The names come to you then—a surprise. You so rarely think of them as separate people, those Girls, but they feel different in this instant. Distinct and exacting. Izzy, Angela, Lila. Jenny.
Are you comfortable? the technician asks.
No, you say.
Is it the IV? she asks.
No, you say.
She clicks out of the room.
*
A sound, behind the curtains. Shuffling feet, soft murmur.
The witnesses.
Before you can prepare yourself, the curtains shimmy open, and you are no longer alone.
*
Through the window on the right, Jenny’s mother appears.
She is stooped now, elderly. Her face is wrecked—even through the trial, through the sentencing, she never looked quite like this. Above the collar of her suit jacket, Jenny’s mother looks devastated, tears falling rapidly and silently down her papery cheeks. You can tell from how her brow knits: she is crying for Jenny, but there is more. This woman has known you for nearly thirty years, and you recognize her shattered pity. Jenny’s mother is also crying for you.
By her side, Hazel stands rigid. She watches you, intent, without fear or hesitation. You remember how Hazel used to steal glances from across the living room—how she used to want you. Now, she does not smile. She does not cry. She only blames her gaze right onto your helplessness. Unsettled, you realize it is exactly how Jenny used to look at you. From the angled gurney, Hazel is just as implacable as Jenny herself. Just as perplexing. Your arm jerks against the gurney’s strap, your body’s instinct a cruelty in itself—you want to touch her one last time.
And there she is. Through the window on the left.
Blue stands next to Tina, strawberry hair pulled back from her neck. The corners of her have filled out, grown. Blue looks like a summer evening. Like a dusk spent wading through fields of bluegrass, like gentle hands brushing your hair from your eyes. At the sight of Blue’s freckled nose, you hear your mother’s voice, clearer than ever before.
*
The seconds tick down. You catch your own reflection in the glass, an accident. You are transparent in the crowd of their faces. A ghost already, halfway gone. Your cheekbones look hollow, your glasses sit too big on your face. You are horrified to see that in these last waiting minutes, you only look like yourself.
You are certain, then. Within all the despicable things you have done—here, in the last two minutes of your life—here is the proof. You do not feel the same love that everyone else does. Yours is muted, damp, not bursting or breaking. But there is a place for you, in the category of personhood. There has to be. Humanity can discard you, but they cannot deny it. Your heart pounds. Your palms sweat. Your body wants and wants. It seems abundantly clear now, the opportunity you’ve wasted. There is good and there is evil, and the contradiction lives in everyone. The good is simply the stuff worth remembering. The good is the point of it all. The slippery thing you have always been chasing.
*
It arrives, at first, tingling small. Fleeting, a lump at the base of your throat. Something fragile and birdlike is trapped in your body, fluttering inconsolable.
Fear.
You swallow it in.
*
Last words, the warden says. The medical staff and the chaplain have all gone now—you suspect they wait somewhere behind the smudgy glass mirror. The room feels smaller, just you and the warden.
A boom mic is lowered from the ceiling. You have not prepared. Ten seconds pass by, unbearably thick. For once, there is no game to play. No power to withhold, nobody to trick or impress. You have lived your years in careful imitation, mimicking the things someone else would say, think, feel, and now you are tired. The microphone is too far from the gurney—you struggle against the straps, trying to reach.
I promise I’ll be better, you say, your voice booming sorry. Give me one more chance.
There is no answer. Only the shifting eyes of the witnesses behind the glass, averted uncomfortable. You wish for touch, in this moment, for the feeling of someone else’s hand in yours. Your whole body shudders, grasping for something more meaningful than tears.
The warden removes his glasses.
The infamous signal.
Now.
*
You pray. In the next life, you hope you will be reincarnated as something softer—something that understands the innate sort of longing that makes a being whole. A graceful creature. Hummingbird. A dove.
*
They swore you would not feel it. They swore it would not hurt. But there is pain in this kind of fear—blistering, primal. It hurts, the chemicals bursting through your veins, your limbs twitching wild against the straps.