Page 243 of Irreversible

“And now you’re letting it out,” I mumble into her hair. “It’s over.”

Her tears soak my shirt, but I can feel her breathing steady, feel the tension ebbing from her frame. Both arms tighten around me, and she whispers it back, like a promise. “It’s over.”

When she finally pulls away, her face is streaked with tears and dust, but her eyes… They’re alive, shimmering with something fierce and untamed. She swipes at her cheeks and looks back at the gaping hole in the wall.

“I thought breaking it down would be the accomplishment,” she says, her voice soft, steady. “But it’s this. It’s just…this.”

I rest my forehead against hers and smile. “Fuck yes, it is.”

She tilts up and kisses me; deep, hard, and unrelenting. And when she pulls away, her gaze lingers on the wreckage behind us. She stares at it like the wall isn’t just broken—it’s gone.

And in its place, there’s a door.

“What are you thinking for career day?” Sara appears next to me wearing a flannel shirt and rainbow-striped Converse. Ribbons loop in bows at the ends of her braids, the same color as that stupid toy guitar she carries everywhere.

“Nothing.” Snatching the crumpled brochure out of her hands, I plop down on the curb with the comic I just picked up: Batman and Captain America.

My mother laughed at me when she saw the flier I brought home from school.

“She’s wrong, you know. No one can predict what you’ll be in the future. You can do whatever you want.”

I scuff my feet across the pavement. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew where I came from.”

“I do know.” Her fingers strum an off-key chord across the instrument’s plastic strings. “She told me.”

“She told you?” No…she wouldn’t. “You’re nine.”

“She said you’re not really my brother.”

I let the air out of my lungs. “That’s ‘cause I’m not.”

“Then you’re both wrong.”

I go back to reading while Sara pretends to play the guitar, but I can’t focus, and after several minutes, I pick the paper up and glance at it. “There’s nothing on this list I’d want to do, anyway. Might as well forget it.”

“You know what I think.” She nods at the comic book draped across my lap.

“Superhero isn’t a real career.” I roll my eyes.

“What about a police officer? You could still catch the bad guys.”

A humorless laugh bursts out of me. “Cops would hate me.”

“Why?”

“Because my father’s in prison. There’s probably some kind of background check.”

“Oh.” She plucks one string on the guitar, over and over, until it finally snaps, smacking her in the face. “Shit.”

Her eyes go wide, and she looks at me in horror. We burst out laughing.

The energy shifts when a line of bicycles passes in front of us—a group of kids she knows from school, calling to her to come to the playground. She waves, getting up to follow.

But at the last second, she freezes. Whirls.

“A private investigator! That’s what you should be. You could solve mysteries. That wouldn’t require a background check.” Then she grins. “But if you ever need a sidekick, you know where to find me.”

There’s a flurry of activity in the branches of the aspen tree in front of the house. I’ve been sent out here to make sure Mr. Binkers isn’t harassing the birds Everly saw building a nest earlier.

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