Episode 5: What We Left Behind
The next morning, I woke up before the sun.
Old habits.
I made coffee and stood by the kitchen window, watching the sky turn from ink to ash to gold. This town always looks its best in the early hours—quiet, unhurried, still pretending it's not broken like the rest of us.
Clara's sketch from last night sat on the table.
I stared at it for a while. The house, drawn softer than it really is. The two of us at the door, like a postcard from a life that never existed. I wanted to believe in it.
She came downstairs around 7:30, wrapped in a blanket like a child.
"You're always up so early," she mumbled, yawning.
"Someone has to be," I said, handing her a mug.
We sat together on the couch. No TV. No phone. Just the sound of spoons clinking against ceramic.
Then she said it.
"I want to visit the lake."
I froze.
The lake.
Where everything changed.
Where we stopped being just sisters and became survivors.
I hadn't been there in years.
"Why?" I asked.
"I think… I need to see it. One last time. Before I decide anything."
I nodded, even though every part of me wanted to say no.
We drove in silence. The lake wasn't far, just tucked past the ridge where the trees grow taller than the sky. We used to go there with our parents—picnics in the summer, sledding in the winter. It was our favorite place. Until it wasn't.
Until the last day we were all there together.
The car ride that ended in shouting. Our father's rage. Our mother crying. Clara running ahead into the woods. Me chasing her.
I remember the sound of the water, cold and dark. I remember her slipping. I remember screaming her name until my throat gave out.
She didn't drown. But something in us did.
We never talked about it again.
Until now.
Clara stepped out of the car first. She walked slowly to the edge of the lake, her boots crunching on old leaves. I followed a few paces behind.
The water was still. Too still.
She turned to me.
"I used to think it was my fault," she said.
"It wasn't," I replied immediately.
"But I ran. I made everything worse."
"No," I said again, stronger this time. "He made everything worse. We were just girls."
She knelt near the shore, picked up a flat stone, and skipped it. It bounced three times before sinking.
"I hated this place for so long," she whispered. "But I think I needed to see it one more time. To let it go."
I knelt beside her.
We didn't hug. We didn't cry.
We just sat. Two women who had survived the same storm in different boats.
And for the first time, the lake didn't feel like a graveyard.
It felt like a place we could leave behind.