I book a flight home to L.A.
Savvy stands in the corner of my room in her bloody pink dress, arms crossed over her chest, judging me.
I deserve it. I’m giving up. I don’t want to know anymore. Even though I told Ben that I didn’t think Matt did it, I have to admit that a tiny part of me was holding on to the tiniest hope that he did. Now that I can so clearly see in my memory the shock on his face, the absolute horror as he looked at me, I can’t hold on to that hope. Matt didn’t kill her.
I was the one holding a bloody tree branch, mumbling about murder. I was probably talking about Matt, about him deserving it, but that doesn’t change anything. Maybe I snapped. Maybe I told Savvy that I didn’t want to kill Matt and she went after him anyway. Maybe I stopped her.
The thought makes me feel sick. I can’t imagine a world where I decided to kill Savvy instead of letting her kill Matt, but it could have been an accident.
And I don’t want to know. I’d rather live with the uncertainty forever than the knowledge that I murdered her.
I decide I can’t completely ignore Ben, because he’s already decided I’m guilty, and shutting him out will just make things worse.
I drag myself out of bed by noon, throw away my puke-filled trash can, and shower.
“I enjoyed killing that guy. Why weren’t you scared of me? Why is it so hard to believe I’d snap? It happened before.”
I close my eyes as the water drips down my face. Savvy’s voice is too loud. It’s not her. It’s me, projecting my fears onto her.
Panic swells in my chest, and I turn the water off.
“I will kill you!” Savvy screams.
This is why I stopped trying to remember. I couldn’t tell what was real.
I close my eyes and desperately try to shut out everything.
* * *
“Leaving?” Ben repeats. I’m standing near the door of his hotel room, hoping to make a quick escape. He takes a step back, into the kitchen, like he hopes I’ll follow him. I don’t.
“Day after tomorrow.” I try to keep my expression neutral. I’ve forgotten how to have a face.
“Why?” He’s wearing his gray T-shirt, the one with the tiny hole at the collar. I’ve pulled that collar to the side so I could kiss his neck. I look past him.
“I’ve been here two weeks. It’s hot. I have to get back to L.A. and move my stuff out of my boyfriend’s apartment.”
He blinks. “You have a boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t want to date a murderer.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He doesn’t look sorry. “Can I call you for some follow-up interviews in L.A.?”
“Ben, I have spent hours talking to you. Just tell the world I’m guilty and let’s move on.”
He leans against the kitchen counter, staring at me. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“What did you remember?”
“I remembered that I hate true crime podcasts.”
“Lucy.”
I reach for the doorknob. “Say whatever you want about me. I don’t care.” I pull open the door and walk out.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
LUCY
“Dad.”
He jumps a mile high, dropping the knife he was using to cut an onion. It clatters across the kitchen floor and stops near my feet. It’s a big knife, a chef’s knife, and I stare at it.
I can’t actually bring myself to imagine killing him.
At the moment, I can only kill Savvy. Over and over, on a loop in my head. A tree branch straight to her skull.
“Lucy.” Dad puts a hand on his chest. “You scared me.”
“I know.” I pick up the knife and put it on the counter.
“Are you all packed?” He doesn’t hide his cheerfulness at my leaving.
“I don’t leave until day after tomorrow. And I’m having dinner with Grandma tonight.”
“Oh good, she’ll appreciate that.” He reaches for the knife, turning on the water to rinse it off.
“Did Matt tell you I killed her?”
He turns off the water. When he looks up at me, it’s not in surprise. Matt clearly already told him this conversation was coming.
“Yes.”
“When?”
He wipes off the knife with a towel, for longer than necessary. An excuse not to look at me. “He came over that night.”
I take in a breath as it clicks into place. “That’s where he went. After he came home.” I frown. “Does Nina know as well? Why was she at my house that night?”
“No. Apparently she was drunk and had planned to cause a scene so you’d know they were together. Just bad timing. He sent her away.”
“And then he came over to the house and told you both I killed Savvy.”
“Just me. I told your mom a couple days later. She…” He trails off, putting the knife aside and then bracing both hands against the counter. “She wanted to come clean right away. Said that even if it wasn’t self-defense, you’d get a light sentence. But Matt and I disagreed. You genuinely didn’t seem to remember anything, and we both thought we should just wait. I figured your memory would come back in a few days, and then you could tell us exactly what happened and we’d go from there.”
“And when it didn’t come back?”
He looks away, uncomfortable. “I figured you either just wanted to move on or you really had blocked it out. The trauma of that…” He sighs. “I can’t blame you, I guess.”
“You guess.”
“I would have preferred to face it head-on. I regret not going to the police. Matt said that your memory started to come back when Ben pushed you to remember. I chastised your mother for pushing you. I thought you needed space to do the right thing. She was right, of course.”
“You believed him, then? Matt.”
Dad looks up, startled. “Should I not have? I didn’t know then that … Well, I didn’t have the full story. But I didn’t have any reason not to believe him.”
“He was drunk. He didn’t actually see me do it. There could have been someone else there, it could have been—” My voice has gone too high, hysterical, and I stop abruptly. I know how it sounds.
“He didn’t mention anyone else being there,” Dad says gently. “He said … Well, he explained what he saw, and what you said to him.”
“He could have killed her.”
“Do you think he did?” He’s humoring me.
I see Matt’s hysterical face in front of me. I’ve already tried to convince myself a hundred times that he could have been panicking because he just killed Savvy, but it seems unlikely. I know him too well. I know what he’s like when he’s just gone too far, caused more pain than he intended. He goes calm. Fix the problem. Be nice. Convince her that it’s partially her fault.
He wouldn’t have been hysterical about killing Savvy, even drunk. He wouldn’t have had that look on his face.
“No,” I say. “But you weren’t there. You just had Matt, telling you that I killed someone. You thought I was capable of that?”
“I didn’t want to. But sometimes you have to do the best with the information you have. That’s the information I had. And Matt wanted to protect you. I saw that right away.” He gives me a sad look. “We both did.”
“And Mom wanted to hand me over to the cops.”
“She was also just trying to do what was best.”
“It wasn’t a criticism.”
He looks startled. I might have done the same thing, if I were in Mom’s place. Just get the truth out there and let the chips fall where they may.
Or maybe I wouldn’t have done the same thing. I didn’t immediately run to Ben or the cops when the memory of Matt resurfaced.
I booked a flight home to Los Angeles.
* * *
I eat a quiet, awkward dinner with Grandma. I can’t tell her the truth, the only family member who believed in me. She believed in me so strongly she turned over all our secrets to a smug podcaster.
“Ben says something happened,” she says, once she’s deep into her second gin and tonic. The television is on, muted, but I keep getting distracted by a woman on the screen with very long red fingernails. She taps them against her chin, over and over. She could take someone’s eye out with those fingernails.
I gather up the remains of my burger and walk to the trash can. “Nothing happened. I told him that.”
“I don’t think he believes you.”
I laugh hollowly.