What Crawls Below

Epilogue

As if senior year weren't hard enough, Tuesday Hale once again found herself playing the role of a pariah.

Those last months were a new level of hell she'd never known. Passing by people she used to know, now no better than strangers, every day--it wasn't easy baggage to shoulder. They avoided her like the plague and when Tuesday did catch brief glimpses of Jordan through the crowd, she always felt the regret deep in her core. Tuesday recognized a familiar look in the other girl's eyes, something she wouldn't have wished on anyone. Something that doesn't go away even after months of therapy and the occasional bender--Tuesday would know.

Things were certainly no easier when she had to do them alone.

Mary had tried to explain the kind of healing Cyrus needed went beyond the spiritual or supernatural, and it was a path he could only take alone. It didn't mean goodbye, not necessarily. If he found himself again, maybe they'd find each other somewhere down the line.

Maybe wasn't good enough for her. Not after everything. Her own feelings for him were permanently skewed, but the memory of him refused to die.

For the first few weeks she considered going to the police. Guilt took everything from her--decent sleep, any sense of calm she could wish to have, hope for the future--and it threatened to drag her under. She would do anything to release the pressure, anything, even if that meant confessing her sins and throwing away the key.

But no, living on the outside was the worst punishment of all. Out here she had the chance to build more bridges only to watch them, inevitably, burn, one after the other until she was left with just a pile of ashes and her own withered skeleton.

Somehow Tuesday made it to graduation, something she never could have imagined happening. It remained such a shock that the weight of it didn't truly set in until she was already walking across the stage.

As she accepted the diploma, she froze in place, pinned there under the lights and the roar of a couple thousand classmates and all their eyes on her. In the haze of her mind she imagined all their stares as accusatory ones, angry ones--all but one, where her loving aunt waited in the middle of the crowd with a ready smile for her.

It was enough to at least allow her to breathe. Tuesday began to turn, her moment in the spotlight over, and exit the stage when something else caught her eye.

Beyond the bleachers, so far back in the stadium she couldn't be sure she was seeing things correctly--couldn't be sure it was who she thought it was--Tuesday saw a boy standing by the exit doors. The moment slowed and stumbled to a halt like this was all just a long and terrible show, and someone had paused the television--when in reality, the look they shared lasted only a second or two. Then Tuesday blinked, and whatever she thought she saw was once again gone.

It was enough, whether it had been reality or a mirage, to allow some sense of peace to settle over her. The weight that had been hanging around her like a shroud lifted, and as Tuesday found her way back to her seat, she began to wonder just what her future could look like.

Just because she'd started down one path headstrong and hell-bent didn't mean all the other avenues had been roped off to her. Tuesday half-believed this, and knew as more time passed and all the scars riddling her began to fade time would make the concept even easier to swallow.