He knows...

Andrew’s heart dropped to his stomach as he looked at the envelope in his hand. No return address, but still – he knew exactly who it was from.

They had finally found him.

His trembling hand fumbled to tear the seal, revealing the contents.

Oh my g—he thought, half-aloud.

Inside were crisp hundred-dollar bills, more than he had ever seen together save for old heist movies. Twenty-thousand dollars’ worth, to be exact – and a note.

Tell the truth, and it’s yours, the note read in rushed, but somehow still tidy script. Stay silent, and they find out.

The money rained down to the hardwood floor beneath Andrew as terror released his grip. Under other circumstances, the money surrounding his feet would have been a dream. He had dreamed many times of winning the lottery, of throwing stacks of money in the air like they do on television. Now, though, the bills might as well have been prison walls. That’s where they were going to put him.

How did they know? Andrew thought, rubbing his temples to try to get his thoughts to stop racing. He had been so sure that no one had been around, that there was no one that could have seen.

Someone knew though. It started with phone calls from an unlisted number. Once Andrew had changed his phone number, someone started showing up at his house. Nothing was ever damaged, but things were moved and left in a way that he knew someone had been there. So he moved. He moved to a whole new city, a whole new state. It was supposed to be a whole new start.

Andrew sat on the edge of his bed, reaching between his legs to find what he had hidden under the bed, what he had been hiding all these years. Fumbling around blindly, he finally found it: the little black notebook that had served as his journal so many years ago.

The leather felt cool in his hands, one spot worn where his finger made repeated little circles over the surface. It was a nervous habit he had developed after it happened. The pages in the middle were still crumpled where he had grabbed them so many times to rip them out.

He wasn’t even sure if he turned to the page or if the book fell open to it on its own, used to the routine of being read, reread, and agonized over.

I swear, I never saw him…

Andrew could feel the paper crumple between his fingers as he once again grabbed the page to tear it out, the page creased in hundreds of fractalized patterns where he had held it so many times.

It had been raining that night, he remembered. As if he could forget. He heard the rain every night as he tried to fall asleep; heard its patter on the windshield, the rapid swish of the wipers as they fought to preserve his view of the road. Then, the unforgettable crunch of the metal as it made impact.

I swear, I never saw him…

Andrew wondered how many times he had thought those words since that night; how many times he had tried to absolve himself of the guilt. He had been so certain that he would eventually start to feel better, but that day had never come, and now this.

I never saw him. I would have swerved. I would have slammed on the brakes. I would have done anything.

This was the farthest he had made it down this page in years, and he could already feel the bile beginning to rise up in the back of his throat.

He had stopped. Of course he had stopped, but between the relentless sheets of rain and the cloud the whiskey had seemed to cast in his mind.

He had stopped, but the lifeless form sprawled out in the frame of his rearview mirror hadn’t moved. He had made sure of it.

I should have gone to the cops, the words on the page continued, but he didn’t even need to read them. He knew what he had done. He would have gotten a DUI, at the very least. More likely, manslaughter. It was a chance he couldn’t take. So he made the decision that has haunted him every day since: he had taken one last look at the motionless body in the road behind him, glowing red from his taillights, and he had driven home.

Andrew had checked the papers every day, watched for any reports of what had happened. Nothing.

In the back of his mind he had wondered What if. What if the man had lived, had somehow gotten his license plate, somehow tracked him down. Then the phone calls started. Now this.

The ultimate catch-22. If he tells the truth, he’ll be locked away for who knows how long. What good would the money be then? He could run again, take the money and make yet another new start somewhere.

They’d find me again, he thought. HE would find me again.

There was nowhere left to run. This secret that he had kept inside for so long had finally caught up with him.

He knew what he had to do.

Andrew gathered the money from the floor and scooped it back in to the envelope, ready to do what he should have done that night.

It was then that he saw it: the name on the front of the envelope. He had been so frantic in his search for a return address that he hadn’t even noticed who it had been addressed to: Anthony Page. His neighbor.