I wake up in a hospital bed.

Blinking, I try to piece the night together.

There’s an ID bracelet on my wrist and a nurse walks in.

“Oh, Heaven, good to see you’re awake.”

I sit up in the bed, jolted back to my memories.

“Hawkin? Is he…where is he…? Oh, god.” Tears stream down my face. I remember more now, the helicopter. Medics rushing in the house, strapping Hawkin and my father to stretchers.

Me, chasing them in the snow, naked and falling in the large drifts. Being held down as I screamed for the man I love, as an ambulance raced up the mountain, a syringe in my vein. Fading out.

Now I’m here, at the hospital.

“Is he here?” I ask. “I have to see him.” I push off the white sheet and place my feet on the floor. But then the nurse is at my side, urging me to sit.

“I’m sorry, Heaven. But they aren’t with us.”

They.

It wasn’t just Hawkin who was injured.

My father was. I shot him.

“They aren’t?” I choke on the tears that rise to the surface.

“You’re at the local hospital. They were medically evacuated to Seattle Regional.”

I press my hands to my face, trying to breathe. “Are they alive?”

The nurse places a hand on my arm. “I’ll get the doctor.”

Waiting for the doctor is torture, but finally, he arrives, pulling up a chair and introducing himself. “I’m Dr. Smith, Heaven. You’ve had quite a night.”

“Just tell me, is he alive?”

“I’m so sorry, but he didn’t make it through the night. The injury was inoperable.”

“No,” I sob, clutching my arms as the truth hits me. Like without Hawkin isn’t life at all.

He was my longest dream, my only wish. My hope. My future.

In his arms, I felt whole.

And I only had him for such a short time.

I wanted forever. I didn’t even get one night.

“However, Hawkin,” Dr. Smith continues, “the man whose cabin you were at, he is in a medically-induced coma. He is going into surgery shortly.”

“Wait, he’s alive?” I sit up, tears falling from my face to the hospital gown.

“Yes, but he has to get through surgery first. But Heaven, did you hear me, your father is dead.”

Maybe it makes me a monster, not to care that the man is dead. But he never looked out for me or wanted the best for me.

He hurt me, and he hurt the man I love.

Hawkin still might not make it.

“But right now, the police need to speak with you, Heaven. They need to know what happened last night. When the medics arrived you were very upset, it’s why we brought you in last night. But now that you’ve rested, it’s important you tell the police officers the whole story, so they know why two men were shot.”

I bring my hand to my mouth.

The truth is too horrible to admit.

I shot my father, in cold blood.

“I’m going to bring them in, okay?”

I nod, trembling. What exactly am I supposed to say?

Minutes later, a cop walks in and introduces herself as Officer Smith, and another officer follows in behind her. His badge reads Officer McDonald. This pair has the power to make my life a living hell.

It has already been that for the last several years. After Mama left, it was me who bore the brunt of his rage.

But no more.

Now he is dead.

“Heaven,” Officer Smith says sitting in a chair in the hospital room. “We need to ask you a few questions about last night.”

“Of course,” I say as if it is the most normal thing in the world. “What kinds of things do you need to know?”

“We need to understand your version of what happened last night.”

Nodding, I think through my story. I don’t want to lie to them, They are here to find justice, but I also want to protect myself.

After all, it’s what I’ve been doing for far too long as I’ve lived in my father’s house.

“My father was drinking. A lot. He always drinks a lot … but last night I had had enough.”

“Enough of what?”

“Of being hurt.”

The officers exchange a look. “The doctor’s shared with us the findings of their medical report.”

My eyebrows narrow. “What do you mean?”

“When you were brought in, you were unclothed. It was obvious from the bruising on your body that you have been hit often and with much force.”

I nod. “My father was a violent drunk. That’s why I left last night, for Hawkin’s. I knew he’d keep me safe.”

“Let’s talk about that; you being at Hawkin’s cabin.”

“I went there for safety, then my father showed up. He shot Hawkin… and then… my father… I …”

I stop speaking, too scared to say the rest.

“Can you us about your relationship? With Hawkin?” Officer MacDonald asks.

I bite my bottom lip, feeling like my love for him is so fragile right now. He is in surgery. He may not make it out alive. Tears fall down my cheeks, and Officer Smith hands me a tissue. I expect to see judgment in her eyes, for being so young and being with a man nearly twice my age, but all I see in compassion.

“I love Hawkin,” I tell them in a whisper. “I’m just so scared… so…” I begin to sob in my hands and hear Officer McDonald excuses himself for a moment.

Alone, Officer Smith asks me if she can speak plainly. I nod, not feeling like I have the capacity to speak right now at all.

“If what happened to your father last night was in self-defense, then no court of law would charge you with the crime, Heaven. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“I don’t want to go to prison,” I say, trying to steady my sobs.

“No one would go to prison for defending themselves against a man with a gun, who had already shot one man. Is that what you were doing, Heaven?” Officer Smith asks me in a very forced way.

She must know.

That I was the one who killed him.

Slowly, I nod. “It was self-defense.”

Maybe it wasn’t self-defense in a typical way... even in the legal way … but it was in my way. And as a woman who’s spent her life under the hand of a man who used his strength to cause pain—it was time for me to fight back.

To fight for Hawkin and to fight for myself.

My father spent years physically abusing me and I’m not sure what would have happened at the cabin if I hadn’t grabbed the gun and shot him first.

It may be a lie, but I don’t care.

I’m just glad I don’t have to find out if my father would have shot me.