“Are you fucking kidding me?” The question is a threat, and the tension of the last couple of days is too much. My vision is cloudy and I’m shaking. I lower my voice to a hiss so Anand won’t hear us from the kitchen. “Charlie would still be here if you hadn’t set this whole thing in motion.”
“We have no idea what happened with Charlie!” Aubrey replies in a strangled tone, her fists clenched at her sides. She takes a step toward me. My heart is pounding in my ears. “We don’t know why his plane crashed. Why would you think it has anything to do with me?”
I’m so furious I can hardly see. “It has everything to do with you,” I say, with venom. “Because if he’s dead, it’s your fault.” There. There it is. I said it, but she looks nonplussed. She looks like she doesn’t get what I’m saying. “Do you understand what I mean, Aubrey?” I’m the one moving forward now, and I back her against the thin wall that separates the sleeping cabin from the rest of the boat.
“I’m the only one left who thinks he might be alive. Why do you think the investigation closed like it did? Why do you think his parents threw together that memorial service so quickly? His entire family is sure he’s dead,” I say, relishing every hateful word as it pours from my mouth. “Because he left a suicide note.” I pause, preparing myself to put the final nail in the coffin. “I found it. I showed his parents.”
“No,” she whispers, her blue eyes turning a ghostly shade of gray that fades almost entirely into her white orbs. I’m an inch or two away from her now, no more. I have just one more thing to say.
“It’s the truest thing you’ve heard in weeks,” I tell her, my voice low. “You’re right, I’m probably crazy for thinking it’s all a setup. But if you’re right, for all you did to him, you may as well have killed him yourself. He wrote the note the night after you told him you cheated. It was dated May twentieth.” I stop, waiting for the guilt and remorse to overcome her the way I’ve been fantasizing it will. Aubrey already believed Charlie was dead; this will merely illuminate her role in his death. She deserves to suffer. She should hurt for her betrayal, whether or not he actually is dead. For being the kind of person who would do what she did.
Aubrey’s jaw moves mechanically like she’s about to respond; I wait, but her eyes shift to a space behind me. Then they widen in fear. I turn to see what she’s looking at, and my heart stops. I take a step backwards, and my shoulder collides against the wall. I’m right next to Aubrey now, both of us vulnerable.
I can’t tear my eyes away from what scared her: the outline of Anand in the door frame of the bedroom, backlit by the setting sun. In one large palm he carries a plate loaded with the heads of the fish he’s just finished cleaning. Their dead eyes gape. In the other hand he holds a large knife. It hasn’t yet been cleaned. It drips blood and gristle onto the deck. Anand’s demeanor has changed. His body is tense, powerful.
“You’re friends of Charlie’s,” he says in an odd, flat tone. I look into Aubrey’s eyes and see the terror that mirrors mine.
13
A Letter from Charlie
May 20th
Mom, Dear Mom, I should have started. I should have done a million things differently, don’t you think? And now it’s too late to go back. I should have offered you more affection more often. Sorry, I’m so clumsy. Soon, I’ll be gone, and there won’t be any making up left to do. Why will I be gone? Why me, Charlie, your only son? Don’t think this is about you, or Dad being gone all the time, or anything else. You’ve always tried your very hardest--if I’ve fallen short it’s been my own undoing. If you are reading this now, please be assured that I am gone. You need to let go now. If you’re looking for answers, all I can say is this: Life got a little overwhelming. I bit off more than I could chew, which you always warned me about, didn’t you? This time I did it, and I didn’t know how to fix it. It has ruined me.
Mom, did you ever know how much I love that quote by Aleksandar Hemon? The one on the inside cover of your book Let the Great World Spin? I was flipping through your copy one day just by accident, while you were making dinner . . . maybe a few months ago when I last visited you in Paris over school break. Dad was away again, so it was just you and me, but that was okay. I always liked those weekends better, when it was just us. Anyway I flipped through and I found this quote: “All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is what the world is.”