Page 38 of Irreversible

She hesitates for too long. “I guess I can’t be sure.”

But she sounds like she’s sure. And that goddamn treasure trove of trinkets says it all, doesn’t it? Just like the feeling in my gut.

She doesn’t say anything else for a long time.

I close my eyes.

In the dead space, the haunted air seeps into my pores. Maybe I reallydiddie under that bridge, with Dolph and his goons kicking my limp body into the muddy ground. This cell feels like limbo. Purgatory. The Devil’s waiting room.

I’m no ghost-whisperer, but my life’s work has been based on talking to the deceased—following their footsteps, studying victimology, analyzing their final moments. I’ve just never beenoneof them before.

Feels a lot like drowning.

“Nick?”

The sound of my name—Nick’s name—pulls me to the surface.

“Do you like music?” she asks.

“No.”

“Come on. Tell me one song that makes you feel everything.”

I swallow. It tastes like sour memories and fleeting happiness. Like hopelessness and regret. “I told you,” I mumble. “There’s nothing.”

I haven’t felt anything in a long, long time.

There’s nothing but a deep, black hole where my heart should be. A dull roar in my ears. It suits me. That’s how my life started, and that’s how it’ll end. But just for a little while, therewasmusic…

I didn’t hate it back then.

A melody plinks note by note in a far-off memory that feels like a dream. Strings plucked. An acoustic guitar, played with skilled fingers, strummed with a blue guitar pick. That’s the one she would have been using that night. The only one she used since the day I gave it to her.

It’s just an inanimate object. Not much different than any of Everly’s other mementos of the dead: a tube of lip balm, a rubber band, a wad of string braided into a bracelet.

But this one has the power to shake me to my core.

As Everly continues, I imagine a solo female voice joining the phantom chords, like a haunting accompaniment. “Sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on what makes a song special,” she says. “Could be the harmonies, the cadence, or a lyric thatreaches in and expresses something you’ve never been able to put into words. But sometimes there’s one that manages to capture that whole package; a song—that reaches into your soul and saysI get you.”

My lungs slowly deflate. The way she talks about music sounds a lot like Sara.

“Mine is ‘The Scientist,’” she adds.

“The what?”

“‘The Scientist’ by Coldplay. You’d know it if you heard it.”

I know it.

“It’s been my favorite song since middle school,” she explains. “It was Annie’s favorite song, too.”

“Annie?” My voice cracks.

Who the fuck is Annie?

“The girl who carried the pick.”

That wasn’t her name.

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