I plunge outside into the sunshine, opening my mouth wide and taking in a huge breath of fresh air, feeling as though I've just escaped from a tomb. I only take a moment to enjoy it, though, before I start walking. Fast.

It only takes a few seconds to reach the edge of the parking lot. I keep expecting Mr. O'Hara to jump out and yell at me to get back to school, but that doesn't happen. I am alone. Blissfully alone.

A busy street stretches out before me, but there are no cars at the moment. I take the opportunity to walk across, heading toward a large residential area. Again, I think someone will drive by and call the school to let them know a strange girl with her arm in a sling is wandering off campus, but there is no one to see me.

After crossing the road, I follow the sidewalk for a long time. The houses in this area are modest but well-maintained with neat hedges and gardens. Most of them look empty in the middle of the day, their occupants at school or work, living their lives, doing the things they do.

I remember this time a couple of years ago, when we were reading To Kill a Mockingbird in school, and this kid laughed at the idea of Boo Radley stabbing his father in the leg with scissors. Harper Lee should have made up something that would actually happen, he said. My teacher responded by saying we'd be surprised at the things that happen behind closed doors. I think about that now as I walk, the people in this town—and what they do when no one can see them.

Passing a blue house, I imagine a father with a big, bushy beard who works at the power plant and comes home to his wife and two children. Does he eat dinner with them, discuss his day, maybe read his kids a few books before bedtime? Or does he down a six pack and get out the belt?

Maybe it depends on the night.

I walk faster, examining each house, inventing a family for each one. I weave backstories for each one, give one person epilepsy, another a winning lottery ticket, another a cheating wife. Crossing the street, I enter a slightly better neighborhood with slightly larger houses. I make the parents fight about money, the kids spoiled.

Before I know it, I've reached a neighborhood that looks eerily familiar, and I realize I'm on the street where Mrs. Edwards lived. But instead of wanting to turn around and head back to school, I feel oddly drawn toward her home.

What was she like when she was alive? I mean, what was she really like? Not at school, where she wrote vocabulary on the board and wore pencil skirts and cardigans every day. What was she like at home? With her husband? Her daughter?

I want to know the little things, like how she took her coffee or what television programs she watched before going to sleep. I crave this information like someone might want to know more about a lover. That sounds weird, but it's true. I'm feeling a little obsessed.

Her house appears just as it did when Abbott drove me here yesterday. Same withering garden, same wreath on the door, same silver SUV in the driveway. The only thing different, I realize as I move closer to the house, is that someone is in the backyard.

The house is on a corner, and the sidewalk I'm on wraps around the side of the house to the back. I follow it curiously, my heart thumping as I close the distance between myself and the little girl on the swing set behind the Edwards home. Today she is wearing a Cubs hat with overalls and pink Converse shoes.

I walk until I can see the expression on her face—not one you might expect from a child playing in the backyard. She looks kind of spaced out, pushing off with her feet and then letting the swing do its thing until it slows down and eventually stops. Then she pushes again, just enough to get her moving.

Looking down, I realize I've stopped walking.

I'm just standing on the sidewalk behind Mrs. Edwards's house, staring at her wisp of a daughter.

Probably kind of creepy.

That's when the little girl looks up and notices me.

I start walking away, but she calls out.

"Hey! Shouldn't you be in school?"

It figures a six-year-old would be the only one to call me out on skipping class. I stop. "Shouldn't I be asking you the same thing?"

Not intimidated, she shrugs. "I don't go to school. I'm sick."

"Well, you probably shouldn't be out here all by yourself. Where's your dad?"

She throws a look at the house behind her and then turns back to me, giving me a knowing look that's wise beyond her years. "He's having his quiet time. Sometimes daddies need quiet time."

I consider this. "Yes, that's true, but you still shouldn't be out here by yourself. There are creepy people around." I don't want to scare the little girl, but there were a couple of kids kidnapped a few years back whose bodies showed up in the woods a few months later. I doubt Mrs. Edwards would want her daughter out here all by herself.

"Creepy people like you?"

I snort. "Worse than me."

It occurs to me that there are worse people in the world. I guess it's all relative.

She eyes me curiously. "What's your name?"

I pause. I don't know how much this little girl has heard about the accident. Would she recognize my name if I told her? I play it safe. "Elle. My name is Elle. What's yours?"

"Harper."

I stare at her. "Harper, like from To Kill a Mockingbird?"

"Yeah," the girl says, laughing. "My mom... she was an English teacher."

At that moment, the back door opens, and Mr. Edwards appears. It is plain from his red eyes and nose that he has been crying, but he seems to have pulled himself together before coming to get his daughter.

