Page 51 of Irish

Catie's gaze drifted up, her eyes cold and distant. “Sorry?” Catie's voice cracked, barely containing her anger. “For what? For that night? For allowing them to take me and not doing a damn thing to help?”

Emilee nodded, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. “I was there, high out of my mind. You needed help, and I... I didn't get it.” In time anyway. She’d tried. Damn, had she tried. But she’d woken up in a hospital and no one could tell her anything about what had happened to Catie.

“Didn't…” Catie's voice faltered. “Ran away,” she whispered, voice laced with frost. “You ran when they came for me.”

“God! Yes, I did. I did. I didn’t know what to do…” Emilee's admission sliced the air, raw and jagged. “And I'll never forgivemyself.” She ran to get help. Ran to find a police officer. She ran… and couldn’t remember what happened after she ran. The words wouldn’t come out. She choked on them.

“Neither will I.” Catie stood up, her body trembling with barely suppressed rage. “Do you know what they did to me? They kept me captive, shooting me up for compliance until… until they left me. Alone to go through withdrawal by myself in the middle of the cold forest. Do you know what withdrawing off heroin without help is like? I thought I was going to puke out my organs. The pain… the helplessness… the desperation–”

“Please, Catie,” Emilee reached out, a plea in her touch. She did run, but she ran to find help. She was strung out on drugs, sure, but she’d known the desperation of the situation and wanted to help her friend.

“Stop.” Catie recoiled, her voice a viper's hiss. “Just stop.” There was silence, a chasm stretching between them. Emilee watched as Catie’s face contorted with anger. She wanted to say something, anything, to make it right, but the words caught in her throat.

“Look at me, Catie.” Emilee's voice was insistent, demanding attention.

Catie lifted her eyes. “I see you,” she said, each word a hammer strike. “I see you. I see the coward who stood by and did nothing as her best friend was kidnapped by vicious, violent men.”

“Anything, I'll do anything to make it right,” Emilee's words tumbled out, desperate.

“Live with it,” Catie returned sharply. “Like I have.”

“Please, Catie, I…” Emilee's voice faltered. I tried. I tried to get help. The words wouldn’t come out, and even if they had, would Catie believe her?

“Stop,” Catie interjected, her whisper a serrated blade. “Just stop.”

“I was lost too, back then. I didn't know…” Emilee reached out a hand.

Catie recoiled, a reflex born from survival, not spite. “Didn't know? Didn’t know how to call 9-1-1? Didn’t know how to scream for help? Didn’t know how to report to the police what you’d witnessed?”

“I was high… I didn’t know if what I’d seen was even real until days later. But, look at you now, though. You're so strong.” Emilee didn’t say what she wanted. She’d woken up in the hospital and demanded someone look into Catie’s disappearance. The detective told her there was no evidence of a kidnapping, chalked it up to her being high. Told her it was a nightmare, not reality.

“Am I?” Doubt crept into Catie's voice.

“Of course. You've come so far.”

“Far?” A snort escaped Catie. “From everything we were?”

“Everything we were?” Catie repeated. “That girl I once was is still here, in the shadows, waiting to remind me how fragile this all is. I fight against her every second of every day. Do you think it’s easy? It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever fucking done. Getting up everyday knowing it’s another day in battle against my own fucking self.”

“Yes, but every day, every moment, you choose to keep moving forward.” As she had. She spoke from experience. Some days, she was only one decision away from returning to the pits of hell.

“It’s a choice. A choice I make over and over again. Like the choice you made to allow me to be kidnapped and do nothing about it.”

“I make the same choice. I’ve left that life behind,” Emilee said, reaching out only to let her hand fall back to her side. She really couldn’t get her brain and her mouth to connect. She wanted to bite back at her, tell her she was wrong. Catie saw herrun as she was taken, but she didn’t know what happened after she ran. Somehow, she knew Catie wouldn’t be open to hearing any of it.

“Left it behind?” A bitter laugh escaped Catie's lips. “It's never behind me. It's beside me, with every step I take. The memories, the nightmares, the flashbacks… I’ve learned how to deal with them, but they aren’t behind me. They still haunt me.”

Emilee's gaze faltered, pain etched into the lines of her face. “That doesn't mean you haven't changed. It doesn't mean?—”

“I have changed. I’ve found strength I didn’t know I had inside of me. But, change doesn't erase the past. It doesn't warm the cold nights I spent alone in that shed, wondering if I'd die before morning. It doesn’t erase the fear I felt, or the hope that faded. Surely, my best friend has called the police. Rescue will come. She got the license plate number… I waited and waited, thinking you’d done the right thing. That hope faded when they never came, because you never called them. If I’d died, you’d have been partly responsible. You watched evil happen and did nothing to stop it.”

“Please, don't do this,” Emilee begged, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

“You ran when I needed you most. When I was dragged away into the night, where were you?”

“Lost,” Emilee confessed, her composure fracturing. “But I'm here now, Catie. I’m so sorry–” She’d tried to get to the police station but she’d gotten lost along the way. She’d turned and been hit by a car. Waking up in the hospital, the first thing she did was ask about Catie. Demand to see a detective…

“I need you to hear what I am saying,” Catie snapped. “I spent nights in that shed, freezing, convinced I was going to die alone. Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Save your apologies! I don’t want to hear them!” Catie's shout sliced through the growing tension. Heads turned, eyes peered, but shedidn’t appear to care less. “Your apologies can't warm the cold nights or erase the screams that still echo in my ears!”

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