“I’m fine, Jamie. Thank you for caring about me, but Amelia’s right. You won’t want to be my friend after I tell you what I’ve done,” I say. I take a deep breath and meet Ryan’s eyes again. “It wasn’t a coincidence that Sunny was too tired to party with usthat last night of spring break. It was by design—my design. I wanted to seduce you, to get you alone for the night and show you what you’d been missing, so…I roofied Sunny.”
“What the fuck?” Ryan explodes and stands up, banging the table with his fists. “You drugged her?”
“I did. Because Sunny had you, and I wanted you. I wanted to take you from her,” I say. “I am what Amelia says I am. I like to show others up. Always have. Sunny had something I wanted, and I decided to take it. Take you.”
“How did you do this? How could you do this?” Beth says, her voice wobbling with emotion.
“I slipped the roofies in a margarita I brought to her room under the guise of pregaming,” I say. I cannot look up. I place my hands on the table in front of me, staring at my wedding ring. The ring I shouldn’t have on and won’t be wearing much longer. Everything in my life is about to be over. I look up, look into Ryan’s eyes. “After she passed out, I texted Ryan from her phone that she was taking a nap. That was true, I suppose.”
“Oh my God,” Ryan says, his eyes flashing in rage. I’ve never seen him this angry. It’s a little scary. And sadly, it’s more emotion than he’s ever shown in all the years of our marriage.
“And that’s why Sunny died,” Amelia says, holding up her hands to stop me from talking. “Let’s connect the dots, shall we, Roxy? You roofie Sunny, she passes out, she wakes up sometime in the middle of the night, disoriented, alone, left the room, and wound up dead in the pool.”
Ryan stands at the end of the table, hands clenched in fists.Staring at me with all the hate in the world. “You really are a monster. You’ve been controlling me and ruining my life since the day Sunny died. How could you? You destroyed everything that was good. You saw it and you tried to take it, as if you could remanufacture it between you and me. But you are no Sunny, Roxy. You are the opposite of everything she was.”
35
Roxy
The chandelier flickers over our heads. As the power wavers on the brink of outage, the crystal droplets suspended from the ornate arms of the chandelier seem to dance and shimmer. Tears fill my eyes, fracturing the light further. He’s right. I’m a monster.
I wipe at the tears spilling from my eyes and gaze at my husband. “And you want to know the worst part of it all? My plan totally backfired. You turned me down that night even after I did my best to seduce you. It was so pathetic.”
“How did Amelia know what you did to poor Sunny?” Beth asks. “And why haven’t you told us this before, Amelia?”
Amelia shrugs and takes a sip of her drink. She smiles at me. I hate her more than I can describe.
“Amelia came to Sunny’s room. She saw Sunny stumbling around, incoherent,” I say, staring at Amelia, who is still smiling at me.
“It was so Roxy, everything that happened, Ryan,” Amelia says, standing and patting Ryan on the shoulder. “But you’ve realized that by now. She isn’t who she seems. Roxy is ruthless. Ruthless Roxy. Ha, I love it. I wish I had come up with that little nickname sooner.”
I exhale and point my finger at Amelia. “If I’m ruthless, then what does that make you? You’ve literally profited off Sunny’s death.” I meet Ryan’s eyes again. “Ever since that night, I’ve paid her once a month to keep silent.”
“Oh my God,” Jamie says.
Greer is shaking his head. Beth appears to be in shock, as does Ryan. He stares at Amelia wordlessly before looking back at me.
“Wait a minute,” Amelia says. “I thought you were with Ryan that night. I thought your plan worked. All these years that’s what I thought.”
“No, he turned me down,” I say, my humiliation complete.
“Wow, poor thing. That really stinks to go to all that trouble to drug your so-called sister and then get nothing for your troubles,” Amelia says. “But…if you weren’t with Ryan, and he wasn’t back in his room with Sunny, where were you, Ryan?”
I watch as Ryan’s eyes dart to Beth, and then to me. Why hadn’t I asked that question back then, or any time since? Somehow, in the humiliating aftermath of Ryan’s rejection followed by the subsequent shock of Sunny’s death, I’d never thought to bring it up. As the power teeters on the brink of failure, the crystal chandelier becomes a fleeting spectacle, like stars in a darkening sky.
“I lost my room key, so I crashed with some guys I met at the casino,” Ryan says.
“I had your key card,” I say. I may as well tell him the whole truth. I have nothing left to lose, not anymore. “I swiped it so you wouldn’t be able to go back to your room and find Sunny drugged. And in my plans, you would be coming home with me.”
“This is insane,” Ryan says. “You are unwell, you know that?”
“No, I was in love,” I say. “It was all for love.”
“Love? You don’t know the meaning of the word,” Ryan snaps. “People don’t roofie their friends out of love. They don’t steal their room card out of love. They don’t try to steal their friend’s boyfriend out of love. That is not love.”
“But I love you, I do,” I say, and I know tears are streaming down my face again. “Ryan, please, forgive me.”
Ryan shakes his head. “All these years, I have felt responsible too. If I’d been there, been back in our room when Sunny woke up, she’d still be alive. You’re the one who made it impossible for me to check on her. Her death is your fault. You killed Sunny.”
