Epilogue

Bianca sat on the hood of the abandoned car and blew out another puff of her cigarette. She pulled her jacket tighter around her, trying to keep out the chill, and tamped at the pile of unmelted snow on the ground with the toe of her boot.

She didn't know why she had let Owen talk her into coming to the Ravine today- it was freezing outside, and her fingers were numb- but she'd needed to get away from everything. She'd needed to get out, get her mind off of things. And whenever she felt like that, the Ravine was always the place to be.

Except for now.

Even though she'd already had one cigarette to calm her nerves, and smoking usually settled her down, she felt more wired than ever. Her hands were shaking from more than just the cold, and her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. She was shivering, but her insides felt like they were on fire, and she couldn't stop sweating.

She took another drag, sliding her free hand under her knee to keep it from shaking.

"Bianca! Hey, Bianca!"

She turned her head, and saw Fitz, of all people coming towards her. He used to be a regular with her and Owen, but after he'd gotten out of juvie, he'd stopped coming around, and now Bianca only saw him on occasion, when he was working his shifts at the Dot. They never hung out anymore, which Bianca missed a little, but she couldn't argue with the fact that she didn't exactly want to be around him anymore.

Now that he was all Jesus-y and into praying, like, all the time, she wondered where the old Fitz had gone. She wished she could replace this weirdo version with the old one who would steal cigarettes for her and share the vodka he swiped from his stepfather's cabinet. She missed the days of sitting on the bridge by the creek, their legs dangling over the edge as they threw stones in the water and took contraband sips from the thin paper sack.

"Bianca!" he wheezed. He bent over at the waist, resting his hands on his knees as he gulped for air.

Bianca eyed him coolly. "What do you want?"

He took a few more deep breaths, then tossed the backpack he had been carrying onto the ground. He unzipped it and pulled something out, dangling it in front of Bianca's face.

"Found this at The Dot on Sunday night," he said. "Recognize it?"

Bianca stared. The teddy bear in Fitz's hands smiled up at her blankly, glassy-eyed and idiotic. "I HEART MY DADDY" was stitched in bright pink calligraphy on the bare's smooth belly, and there were bright red hearts sewn into the palms. A pink ribbon was tied around its neck. She looked into the bare's vacant mirror eyes again, and suddenly felt a rush of rage so powerful that it took everything not to rip that moronic smile right off its simpering, stupid face.

Instead, she took a determinedly cool drag of her cigarette, and willed her hands to stop shaking.

"Plush isn't really my type," she replied.

Fitz's eyes widened. He leaned closer to her, dropping his voice to barely above a whisper.

"Do you realize," he said slowly, as if she were a child, "that kid could have died?"

Bianca rolled her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Fitz shook his head in disbelief. He back away from her, his hands on his hips.

"I can't believe you were dumb enough to do that kind of shit," he muttered. "You could have killed her. Or yourself. If you even care, like, at all."

Bianca snorted. "Is there any other reason you're here, Mr. Hypocrite PSA," she said drily, "other than boring me?"

"Hey, Pastor Fitzy!"

Owen came through the trees, walking towards them. When he saw Fitz, his face broke into a wide grin.

"Good to see you on this side of the rails again, man," he said. "Unless you're passing out Bibles." He eyed the stuffed animal in Fitz's hands. "Or stuffed animals?"

Fitz glanced at him, but kept looking back at Bianca, his face a mix of disbelief and anger.

"Hooked up with any hot choir girls lately?" Owen joked.

Fitz sighed, sounding tired.

"Aw, come on," Owen said, "don't act like you're so much better than us."

"Whatever, man," Fitz said dully. He said it to Owen, but he continued to keep his eyes on Bianca. "I'm outta here."

Owen's grin curled into a sneer as he watched Fitz trudge away. He turned to Bianca, shaking his head.

"Smug bastard," he muttered. "Thinks he's so much better than us. Well, none of us ever spent time in juvie. Thank God for that." He chuckled at his own joke. "No pun intended. What'd he say?"

Bianca turned away. "Nothing."

His eyebrows raised slightly. "Well, it must have been something."

"Lay off, Owen," she snapped.

