“You assumed wrong. When you assume something—”
“It makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.’ I know,” she said, finishing my sentence of one of our dad’s sayings. “This is just really crazy. Sam’s made it out to seem like you didn’t really want to be with Kari, that you and her had something going on. It just . . .” A dark look crossed her face. “It makes me second guess everything she’s ever said.”
I rested my elbows on my knees, watching Bri work through something in her head. She put her feet on the floor and looked uncomfortable. Her eyes looked around the room, at anything but me, for a long time. Finally, her gaze landed on my face.
“Sam has always been something of a white liar. Just white little lies here and there, you know? Dumb stuff. But lately, I’ve been catching her in other stuff. None of it really mattered and I haven’t called her out on things, but I’ve noticed she’s been more . . . brazen.”
She took a deep breath before going on. “I haven’t called her out on anything because she gets so emotional. She cries and gets so depressed and it’s just easier to let her go than to deal with it. But I’ve noticed it.”
We watched each other for a few minutes, neither of us saying anything, both of us knowing that the rest of the conversation could change the way we’d always interacted. Finally, I took a deep breath and asked, “Why don’t you like Kari?”
Her head shook a little as she grabbed the glass in front of her and took a sip. “Sam always made it seem like she was manipulating you. That you really wanted to be with her and that Kari was just botching everything.” She shrugged. “I’ve always thought it would be awesome for you two to be together and Sam’s always acted like you two had this . . . thing. So Kari was the enemy, I guess.”
“She’s not the enemy, Bri. Don’t you get that? She’s my fucking life!”
Bri blanched as the words, more crass and louder than my usual tone, bounced off the walls. Her face flushed. “I see that now. I feel bad, Max. I just . . . I don’t know. I’ve known Sam forever and she’d always said the same thing. I never thought to question it, but I do feel stupid right now.”
“You should. And you owe Kari an apology.”
She nodded, biting her bottom lip like she did when she was a little girl and in trouble.
“Do you have a silver bracelet with a little heart? It has a little blue thing that dangles from it?” I asked.
“What? No. All of my jewelry is gold . . . what little I do have,” she said. “Why?”
Motherfucker!
“Kari had a bracelet go missing a long time ago. Well before Sam moved in there. It just showed up in Sam’s shit yesterday at work after she left.”
“And?” Brielle prompted, not getting it.
“And I think she was going into Kari’s house. I know it sounds crazy, Bri, but Kari’s door kept blowing open awhile back. That bracelet went missing around that time and Sam had it. How else you gonna explain it?”
“Holy shit,” she said, wide-eyed. Her face went white and she looked sick. “I need to tell you something, Max. And I’m not really sure about it one way or the other, but I think you need to know.”
“Well, go on,” I prompted Brielle when she failed to continue.
She just looked at me for a long time. Her mouth would start to open and then close again. I cocked an eyebrow, getting the feeling that whatever she finally said was going to rock me.
She got up and paced the room nervously. “Look, before I go into this, I want you to know I never really believed it. But after all this stuff, I do. Or I might. If it’s true . . .”
“What?”
She took a deep breath. “When we called you that night and you ignored us—”
“Bri, I love ya but I don’t want to rehash that again, alright? I’ve lived with knowing that you were mauled and Sam was raped because of me for years and I-”
She shook her head. “No. Listen to me,” her eyes were pleading. “When Sam called you that night, she wanted to convince you to come see her. You had come home from college the weekend before and stayed at Mom’s. Sam said you guys stayed up late one night talking and she really believed that you liked her.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Who the hell knows if it’s even true? But that night, she wanted to get you to come back to the house. She thought you were this close to . . . I don’t know. Saying you loved her? It’s all just dumb at this point. Anyway, you told her no and she was in disbelief. She said you were at a party and you told her that you weren’t coming home to see her or anyone.”
“That part is true.”