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SLOANE WENT TO bed stressed, and then woke even more stressed.
Memories plagued her nightmares. Being around so much death – all the blood and grief and terror – it was started to bring back memories she buried so deep that digging them up felt like physical torture. Her mind conjured them, reminding her of days that were shoved down with a swig of a bottle.
She was reminded of her dad.
Of the days before her dad died. Of the day he had his heart attack. Of the days after that, drowned out by the vodka Flash gifted her.
Over and over again, she dreamt of that day she found him, unable to shake it from her dreams. It had been a Tuesday afternoon. Her mother had been working late recently, but her father came home from his photography studio at 3 PM on the dot every day. Sloane got home at 4:35 after school. Cheer practice was a bitch. When she unlocked the door and dropped her house keys in a dish, she noticed the house was eerily quiet. All she could hear was the wind settling the triple-decker home. Pulling the cheer ribbon from her hair, Sloane ran her hands through the golden brown strands and began walking through the house. "Hello?" She called out. "Dad, you home?"
That was when she found him.
Stepping through the doorway to the kitchen, Sloane gasped at the sight of her father laying on the linoleum flooring, one hand flat against his chest. His eyes were glazed over, no life left in them. Sloane dropped her backpack on the floor and ran to his side. She screamed his name, checked for a pulse. She did those chest compressions they taught her in health class this year. But nothing was working. His heart wasn't beating. But she was still calling out his name as if he could hear her. She cried and cried and cried. The tears wouldn't stop as she laid her head on his still chest. She didn't even find the ability to call 9-1-1 until ten minutes later, when her words were finally coherent.
The paramedics said her dad suffered a heart attack. His strange mannerisms lately began to make sense now – the chest pain, the shortness of breath, nausea. Sabrina could've prevented it. Sloane could've prevented it, but she didn't. And now his death was going to weigh on her for eternity. Because she attributed to killing him. She was a killer –
