon cow on it.
We ate. The food was warm. Greasy. Good. We didn't talk for a bit. Just chewing. It was okay. Comfortable quiet.
After a while I said, "They think I might have done it."