Crack.
Suddenly, the bed was on the ground. The floor shook. The picture of the ship hanging above Spencer’s bed wobbled on its nail, then fell. Spencer covered her head just before it crashed to the mattress.
Reefer blinked. “I knew I was wild, but I didn’t know I was that wild.”
Spencer crawled to the carpet and stared at the bed frame. All four legs splayed horizontally, as though no longer able to bear the weight of the mattress. The wood wasn’t splintered, as she might have expected, but had broken off clean, as if it had been sawed through.
Then she stood up and examined the nail on which the picture over the bed had hung. It dangled precariously from the wall, in danger of falling out itself. It had clearly been messed with. The first evening of the trip, the seas had been rocky, and though Spencer and Kirsten’s tubes of toothpaste had tumbled off the shelf in the bathroom, not a single piece of furniture or decoration had budged. They’d both joked that everything in the room was probably bolted down, not hanging by a faulty nail.
Spencer’s skin prickled. The thought that had been quietly, insidiously swirling around her head for the last twenty-four hours pushed to the forefront of her mind. “That’s it,” she announced. “I can’t take it anymore. This has gone far enough.”
“What are you talking about?” Reefer asked.
“Don’t you see?” Spencer cried, her voice cracking. “The slip on the floor, the food poisoning, the gum thing, and now the bed? Someone is doing this to me!”
The smile faded from Reefer’s face. “You’re serious?”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Who would be doing this to you? And why?”
She took a deep breath. “Isn’t it obvious? Naomi!”
Reefer’s eyes widened. “Come on. She’s not that crazy.”
“Yes, she is!”
Spencer peered around the cabin nervously. “Does that TV look like it’s sitting too close to the edge to you?” she asked. Then she looked at the untouched breakfast tray she’d ordered from room service and gave the pastries an experimental sniff. “Will you taste that muffin to make sure Naomi didn’t lace it with acid?”
Reefer stared at her. “Um, Spencer, if it’s laced with acid, then I’d be on acid. But you’ve lost all perspective. Naomi isn’t gaslighting you.”
“Yes, she is!” Spencer cried. She rushed over to the closet and peeked inside, worried her bags were booby-trapped to fall on her head. Then she held her bottle of allergy pills to the light. Were they the same blue shape as before? What if Naomi had replaced them with something else—something dangerous?
Reefer placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’ve got to calm down. You can’t go around blaming bad luck on someone else. Everything that has happened to you is because you made it happen, okay?”
A lump formed in Spencer’s throat. Reefer was right—but not for the reasons he thought. Maybe she had made her bad luck happen—maybe this was a karmic revenge for all the terrible things she’d done. Framing Kelsey. Helping Hanna with Madison. Tabitha. This was the universe’s way of punishing her.
Then she blinked hard, reality snapping back into focus. This wasn’t karma—this was A! And A wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted.
And just like that, Spencer knew what she had to do. She looked up at Reefer, a lump in her throat. “We have to break up,” she said.
Reefer’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” she said in monotone. She knew she’d crumble if she looked Reefer in the eye, so she stared at her hands. “This just doesn’t feel right.”
“You really think she’s torturing you, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you let me talk to her?”
Spencer looked away. “Can you just do what I ask?”
Reefer stepped back as if she’d shoved him. His eyes glistened with tears for a moment, but then he steeled his jaw, breathed in, and turned around. “Fine,” he said in a defeated voice.
“I’m sorry,” Spencer called weakly. But he had already slammed the door.
23
THE WRONG IDEA
That afternoon, Aria and Graham stood outside the theater on the bottom level of the boat. The bright-blue walls featured photos of the Cirque du Soleil performers, who all looked freakish and possessed with their buggy eyes, weirdly tight leotards, and absurdly long limbs. Another wall was devoted to signs for that night’s talent show—it started at seven, and there was a pre-and post-party.