Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash

Katie . . .” She looks at me, her eyes pleading with me to finish her sentence, but I stay silent, waiting, digging the nails of my right hand into my leg. “Do you think that maybe it wasn’t . . . an accident?”
    â€œWhat are you saying? That he did it on purpose?”
    She doesn’t answer, just sits there looking away from me, her eyes fixed on the wall behind my head, and everything she’s not saying sits between us like a time bomb. An accusation. She pushes her hair back from her face, her cheeks white as ivory. “Alys, Luke . . . hurt a lot of people yesterday. I’m just asking what you think, that’s all. You know I loved Luke.”
    Loved.
    â€œYou think he shot her on purpose. You really think that.” I stand up, pacing the confines of my room, which is growing smaller by the minute.
    Finally she looks at me, her eyes angry, but hurt too, welling up with tears. “I don’t know
what
to think, Alys. I practically grew up with him! You, me, Ben, Luke, Katie! I don’t know what to think about any of this; I hope it was an accident. I
pray
that it was.”
    â€œWell, I
did
grow up with him, D! He was
my
asshole brother, and I don’t know any more than you do! Is this what your parents think too? That Luke was some kind of psychopath? Is that why you had to sneak over here tonight in your
pajamas
?”
    She drops her head, rubbing one wrist. “They’re just worried, Alys. And you know how close they are with Ben’s family.”
    How close we all are.
    Were.
    I stop. “Worried about
what
? Luke’s gone, D. He’s gone.”
    She looks up at me, and what I see there in her gaze is unmistakable. A kaleidoscope of fear and regret and sadness and the absolute truth as everyone else will see it, which is that I am someone now who can’t be trusted, who could fly off the rails at any given moment, who might, if she’s anything like her brother—
    Hurt people.
    My brain feels like it’s pulsing inside my skull, and I raise my hands up to my temples, pressing hard with my fingers.
    â€œSo they think I’m a monster too. Is that it?” I drop my hands and notice that her cheeks are reddening the way they always do when she’s embarrassed. It feels good to say it out loud, what I already sensed the minute Delilah showed up in her pajamas, the chilly night air clinging to her clothes. But in spite of this one moment of release, shame falls over me in a suffocating weight. I know that from now on, I will be tainted to all who meet me. Soiled. I may as well be wrapped in yellow tape, or wearing a giant sign that reads CAUTION .
    She doesn’t answer me, just looks away, biting her bottom lip like she always does when she’s trying not to cry. I look at the floor beneath my desk, suddenly exhausted, the closed laptop before me a silent accusation.
    â€œMaybe you should just go.”
    The last time Delilah and I had a fight, we were thirteen, and she thought I liked Brian Ackroyd, this guy with stringy blond hair whom she had a monster crush on. We didn’t talk for two days, then made up in the cafeteria in the space of five minutes, wrapping our arms around each other and splitting a cookie precisely in half, chatting excitedly as if nothing, nothing at all had happened. Something tells me that this time things are going to be different. Maybe it’s the resigned look on her face or the tension moving through the room, infecting us like a virus. She walks to the door, closing it carefully behind her with a small, metallic sound. I close my eyes, willing the world to stand still, to stop turning so rapidly on its axis, making me sick.
    When I open them again, Luke is sitting on my bed, turning the pages of a slick magazine:
Guns & Ammo.
He looks up, the wall behind his head clearly visible through his skull, his sandy hair.
    â€œGod,” he says with a smirk. “I