Owen's arm suddenly came around her.

"Hey!" she shrieked, jumping off the car. "What the hell! Hands off."

"What's this?" he answered with a laugh. "A present from Jesus Fitzgerald?"

He held up the teddy bear between his thumb and forefinger, dangling it in the air. He looked over at Bianca and laughed.

"Something I need to know?" he said, in between laughs.

Bianca snatched it away. "It's nothing, okay? Just go away."

Owen glanced at her, then at the bear, then back at her, and it suddenly seemed to click.

"Bee," he said, "you know that he doesn't have any actual proof on you, right?"

Bianca glared at him. Snatching the bear out of his hands, she grabbed her bag and turned her back on him, heading for the path in woods that lead towards the main road.

"Bee!" Owen shouted at her retreating backside. She ignored him, marching through the melting show, her curls whipping around her face as she stomped off.

"You didn't do anything wrong!" he yelled after her. "What happened wasn't your fault. It was an accident. And nobody can pin it on you!"

Bianca stopped at the edge of the clearing. She turned around slowly, facing Owen, who was leaning casually against the hood of the old, stripped-down car.

"There's just you and me," he called. "No one else. You just keep your mouth shut, and it'll stay that way."

He came over to her, leaning close enough so that only they could hear.

"Look," he told her. "It's not like anyone has any proof that the kid got the drugs from us. Hell, we don't even know if she even got the drugs to begin with."

"Ron-Ron gave me four pills in total," Bianca hissed. "When I looked in the bag, there were only two left. Something happened to those other two pills, Owen, and they didn't just disappear."

"Maybe they fell out of your handbag," Owen whispered back.

"Then how do you explain the baby ending up in the hospital?" she countered

Owen shrugged. "Coincidence," he said. "Neither one of them really said what happened. It was probably just some freak thing, like everybody's saying."

Bianca glared at him. "Or maybe it was something else."

Owen rolled his eyes.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Bee," he complained. "Are you really gonna torture yourself like this? Look, the truth is, nobody knows what really went down that night. The pills either fell out of your handbag, or you dropped them, or whatever, some shit like that. We can't prove that the rugrat took them. And we're not going to tell anyone about it, okay?"

"I thought you said that they didn't have any evidence on us," Bianca said sharply.

"They don't," Owen replied. "But you really want to go telling everyone at school you were doing E that night? Unless you're looking for getting busted by the cops for the second time this year. Then I guess you can join the Jesus Club with Fitz in juvie."

Bianca bit back her words, realizing he was right.

"She could have died, Owen," was all she said.

"But she didn't," he said. "She's alive. She's eating, pooping, crying, drooling, doing whatever other shit babies do. She's alive, and she's fine. Okay? So there is nothing to worry about. Besides, they can't pin anything on you. Here me? Just shut up, and everything will be fine."

Owen gave her one last meaningful look before turning his back on her, heading back to the main clearing.

Bianca watched him walk away, keeping her eyes glued to the bright colors of his Letterman's jacket, the only color in the grey, withered forest. She stared at his retreating backside until she could no longer make out his shape, as if he had simply been consumed by the silence of the dead trees and frozen wild. She opened her mouth to call out to him, but the cold air sliced her throat like knives, stealing her breath and her voice along with it.

Bianca turned sharply, walking briskly through the woods, her eyes and nose streaming as the freezing air whipped past her. The snow hadn't melted here, and even her footsteps were muffled, barely heard over the roaring of the wind rushing through her ears. It was as if the winter had muted the entire world around her, stealing not only the colors but most of the sounds as well.

The thought suddenly overwhelmed her, and she threw back her head, screaming at the silent sky.

But of course, no one heard it. The woods were isolated. She was still a half mile from the road, and too far for anyone at the Ravine to hear her. The trees creaked like a rocking chair, buckling and straining under the weight of the wind, which let out a fierce howl of its own. It drowned out her admission of pain, of guilt, of fear, reducing it from a lightning strike to barely more than all-but-inaudible splash of a rolling pebble landing with a plonk into the river.

If a confession is confessed to no one, was there still a confession?

If a cry goes unheard, was there even a cry at all?

The End