My first instinct is to run, but I don't want to scare Harper or make her think she's done anything wrong by talking to me. So I stand there and eye Mr. Edwards warily, hoping he doesn't know who I am.

"What are you doing, honeybun?" he asks, walking over to Harper and rumpling her hair. All the while, his eyes are fixed on me.

"Nothing," she mutters.

"Why don't you go inside," Mr. Edwards suggests calmly.

Harper slides reluctantly off the swing and plods toward the house, throwing a solemn look in my direction. I try to smile, for her sake.

As soon as the back door closes and Harper disappears, the pleasant look melts right off Mr. Edwards's face. He doesn't come closer to me, doesn't raise his voice, but I can hear the disgust in his voice. "Stay away." Then he turns and walks slowly back toward the house.

I am trembling.

The pure hatred in his voice has chilled me to the bone, confirmed everything bad I've ever suspected about myself.

Who was I kidding, thinking there are worse people than me.

I am evil.

I am cursed.

I am a stain on humanity's pristine white sheets.

My breath speeds up, and I have to bend over and catch my knees to keep from passing out. My mind races with the thoughts I try to quiet every night with my knife.

I want to hurt.

I want to bleed.

I want to die.

It's a mantra, repeating over and over, picking up speed as it goes.

I want to hurt. I want to bleed. I want to die.

I want to hurt I want to bleed I want to die I want to hurt I want to bleed I want to die I want to hurt I want to bleed I want to die I want to hurt I want to bleed I want to die IwanttohurtIwanttobleedIwanttodieIwant—

My feet start to move, carrying me away from this humiliating situation as fast as they can. I am running, I am fleeing, I am making my getaway.

But I can't get away, not from this.

Not from the woman I've killed or the family I've broken or especially my insides, which are rotten, spoiled to the very core. I can try to carve the evil out, but it never works. Even when I've dug down almost to the bone, I can feel the darkness evading the knife, wriggling deeper within me.

I will never be free.

My feet pound the pavement.

My heart hammers in my chest.

I approach an intersection and pitch myself in the middle of traffic. A black Camry swerves and honks, but it misses me. Too bad.

I keep running.

Racing.

Chasing the girl I used to be, before everything got so messed up.

When I get home, I yank open the door and plunge inside. As I run upstairs, my foot slips on the carpet, and I fall, banging into the wall with my bad arm. I curse but pick myself up and hurry the rest of the way to the top, rush into my room.

There is only one thing on my mind.

Escape.

Kneeling next to my bed, I reach under my mattress with my good arm, feeling feeling feeling until I find the hard, cold blade. As my fingers close around it, there's a tiny explosion of relief in the back of my brain and I can breathe for the first time since glimpsing the pure and molten hatred in Mr. Edwards's face.

"I can't take it anymore. I'm done. I want to be done."

My own voice comforts me and gives me the strength I need to crawl up onto my bed and arrange things the way I want. I grab my remote control and turn on the television. When I hit PLAY, The Wizard of Oz jumps onto the screen. I hit the volume button on the remote control several times, until the noise is loud enough to compete with the accusatory voices in my head.

Stay away, he said.

I will, I assure him in my head. Forever.

I pull my quilt around me and breathe in the familiar scent. Sitting cross legged, I hold the knife in my right hand and face the task before me, the challenge of undoing myself. It will be difficult, not because I'm afraid of the pain—quite the opposite—but because I don't know if I'm strong enough to do the job the way it needs to be done.

The doorbell rings.

Once. Twice.

Go away.

Squirming my way out of the sling, I size up my mummified hand. I carefully set the knife on the bed in front of me and start to unwrap the bandages. As usual, Grams was an overachiever and wrapped the tape around my hand about a million times. It takes too long to pull it off. When I'm finally finished, there is adhesive still stuck between my fingers, but I don't care. It doesn't matter now.

I take up the knife again and stare at my wrist. The scars twist on my flesh like thick snakes, the fresh ones purple, the old ones white. I rest the blade against the flesh just below my palm. I will do it the right way.

No room for mistakes.

One chance.

Across the room, Glinda leans over in her puffy white dress and asks Dorothy if she's ready. Dorothy clutches Toto and says yes. The Scarecrow watches with a bittersweet smile on his face. Dorothy makes Toto wave at all her new friends and then turns black to Glinda.

"Close your eyes," Glinda says, "and tap your heels three times and think to yourself..."

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Where I'm going, I don't know, but in my head is the imaginary house with the made up mother and daughter and fried chicken on the table and a pink room with a canopy bed.

There's no place like home.

Dorothy clicks her ruby slippers together.

I drag the blade hard across my wrist.