Chap­ter 37 — Chap­ter 37 begins in a hos­pi­tal room that smells like anti­sep­tic and regret. I haven’t been admit­ted since I broke my elbow at fif­teen try­ing to impress a skater boy. I hat­ed hos­pi­tals then, and being here now hasn’t improved my opin­ion. I’m told I’ll be dis­charged tomor­row, but I don’t even know where “home” is any­more. The estate in Thorn­field is gone—burned down to the bones—along with any future I thought I was build­ing. Maybe it’s strange that what I fix­ate on isn’t the fact that my fiancé trapped his wife in a pan­ic room. The real shock lies in how much sense that truth makes, as if all the dis­joint­ed feel­ings I had before had been wait­ing for con­fir­ma­tion.

Now, every­thing lines up—my doubts, my dis­com­fort, the flick­ers of instinct I’d ignored. When Bea ran up those stairs to get to Eddie, I saw some­thing I didn’t rec­og­nize in myself. That love—wild, des­per­ate, reckless—wasn’t mine. It nev­er had been. Eddie might have said the right things, but what­ev­er he felt for me didn’t burn like that. When the pan­ic room door opened, the fire rushed out like it had been wait­ing. I backed away as instinct took over, stum­bling into the night. I ran, the grass scrap­ing my knees as I hit the lawn, my lungs tight from the smoke. In the end, I did what I’ve always done. I saved myself.

That real­iza­tion cuts deep­er than I expect­ed. Because if I saved myself, I also left them behind. I sur­vived the fire, walked away with­out burns—just smoke in my throat and ash in my mem­o­ries. Nurs­es say I’m lucky, and I sup­pose I am. But luck doesn’t change the fact that my world has burned to the ground. I’m float­ing now, unteth­ered from every­thing I thought I had. Just as I’m sink­ing into that thought, a qui­et knock pulls me back. It’s Detec­tive Lau­rent. I sit up too quick­ly, heart spik­ing as if it still expects bad news.

She enters like it’s a social vis­it, smil­ing gen­tly, her pos­ture relaxed. But her eyes are too obser­vant. I can’t read her expres­sion, and that makes me uneasy. I nod when she asks to talk and try to seem nor­mal, like I’m just anoth­er vic­tim. She starts gen­tly, ask­ing how I’m doing. My throat still hurts, so I rasp that I’m okay. “It all feels unre­al,” I say, because it does—too much like a movie, too lit­tle like a life. Then she drops the real news, the kind that makes your stom­ach twist.

She tells me Eddie didn’t make it out. I nod slow­ly, because I’ve prac­ticed this moment. I pre­tend I didn’t know, and it isn’t hard. What catch­es me off guard is her next statement—that their work­ing the­o­ry is Eddie set the fire on pur­pose. That he tried to kill me and him­self. The shock I show isn’t an act. I gen­uine­ly hadn’t con­sid­ered that angle. “He did it on pur­pose?” I ask, and she nods, con­firm­ing it with a sigh that car­ries too many sto­ries.

Then she tells me what the inves­ti­ga­tion has uncovered—Eddie’s car was seen near the lake the night Blanche dis­ap­peared. A neigh­bor report­ed see­ing him leave the house late. The pieces are form­ing a pic­ture, and it’s worse than I imag­ined. The detec­tive says they sus­pect Eddie mur­dered Blanche and pos­si­bly Bea too. My hand flies to my mouth in dis­be­lief. It’s a lot to absorb. She men­tions Tripp, how he was used to flush Eddie out, how he’s been cleared. It’s strange feel­ing sor­ry for some­one like Tripp, but I can’t help it. He was a pawn, just like the rest of us.

Detec­tive Lau­rent leans in and takes my hand. She says she’s sor­ry. But my thoughts are spin­ning. If they think Bea is dead, then that means they nev­er found her body. And if that’s true, she’s still out there. My heart thuds at the thought. Bea—alive and hiding—possibly watch­ing every­thing unfold from some qui­et cor­ner. The detec­tive men­tions they may reach out again with more ques­tions. I thank her, keep­ing my voice even, but inside, I’m already some­where else.

As she walks to the door, I can’t stop myself. I ask, “Did you… is Eddie’s body…” The ques­tion trails off, but it’s heavy with mean­ing. What I real­ly want to know is, was he real­ly in there? Is this over? Or am I still a char­ac­ter in some­one else’s unfin­ished sto­ry?