I made it back to my room and took the ruined photographs to Heather’s desk. I slid the scissors in and cut, again and again, carving Heather into pieces.
I hated her.
I wanted her gone.
I wanted her to die.
The dark thought twisted in my mind. If she was dead, the world would be balanced. I could finally have what I wanted. I could bebest, first place, winner.
I cut until she was nothing more than scraps littering her desk.
But it still wasn’t enough.
A new idea was dawning. One that could restore the balance, right the wrongs—take back what Heather had stolen from me. It was terrible, and cruel, but as the rage seethed inside me, I knew I’d do it. To punish her, and Dr. Garvey. Everyone.
I dropped Caro’s scissors onto Heather’s desk and swept the scraps of photographs into her desk drawer.
Then I walked out the door and into the night. And for the first time in a long time, I was in control.
Chapter 31
Now
That’s where the record stopped, every time. Where it went utterly dark. That’s what Eric didn’t understand.Out the door, into the night, in control. Out the door, into the night, into the night.The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor, sunshine streaming through the windows, my hands and dress covered in blood. Dried in iron-scented rivulets. A record of pain written across my body like a warning in some dark language I didn’t understand.
What had I done?
The answer was buried in the black hole. For ten years, I’d known I’d blacked out something important that night, destroyed my memories with whiskey and drugs, truly my father’s daughter. And for ten years, I’d refused to look, been desperate not to touch the wound, still as raw now as it was then.
Except for once.
A year after we graduated, right after Mint dumped me and I’d transformed into the worst version of myself in the middle of a restaurant, I’d wondered: What, exactly, was I capable of? Who was I, really, underneath all the layers, when no one was watching? Where were my limits?
I went to a therapist. A fancy New York therapist, with the dark couch and the soothing, neutral-colored walls.Who was I, really?She said the answer was waiting in the dark spaces. She wanted to explore them, the moments when time fast-forwarded. I was a quilt made up of light and dark, she said. She told me to trust her.
It was a mistake. I told her about the night Heather died, what I’d done to the photographs, what I’d wanted to happen. I could see her careful mask slipping as she listened, could see the suspicion, mixed with intrigue, as her pencil scratched the surface of her notepad. She told me my blackout was like the black hole, a way to repress. She wanted to know what was inside it. But I couldn’t remember, hard as I tried. The dark was impenetrable.
So she hypnotized me. Like Orpheus bringing Eurydice out of the underworld, I followed the sound of her voice back to my dorm room on Valentine’s night. Saw the broken laptop, felt my pink dress hugging my hips, burned and burned with rage. But still, the memories wouldn’t surface. Still, the picture ended atout the door, into the night, in control.
We failed to uncover anything. I quit seeing her.
Then a week after our last session, I woke from a dream andknewI’d gone back, that I’dremembered; but now, awake, I’d lost the thread. The only thing that remained was a single conviction, dredged out of the dark: I’d done something unforgivable. Something wicked, to Heather. Something my mind was desperate to keep locked away.
So I did. Dedicated myself all over again, with renewed fervor, to being perfect Jessica Miller, a wild success, every surface calm and beautiful. A woman who was unassailable. I needed everyone at Homecoming, all my classmates, to reflect that truth back to me, their eyes and words like mirrors showing the right picture. It was the most important thing, more important than whatever happened with Mint or Coop or Caro. It was life or death.
And here, in my most important moment, I was faltering.
“Jess.” Caro’s eyes were full of betrayal, suspicion—fear. “What did you do?”
Behold Caroline Rodriguez, finally reading someone right. Finally willing to believe the worst, and of her best friend, to boot. What extraordinarily bad timing.
Her voice was so loud that the football players stopped celebrating, turned, and stared. The crowd closest to us went quiet. We were suddenly, and inescapably, on display.
Frankie wrestled away from the players and strode to the back of the float. “What are you guys doing? You’re making a scene.”
“Jessica was about to explain how she’s a psycho freak who killed Heather,” Courtney said smugly.Oh, how the tables had turned.
Frankie spun to me. “What’s she talking about?”
