And then I ran.
I’m breathing too fast. My vision is tunneling. Matt still has his hands on my cheeks. I think he’s holding me upright.
“I don’t know what went on between you two out there in the woods, but I know that you did what you had to do,” he says firmly. “I am so sorry that I got there too late and I couldn’t protect you.”
“Why did you…” I can’t get words out. Tears stream down my cheeks. “Why didn’t you call the police? When you saw me that night? Why did they find me the next morning…?”
“I looked for you. But I grabbed that tree branch first and I took it to the trunk of my car, because I knew it would be harder for them to convict you without a murder weapon. I drove it down to the main road and dropped it in a dumpster behind a bar. When I came back, it had started raining really hard, and the road was flooded and I couldn’t get to where you’d been. I thought you’d go home, but when I got there … well, you weren’t.”
I shake my head. I’m fully sobbing now.
“It’s okay,” he says gently. “I was trying to protect you back then, and I completely botched it. I was drunk and stupid and then I freaked out about everything when you got home. It’s my fault.”
A shudder goes through me.
He puts a hand to his chest. “Seriously, it’s my fault. Things had gotten out of hand between us back then, and I knew it. I should have stopped us. I shouldn’t have let it go on so long.”
I blink at him, confused.
“The fighting,” he says. “The way we used to go at each other, hurt each other. It got to you and changed you, and I know that’s partially my fault. I don’t think you could stop yourself, that night.”
I draw a ragged breath. The way he’s describing the violence in our marriage—the violence he started, the violence that only ever left me with serious injuries—doesn’t seem right.
None of this seems right.
“Blame me,” he continues. “Scream at me. I deserve it.”
I stand and stumble backward, away from him. “No. I didn’t kill her. I never would have—no.”
He stands as well. “She tried to hurt you. I don’t know why, but you told me that she did. I should have just called the police right that second and we could have claimed self-defense, but I was drunk and I panicked. And—” He cuts himself off.
I look at him sharply. “And?”
He hesitates. “Why don’t you go lie down? Or take a bath? You love that tub. I’ll run it for you.”
He reaches for me. His fingers brush my wrist before I yank it away.
I rush to the door like he’s going to chase me. He doesn’t.
I throw it open and look back at him. “You’re lying.”
He slides both hands into his pockets with a sigh. “Lucy, please just let it go. You don’t want to remember anything else. Trust me.”
I don’t trust him. I didn’t then, and I don’t now.
I walk out, slamming the door shut behind me.
LUCY
FIVE YEARS AGO
“Lucy.”
I turned to see Matt walking out of the reception, a couple fist-pumping to the music on the dance floor behind him. The music faded as the door shut.
He put an arm around my waist, pulling me close. I let him. It was just the two of us in the dimly lit hallway, the murmurs of voices distant.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he whispered.
“You’re always sorry.”
He kissed me. I should have pushed him away. I might have slapped him if we were at home.
Instead, I looped my arms around his neck. I kissed him back. He tasted like whiskey.
“I’m going to do better,” he said as he pulled back to look at me.
I wondered whether by “do better” he meant that he was going to stop smacking me around, or whether he was going to stop sleeping with other women.
He wasn’t going to stop doing either, no matter how many times he claimed he was trying to be better.
He slid both hands over my ass, pressing his lips to my neck. “Remember how we had sex in the bathroom at the last wedding we went to here?”
Vividly. My body remembered too, because it was angling toward him, ready to get bent over a counter again.
Someone coughed, and I quickly stepped back from him to see Savvy standing outside the bathroom door.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked, her tone dripping with judgment. I couldn’t blame her.
My face heated. I didn’t know why I kept falling back into Matt’s arms, after everything. There was something wrong with me. Something broken that kept drawing me toward him, like a painful bruise I couldn’t stop poking at. It’s just that when it was good with Matt, it was good.
I was so deeply fucked-up.
A group of women trailed out of the bathroom behind her, laughing as they paused in the hallway. Nina was among them, and she nodded at me once.
Savvy walked past me, and I reached for her arm.
She yanked it away, my fingers only barely brushing her skin, and I heard the laughter from the women abruptly stop.
“The fucker doesn’t deserve you,” she said through clenched teeth. “You know exactly what he actually deserves.”
She stomped away, and I swallowed as I watched her go. For all my big talk, I didn’t think I could actually ever go through with killing Matt. I didn’t think I could kill anyone, but especially not him. He’d already turned me into a rage-filled monster I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t going to let him turn me into a murderer too.
Savvy, however, seemed ready to actually go through with it. I was almost reluctant to tell her the plan was off.
I turned to see the women headed back into the ballroom, stealing glances at me as they went.
Matt was still grinning at me, oblivious to Savvy’s words. “Looks like the bathroom is clear.”
The look on Savvy’s face had strengthened my resolve. “I’m not fucking you hours after you tried to drown me in the bathtub.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. I didn’t try to drown you.”
I could still feel his hand around my neck, holding me under the water as I struggled and splashed. He’d laughed when I came up sputtering after he finally let me go. He shrugged it off so easily that I was, once again, wondering whether maybe his version of events was the true one.
I had this wild urge to start pounding my hands against my head. Like if I smacked my skull hard enough, I’d be able to think straight. I just needed to get my brain into the correct position, and then I could trust my own memories more than Matt’s.
I resisted the urge and brushed past Matt. He caught my arm.
“You know I could just find someone else.” He curled his lip. He always had the ugliest expression when he reminded me of how much other women loved him. “There are ten women in there who would immediately take me up on the offer.”
I yanked my arm away. “Then go grab one and do it. I don’t care.”
His eyes glinted. “Don’t test me.”
“Go crazy, Matt. You’re already fucking half the town anyway.”
He blinked, clearly startled that I was aware of his (incredibly indiscreet) cheating.
“And there are way more than ten guys in there who would love to fuck me.” I laughed as I gestured at the doors to the reception. “Maybe I’ll give it a go too.”
His face twisted in rage. I would have been in real trouble if we were at home.
But the door opened, bringing music and laughter with it, and he was forced to hide his anger. He ducked his head and walked past me, roughly bumping my shoulder as he went.
“Hey, Lucy, you okay?”
I turned at the sound of the familiar voice.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
LUCY
Matt’s lying.
I go back to my parents’ house after leaving Matt’s, and barely sleep. Savvy is screaming in my head, and I have no idea whether it’s a memory or a figment of my imagination.
“She tried to—”
What? Kill me? She bashed me over the head and so I returned the favor and accidentally killed her?
I wake with only that thought swirling around in my head. I grab the trash can from under the desk and puke in it.
Ben texts asking whether I want to visit the woods near the Byrd Estate again.