“I admit, we’ve had our problems…”
I laugh again. “Have we now?”
Nate is struggling to sit up, trying to keep his head above the shallow pool that has formed at the bottom of the grave. “Please, Eve. This isn’t you. You don’t want to do this. It won’t solve your problems.”
“Yes, you know all about my problems, don’t you? Considering you are the cause of all of them.”
“Fine, that’s fair.” When he speaks, some of the muddy water gets into his mouth, and he grimaces and spits it out. “Just get me out of here, and we can talk about this. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
“No,” I say quietly. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Eve!” The panic in his face has intensified. He starts struggling against his restraints. “You realize I’m going to drown in here, right? Please stop messing around! Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. I’ll quit teaching, leave town. Whatever you want, okay?”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I’m not going to let you drown.”
For a moment, his shoulders relax and he stops his struggle with the duct tape. “Good. Thank you. I know you wouldn’t.”
I pick up the shovel lying on the ground beside me. “I’m going to bury you first.”
With those words, I scoop up a shovelful of dirt, and I throw it on top of him.
“Eve!” he screams. “Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?”
I scoop up more dirt and throw it into the hole.
“Eve!” His face is bright red. “Eve, sweetheart, I’m so sorry for everything! I love you! You have to know that! You can’t do this to me!”
And another scoop of dirt goes into the hole.
“Eve!” he gasps. “Don’t do this to me! Eve! Eve!”
Nate is thrashing now in the grave, trying to get free. But he isn’t going to. I tied him up much too tightly. I’m about to scoop in more dirt when Jay grabs my arm. He tugs me away, out of the earshot of my husband.
“Eve,” he says. “You’re going to kill him.”
I lift my chin. “I know.”
Jay glances over at the grave, where my husband is screaming his lungs out, even though nobody can hear him but us. “He’s right. It won’t solve your problems to kill him.”
“You’d be surprised.”
His brows bunch together. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
Jay stares at me for a moment, then he picks up his own shovel. He walks back with me to the grave. And when I scoop up some dirt and throw it in the hole, he does the same.
“Eve!” Nate screams. “For the love of God, Eve, don’t do this! You can’t do this!”
I can and I will. Two more scoops of dirt go into the hole.
“You’ll go to jail. You know that, right? You’re going to spend the rest of your life rotting in jail, you crazy bitch!”
Two more scoops of dirt. One of them hits him in the face, and he starts to sob.
“Please, Eve.” His left eye is obscured by mud as he stares up at me. “Please don’t do this, Evie. I’m begging you. Please…”
Nate once said to me that he thinks death is like being on the precipice of an abyss, or some pretentious garbage like that. He was terrified of death, more than anything else in the world. I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, but if I do, I am certain that my husband will spend the rest of it burning in hell.
He alternates between begging us to stop and screaming threats until the mud completely covers his face. Shortly after that, he goes blessedly silent. We keep shoveling in dirt until the hole is completely filled. And as I put the finishing touches on my husband’s grave in the woods, I recite to myself the poem he once wrote for me many years ago, back when I was fifteen years old and he was my English teacher fresh out of college who swore to me I was his soulmate:
Life nearly passed me by
Then she
Young and alive
With smooth hands
And pink cheeks
Showed me myself
Took away my breath
With cherry-red lips
Gave me life once again
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Epilogue
ADDIE
SIX MONTHS LATER
WHEN I GET to the school parking lot, Hudson is leaning against his car, talking to some of his football buddies, even though the season is over. I watched every single game, and Hudson killed it. He deserves the title of star quarterback. He’s going to get a scholarship to a great college—they’re all going to be fighting over him.
When Hudson sees me, he raises a hand in greeting. “Addie!” he calls out, as if I could possibly miss him.
I jog the rest of the way over, a dopey smile plastered on my face. I’m smiling a lot more lately. Ever since I got my best friend back, the world seems a lot brighter. I’m still not Miss Popularity, but I don’t care. Hudson is all I ever needed.
And this year has definitely been wild.
After Kenzie and I talked to Detective Sprague, she attempted to get an officer to bring in Nathaniel, but then he took off. I guess he knew he was in deep trouble and decided it was better to disappear than to be labeled as a sex offender.
They might have searched harder for him, except Mrs. Bennett suddenly materialized. She had some story about deciding to take a bus somewhere to get away for a few days. She paid in cash, she said, and she had no idea everyone was searching for her. Sprague had my story on record about what Nathaniel and I did to her, but she refused to confirm it—and she was not, in fact, dead and buried—so there was nothing the police could do.
Of course, Mrs. Bennett and I both know the truth. And we both know that if I had buried her with dirt instead of leaves, everything could have gone very differently.
In any case, she never returned to Caseham High. She resigned when the scandal came out with her husband, and then she left town. We ended up with a substitute teacher for the rest of the term. I wished it could have been Mr. Tuttle, but I heard through the grapevine he got another job at a high school two towns over. They’re lucky to have him.
As for Mr. Bennett, it turned out that Kenzie and I weren’t the only “soulmates” he had among his students. It makes me sick when I think about it sometimes. I feel so stupid.
One thing I’m grateful for is that I have Kenzie to talk about it with. She and I have for real become close friends this year. We have spent hours talking about Nathaniel. It makes me feel better that somebody as smart and beautiful and popular as Kenzie Montgomery could be taken in exactly like I was. And she says talking to me makes her feel better about the whole thing too.
Plus we’re both getting professional talk therapy. It all helps.
“Took you long enough,” Hudson teases me when I reach his car. “What were you doing in there?”
I was late because Lotus and I were putting the finishing touches on the poetry magazine, which we have been doing entirely ourselves since Nathaniel took off. But I don’t want to tell him that, because I want it to be a surprise when he sees the magazine. “Sorry! I’m here now at least.”
One of Hudson’s football buddies laughs. “Your girl really got you whipped. How long does she have you waiting for her anyway?”
Hudson laughs too, and he doesn’t correct his friend who called me his “girl.” It makes me wonder. Especially since when we walk from his car to the school every morning, he sometimes reaches out and takes my hand in his. He’s not dating Kenzie at least. I’m pretty sure he was seeing some girl at the beginning of the year, but not anymore.
“You taking off then?” one of the guys says to Hudson as he opens the door for me. It’s unnecessary that he does that, but it’s sweet.
“Uh-huh,” Hudson says. “Addie and I are going to get some milkshakes before I have to get to work. See you later, Walsh?”
“Later, Jay,” the other kid says to Hudson.
As Hudson climbs into the driver seat next to me, I say to him, “Okay, I’ve got to ask. How come all your football buddies call you Jay?”