“You collect things. I’ve seen you take stuff out of my room before … ticket stubs, receipts—”
“That’s different,” I said, my cheeks burning at the knowledge that she had seen. At all the little mementos that were stashed away in that very room, at that very moment. “I would never steal something of yours.”
“You wouldn’t?” she asked, infuriatingly calm.
“No, I wouldn’t. Besides, why would I steal a picture and blame it on Levi?”
“Because you hate him, Margot. You’ve always hated him.”
“I don’t hate him—”
“Yes, you do!” she yelled, finally getting angry. “Just admit it. Why wouldn’t you try to turn me against him?”
“I just have a bad feeling about him, okay?” I yelled back, throwing my arms in the air. “I’m trying to protect you!”
“I don’t need you to protect me. You’re not my mother.”
“Yeah, but I’m your friend,” I said, trying to calm down. I walked toward the bed and took a seat on the edge, resting my hand between us. “There’s just something about him that bothers me, Eliza. Something that doesn’t feel right.”
“You’re being dramatic,” she said.
“I’m not being dramatic.”
“Okay, then you’re being jealous,” she snapped, standing up and stalking across the room. “Christ, Margot, what is it with you? Am I not allowed to have other friends now? A boyfriend?”
“Yes, of course you can have other friends,” I said. “It’s just … he’s too…”
“Too what?” she asked, hands stuck to her hips. “Too cute? Nice? Interested?”
“Clingy!” I yelled again, too frustrated to keep my voice down. “He’s obsessed with you, Eliza. It’s not healthy. It’s weird.”
“Well, I guess that makes two of you.”
I froze, her words hitting me like a slap to the face. I stared at her as the silence mounted and I could tell she regretted it instantly. I could tell, the second she said it, that she wanted to reel it back in, swallow it back down, but no matter how she apologized, no matter how she backtracked, it was out in the open now. The way she really felt.
“I didn’t mean that—” she started, but I held my hand up, shook my head.
“Clearly you did.”
“I didn’t,” she said. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t. It’s just … I have a lot going on right now, okay? And I really like him, and you’ve been trying so hard to break us apart—”
“Get out,” I said, standing up myself and pointing to the door. I had to look to the side then, lip quivering, trying not to show the mounting tears crawling up my throat. The cry threatening to spring free with a single glance in her direction. “I tried to warn you.”
“Margot—”
“I tried to keep you safe,” I said, finally turning to face her, surprised to find that she was crying, too. “I’m not breaking you apart, Eliza. He’s breaking us apart. He’s manipulating you.”
“Just sit back down,” she said, gesturing to the bed. “We can talk about it.”
“I already tried that,” I interrupted, my voice cold as I grabbed her wrist and ushered her out of my bedroom. It wasn’t the first time we had tried to hurt each other like that, our words more painful than any physical act of violence; our tongues sharper than any freshly whetted blade. We knew each other’s weaknesses better than we knew our own—we had touched every single soft spot, pushed on them like purple bruises just because we could—but until that moment, I never stopped to wonder what would happen if we went for the kill. Never even considered the possibility of one fatal blow that had the power to end it all.
“I tried to talk but you wouldn’t listen,” I continued. “You’re choosing him over me.”
“That’s not true,” she said, whimpering in the hall.
“Congratulations, you fell for it.”
“Margot, stop—”
“He’s gonna hurt you, Eliza. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“And whenever it happens,” I said, staring at her in the hallway, those bright pink eyes and tear-streaked cheeks begging me not to say it, “don’t call me.”
CHAPTER 40
I wake up on Christmas morning to a text from Mr. Jefferson.
Merry Christmas, sweetie. Saw your car drive by last week.
I lie in bed, staring at the message, my own cursor taunting me to come up with something to say. Before I can make up my mind, it pings again.
Would love to see you today.
I sigh, my head sinking deep into my pillow, thinking about the last time I’d seen Eliza’s parents. It was the summer she died, the night of her funeral. Even then, I had been avoiding them, the guilt I felt over Eliza’s death rearing up like a storm surge every time I drove by their house.
I’ll never forget their faces that day, the makeup smudged heavily beneath Mrs. Jefferson’s eyes as Mr. Jefferson pushed her around the room by the small of her back. Shaking hands, glumly nodding. Accepting condolences on her behalf.
“I just wish you had been there,” he said to me that night, a haggardness in his face I had never seen in him before. We were sitting on the back porch together, tie loosened around his neck, and I could smell the bourbon on his breath, warm and stale. I knew, whatever came next, he’d probably regret in the morning. “You kept her safe.”
I stayed silent, wondering if Eliza ever told him about our argument; the things we said to each other that were so hard to take back. I doubted it. She had died with her parents still thinking I was a good person, and I watched as he continued to sip, picturing myself in bed that night, staring at my phone.
“Whenever it happens, don’t call me.”
“You talked sense into her,” he continued. “She listened to you.”
“Not always,” I said, looking down at my lap. “Sometimes I think she did things specifically because I told her not to.”
“Welcome to my life.” He smiled into the distance, then turned toward me. “Was anything bothering her?” he asked at last. “Any reason you can think of why she might’ve—?”
He trailed off, like the rest of the sentence was too painful to say.
“Mr. Jefferson, you don’t think—?” I stopped, tried to wrap my mind around what he was insinuating. Finally, I spit it out. “She didn’t jump.”
“No,” he said after too long a pause. “No, of course not. But she never mentioned anything to you? Nothing seemed … wrong?”
I stayed quiet, our final conversation running through my mind. The tears in her eyes and that quiver in her voice. The betrayal leaking out of us both for reasons related, but also entirely apart.
“No,” I said at last. “I can’t think of anything.”
“And you never saw anyone giving her a hard time? Someone who might have gotten under her skin?”
“Mr. Jefferson, it was just an accident. She fell—”
“Humor me, Margot.”
I couldn’t keep looking into his eyes anymore, inflamed and unblinking, so I turned to stare into the backyard, the long dock stretching out into a darkness so dark, I couldn’t even see the end of it.
“Nobody disliked Eliza,” I said at last. “She was friends with everybody.”
He sighed, squeezing the lids of his eyes with his fingers, probably realizing how desperate he was starting to sound. How deranged. I looked at him and felt a pang of pity flare up in my chest because I knew what he was doing, what he had been doing ever since he got the call that night. Ever since he was startled awake at two in the morning, looked down at his phone, and saw Eliza’s number on the screen but heard someone else’s voice on the other end. That heavy silence, a long exhale. The sound of sirens in the distance and the words no parent is ever equipped to hear.
He was grasping at straws, blindly searching for anything and anyone to blame other than Eliza’s own recklessness. Her own stupidity.
I knew, because I was doing it, too.
“There were bruises,” he said at last, and I jerked my head toward him, a hitch in my throat that made it hard to breathe. I watched as he opened his eyes, stared into his glass. Inspecting something invisible at the bottom.
“What do you mean?” I asked slowly.