It occurs to me that he’s still holding me by the wrist.
“Get the hell away from me.” I yank my arm away from him so forcefully that I pull a muscle in my shoulder. Brandon takes a step back. Holds his hands up. “Jesus, Monica.”
“Don’t ever come near me again,” I say.
He gets back into the car, and I start crying. I collapse on the lawn of the house Brandon parked outside. And I call my mom.
* * *
—
My mother looks deeply unamused as she pulls up outside Kelsey’s house. I yank open the passenger door and stumble in.
Mom sniffs. “How much did you drink?”
“Two vodka cranberries and a shot.”
She sighs and pulls away from the house. I lean back in the seat, eyes closed, tears pooling under my lids.
Once we’re home, she turns off the engine, but she doesn’t move to get out of the car. Finally, she speaks. “Just tell me what to do. I’m out of ideas.”
My throat is dry and scratchy. I swallow, but I can’t find any words. The sobs come out of me like violent dry heaves. “I hate myself.”
I don’t know what she was expecting me to say, but that wasn’t it. She flinches like I’ve cursed at her. I can’t stand looking at her, so I cover my face in my hands and cry. It’s an ugly, awful sound—any louder and Tom and Petey could probably hear from inside the house.
“Monica. Listen to me.”
I hiccup. Gulp for air. My mother says my name again; she grabs me and holds my head to her shoulder. She rocks me like a child and lets me cry.
“I hate who I am. I hate myself so much.”
“Monica,” she says, still cradling me. “Even at your worst, I love you more than life itself.”
* * *
—
Mom makes me drink a full bottle of water before I go up to bed. I eye my bathroom, but I’m not ready to throw up yet. I stumble to my bed and text Ginny.
My phone starts vibrating moments later. She’s calling me. I hit accept.
Ginny’s voice is soft in my ear.
“Monica? I couldn’t understand your texts. Are you drunk?”
“Yes,” I say. “Brandon came to Kelsey’s party. We argued and I told him to stay away from me.”
“Monica, hold on. Brandon Michaelson?”
“Yes. Allie’s boyfriend.”
“How did he— What was he doing showing up at Kelsey’s party to talk to you?”
“He…We…I fucked up so bad,” I whimper, and hiccup, and Ginny cuts me off by saying my name.
“Monica, look, it’s not your fault. He’s so much older…Monica, you understand what happened to you, right?”
“I know. I think I have to tell Tom everything.”
“Is he awake now?”
“No. I think I should wait until the morning. He…he’s not going to believe me when I’m like this.
“Ginny,” I say. “I don’t deserve a friend like you.”
I don’t know what she says in response, because the room around me spins into darkness.
* * *
—
I wake up ready to throw up and stumble into my bathroom. Not much comes out. I flush the toilet and lie back against the vanity, not ambitious enough to stand just yet.
Finally I’m ready to drag myself back to bed. Before I get comfortable, I check my phone. It’s only two in the morning; I must have passed out briefly after ending my call with Ginny.
I have a text from Rachel, time stamped almost an hour ago.
I text her back, my eyes tight, cheeks stiff with tears:
I wish I were piled onto Alexa’s bed with my friends. On a normal night, we would be laughing by now at Rach’s lack of ability to give us back anything she borrows. Earrings, sweatshirts, books. We don’t know where it all goes, but we keep lending her shit anyway because that’s what friends do.
I jolt, sitting up straight and banging my head on my headboard. A single thought crystallizes. Something is wrong. Why can’t I figure out what’s wrong?
Brandon and Carly. Brandon was not cheating on Allie with Carly. Allie said the guys shouldn’t have been hanging out with a high school girl. Not girls.
Allie didn’t know about Juliana. Brandon didn’t want her to know about Juliana.
I cover my mouth. Whimper, tasting bile coming back up my throat.
I made myself delete the picture a few weeks ago. I took it at work this summer. Brandon on the lifeguard stand, sticking his tongue out at me playfully.
I fumble for my phone. My trash bin stores deleted pictures for thirty days.
I zoom in on Brandon’s tan and muscular legs. It feels like my bed is bottoming out.
Just above his right ankle, on his calf, is a crescent-shaped white scar, the size of a bite from a large dog.
I wake up facedown on my bed, still in the outfit I wore to Kelsey’s party. My phone tells me it’s almost noon. I head downstairs, every step rattling my brain. I want to die.
My brother is on the living room couch, watching an Avengers movie. An explosion on-screen makes the throbbing in my head quicken.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Dad is at the range, and Mom is at her play, duh.”
A fresh wave of panic hits me. My parents left Petey and me alone—of course they did. It’s broad daylight on Sunday, and we’re not infants. They don’t know what happened last night. Maybe Ginny was right, and I should have woken Tom up to tell him everything.
“They said you have a hangover and I shouldn’t wake you up but if you do, I’m supposed to tell you not to set one foot outside this house,” Petey says.
“Got it.” I massage my temples.
I plod into the kitchen, wincing at the light coming in through the window over the sink. Water. I need to rehydrate, maybe force some food down so I can take a Tylenol.
The sound of a car door shutting makes me freeze. Maybe Tom, back from the range already. I look out the window, but the driveway is empty.
There’s a knock at the door leading from the kitchen into the garage. Tom must have left the garage door open when he left.
I swallow back the urge to vomit. I creep over to the door, opening it the slightest crack.
Brandon stares back at me. My stomach plummets.
“I just want to talk,” he says.
I have a flash of him at Susan Berry’s back door. “You need to leave before I call my stepdad,” I say. “Did I mention he’s a cop?”
“And tell him what?” There’s panic in Brandon’s voice. “You have the wrong idea about everything.”
I think about my brother, lounging on the couch. Mango curled at his feet, unable to hear the knock at the door because of the volume of his movie.
I angle myself so Brandon can’t see me and fumble until I find the sound recording app on my phone and hit START. I slip my phone into my pajama pants pocket and step into the garage, pulling the door shut behind me.
“What do you want, Brandon?” His name tastes foul in my mouth, but I need some way to prove it’s him on the recording.
“I’m sorry about last night. I was out of line.” His eyes are pink around his pupils, the skin underneath them gray and shiny. “But we need to talk about why you care so much about Carly Amato and Allie.”
“You know why I care about them.” I think of the security cameras Tom never got. Did anyone see Brandon come here? Will it even matter if he drags me out of here and gets me into his car? My brother won’t hear my scream over the movie, and if he does, I have no idea what Brandon will do to him.
“Monica, whatever you’re thinking, it’s wrong.”
“So you didn’t cheat on Allie with Juliana Ruiz?”
His reaction to her name is all the confirmation I need. He flinches, and his expression hardens. The lightest twitch in his jaw. I almost buckle over. I’m right—the earring, Carly’s earring—
“I met her through Carly,” Brandon says. “It was stupid of me. I ended it quickly.”
“The night she was killed, right? Someone saw you outside Susan’s house.”
Brandon’s lips part. I’m shaking so hard. His eyes drop to my pocket, from which I’ve forgotten to remove my hand. Realization dawns on his face. “Are you recording this?”
He takes a step toward me at the same moment the kitchen door opens.
I whip around; Petey is standing in the doorway. He looks from Brandon to me. “Who is that?”