"Kara, hey, I'm here, can you tell me what happened?"

I look up to see that Indigo is sitting next to me on a metal bench. I don't quite remember how I got here. My fingers are uncomfortably cold from where I have them folded in my lap. 

The entire natatorium has miraculously emptied, though I don't remember watching people leave. All I remember is that my teammate is dead on the shower floor. I had screamed before some of the faculty had shown up. Ms. Vera and Mrs. Litt had been among them and they led me out of the locker room and called the police.

I had been moved out here as the police and first responders arrived in a swarm of neon colored vests and quick jogging. The people who were here to watch the swim-meet had vanished as I eventually sat down on the bench. I somehow ended up with a shock blanket wrapped around me, the aluminum foil-like material crinkling noisily. I wrap it more tightly around myself.

"It was him," I whisper as everything from today comes rushing back.

Luke was here, it was him, it could have only been him.

"Who?" Indigo asks as she gives me a strange look.

I pause when I hear a set of footsteps approaching us and I glance up to see that Ms. Vera is walking over.

"Luke, he did this, he did this to her, he killed her." 

I reach up and cover my mouth as I try to slow my breathing as it starts to come out in gasps. I realize then that I have the ring on my finger. Not once did it burn. 

"Oh my god, he killed her," I whisper as I shakily lift my hand for Indigo to see.  

Ms. Vera draws up short, her eyes darting from Indigo to me as she carefully sits on the bench next to me.

"Kara, Luke is in a juvenile detention center, he's not getting out anytime soon," Indigo says in a low voice as she puts out a hand and rests it on my shoulder.

"I saw him," I explain as I shrug off her hand. "I had the ring on when I saw him and it didn't burn." 

"What do you mean?" Indigo interrupts, her eyes widening with alarm.

"I saw him at the mall! I saw him here at the meet! I was wearing the ring this time."

I can't stop my hands from shaking as I bring them up to knot them in my hair, my swim-cap having disappeared at one time but I don't remember where I put it.

"Kara, the police are almost done, they should be able to tell us what happened," Ms. Vera quietly says from her place beside me.

"They need to shut this place down, why did they let everyone leave?" I snap, "He's probably gotten away by now!"

Ms. Vera gives me a long, silent look as Paige suddenly walks around one of the bleachers and pauses in approaching us. Her eyes are dark and hollow as her mouth opens to ask a question, but stops as she continues to walk toward us.

"They're ruling it as a suicide," she says in a voice that is just above a whisper, one that doesn't echo in the natatorium.

"How?" I rasp, "I saw Luke here and followed him, I heard that girl screaming from inside the locker room."

"Kara," Paige puts up a hand as she motions for me to stop talking, "her wrists were cut, I saw it."

"So he made her do it, she was an Unfamiliar, like me," I protest as my vision blackens around the edges.

It's like I'm suddenly looking through a tube as my chest tightens.

"He's locked up, just listen to us," Indigo says as frustration seems to get the better of her as she stands.

Her face is a mask of indifference as she silently grabs me by the hand and leads me for the doors as my bare feet scuff on the floor. We emerge onto the sidewalk as she heads for a bench that is just outside of a line of yellow police tape that has been strung up.

The tape is being blown in a light breeze, the rhythmic snapping of the plastic keeping me in the here and now as I start for the bench.

"Kara, you have to let Luke's betrayal go," Indigo says as she lets go of me and gestures for me to sit down on the bench.

"I can't," I whisper. 

I sit down on the edge of the granite bench, the cold biting through my swimsuit as it grounds me. 

"Don't you understand?" I plead. 

"You have to let it go and you will, it's hurting you to hold onto it," she urges me as she crosses her arms against the chilly air, "you have to move on."

"I'm not holding onto it he's-."

"Just shut up!" she snaps at me.

I stop talking as her voice echoes over the silent grounds, shock washing over me as I stare back at her. There is anger in her face. It's transforming into a place that is made of sharp angles and eyes that I don't want to look into. Her face crumbles after a moment, her lips quivering as she turns away quickly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't...I don't mean that, it's just...you're worrying me, Kara," she explains in a quaking voice as she turns around to face me, "I don't want you to be labeled insane and locked away, you have so much to live for right now."

Her eyes are so wide and green and in that moment they remind me of our mother's. My chest aches at the thought of her, as I had wished she could come with but neither of our parents were able to get the time off of work. Thus why Indigo came instead. 

To watch me. 

I have to keep this to myself, I can't rely on her to help me, I realize as I feel a rush of hopelessness.

"You're not wearing the ring I got you, you need to wear it more," she says, her gaze falling to my hands.

I realize then that the ring is gone. How, I'm not sure as I have a difficult time remembering where I had put it. 

I had to have brought it with me to the meet. 

And yet it wasn't here. 

"Okay," I tell her softly, "I'll try to move on and I'll wear the ring more."

Relief fills her face to the brim as a few, stray tears trickle down her cheek. She leans down and wraps me in a hug, her arms strong but I feel no warmth in the gesture.

You have to figure this out by yourself, I tell myself silently as I return the hug, with or without anyone's help.