“You drugged yourbest friendto get her out of the way so you could be queen of afraternity party?” Caro’s face was so red you could see it, even in the dim light from the lamps.
Looking at Courtney, I felt an uneasy stirring in the pit of my stomach. If I hadn’t been so consumed with winning a prize greater than Sweetheart, it could’ve been me that night, stewing in the shadows, gutted by Heather’s first-place win, Courtney’s runner-up status. The insidious voice whispering,Jessica Miller, the Phi Delt president’s girlfriend—and not even second in line for the crown.
I recognized myself in her.
“I know you’re mad, Caro, but keep your voice down.” Mint looked around. “We don’t want to attract unwelcome attention.”
“Oh, no. Like fromthe cops?” Caro threw her arms out. For a second—it could have been the lighting—she looked like a gold cross, burning bright against the night. “Jail’s exactly where we should send her. Courtney, you’re the reason Heather couldn’t defend herself that night. You might not have stabbed her, but you basically tied her hands behind her back. And you were willing to let Coop take the fall. How do you live with yourself?”
“It was supposed to make her go to sleep, that’s all. How could I haveknown?”
Courtney’s hands trembled in a way that was deeply familiar. “After she died, I was broken. I didn’t eat for a week. And the only way I could get out of bed was to think…well, she would have been killed anyway. Someone wanted to stab her. It was only a coincidence both things happened the same night. I told myself it didn’t matter and made myself forget.” Her voice dropped to a painful, throaty whisper. “I should have won Sweetheart in the first place. It was meant to be mine.”
“‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’” Eric said, his voice ice.
I made myself forget. The black hole at my center stirred. A flash of memory:Two hands, covered in dried blood.
No. I shoved the image away.
On the ground, Courtney’s hands started shaking so bad she could barely hold them in place. She reached for her purse, but before she could get there, Eric snatched the bag, and she gave a cry of protest.
No one moved to stop him.
He yanked open her purse, rummaged, and pulled out a sleek orange cylinder with Chinese letters.
“You’restilltaking the pills?” Coop shook his head. “Goddamn, Courtney.” He looked dazed, as if he couldn’t believe the turn the night had taken.
“Lucky for us,” Eric said, turning the bottle to look at it. “Now we have evidence.”
Mint sat down at his wife’s side and gave Eric an evil look. “She doesn’t say another word. We’re getting a lawyer.”
Courtney burst into tears. “I don’t care about a lawyer,” she cried. “Please, just give them back.Please.”
A memory of my father, begging:Please, Jessica. Please, sweetheart, just to take the edge off. You don’t understand how much it hurts.
I grabbed the pills from Eric’s hand, taking him by surprise, and twisted the lid off.
“What are youdoing?” Caro asked.
“She’s addicted.” I dumped the pills in my hand, leaving one in the bottom of the bottle. “You can still have your evidence. You don’t need all of them.”
I handed the bottle back to Eric, who took it with a raised brow. Then I crouched by Courtney. She looked at me with cautious hope, and I realized, with a sinking feeling, that we’d been bad to her, too. Not the same kind of bad she’d been to us, but we’d known about her problem, in the back of our minds, and done nothing. Brushed it off all four years of college. Worse—in some ways, we’d even celebrated it. Courtney, the most perfect girl in school, had a humiliating vice. A fatal flaw. We’d all sighed in relief.
I pressed the pills into her hand and closed her blood-red fingernails around them. She nodded, embarrassed but grateful. I stood, catching Coop’s eye. He gave me a puzzled look.
“You all need to sign an NDA,” Mint said, wrapping a protective arm around Courtney’s shoulders.
“Are you kidding me?” Caro screeched.
“Not about her drugging Heather,” Mint said hurriedly. “Just about the diet pills. She’s a fitness influencer. It would ruin her career.”
Coop shook his head. “She’s lying on the ground shaking, dude. Her career is the least of her worries.”
“For the record”—twisted the pill bottle in his hand, watching it catch the lamplight—“I wasn’t staring at your breasts in college.” His gaze moved from the bottle to Courtney’s face. “I was staring at your ribs. You were a walking skeleton, and I couldn’t believe no one said anything. Not even Heather. She used to brush it off when I asked.” He pocketed the bottle. “I always had a feeling the drug in Heather’s system was yours.”
Something about Courtney’s story was still bugging me. I turned to her. “After Heather got blackout at Phi Delt, and you asked Frankie to take her home, what did you tell him?”
Courtney blinked, rubbing mascara-streaked cheeks. “I don’t know,” she said shakily. “I guess I told him Jack had broken up with her. And she was drowning her sorrows, planning her revenge.”
