In his anger, his rage, he no longer looks familiar.
I don’t know this man.
“Did you think you were going to hurt me with this?” he asks, stabbing his palm with it, and I see that, though the edge is sharp, sharp enough to slice paper with, the point is dull. It does nothing but redden his palm. It leaves no other mark. “Did you think you were going tokillme with this?”
My tongue thickens inside of my mouth. It makes it harder to speak.
“What did you do to Morgan?” I ask. I won’t answer his questions.
He tells me, still laughing, that it wasn’t what he did to her, but what I did to her that matters. My eyes turn dry. I blink hard, a series of times. A nervous tic. I can’t stop.
“You don’t remember, do you?” he asks, reaching out to touch me. I draw swiftly back, thwacking my head on the cabinet. The pain radiates through my scalp, and I wince, a hand going involuntarily to it.
He says condescendingly, “Ouch. Looks like that hurt.”
I drop my hand. I won’t satisfy him with a reply.
I think of all the times he was so solicitous, so caring. How the Will I once knew would have run for ice when I hurt myself, would have helped me to a chair, pressed the ice to my aching head. Was that all in jest?
“It wasn’t me who did something to Morgan, Sadie,” he says. “It was you.”
But I can’t remember it. I’m of two minds about it, not knowing if I did or didn’t kill Morgan. It’s a terrible thing, not knowing if you took another’s life. “You killed Erin,” I say, the only thing I can think to say back.
“That I did,” he says, and though I know it, hearing him admit to it makes it somehow worse. Tears well in my eyes, threaten to fall.
“You loved Erin,” I say. “You were going to marry her.”
“All true,” he says. “The problem was, Erin didn’t love me back. I don’t take well to rejection.”
“What did Morgan ever do to you?” I cry out, and he smiles wickedly and reminds me that I’m the one who killed Morgan.
“What did she ever do toyou?” he quips, and I can only shake my head in reply.
He tells me. “I don’t want to bore you with the details, but Morgan was Erin’s kid sister, who made it her life’s mission to blame me for Erin’s death. While the rest of the world saw it as an unfortunate accident, Morgan did not. She wouldn’t give it up. You took matters into your own hands, Sadie. Thanks to you, I’ve come through this thing unscathed.”
“That didn’t happen!” I scream.
He’s the epitome of calm. His voice is even, not mercurial like mine. “But it did,” he says. “There was this moment when you came back. You were so proud of what you’d accomplished. You had so much to say, Sadie. Like how she would never get between us again, because you took care of her.”
“I didn’t kill her,” I assert.
His laugh is a giggle. “You did,” he says. “And you did it for me. I don’t think I’ve ever loved you as much as I did that night.” He beams, claims, “All I did was tell the God’s honest truth. I told you what would have become of me if Morgan made good on her threats. If she was able to prove to the police that I killed Erin, I would have gone to jail for a long, long time. Maybe forever. They would have taken me away from you, Sadie. I told you we wouldn’t ever see each other, we wouldn’t ever be together again. It would be all Morgan’s fault if that happened. Morgan was the criminal, not me. I told you that and you understood. You believed me.”
The look on his face is triumphant. “You never could live without me, could you?” he asks, looking quizzically at me, like a psychopath.
“What’s the matter, Sadie?” he asks, when I say nothing. “Cat got your tongue?”
His words, his nonchalance make me see red. His laugh makes me enraged. It’s the laugh, the awful, abominable laugh, that gets the better of me in the end. It’s the self-satisfied look on Will’s face, the way he stands there, head cocked at an angle. It’s the complacent smile.
Will manipulated my condition. He made me do this. He put an idea in my head—in the part of me known as Camille—knowing this poor woman, this version of me, would have done anything in the whole wide world for him. Because she loved him so much. Because she wanted to be with him.
I feel saddened for her. And angry for me.
It comes from somewhere within. No thought comes with it.
I lunge at Will with all my might. I regret it as soon as I do. Because though he stumbles some, he is much larger than me. Much stronger, much more solid. And again, he hasn’t been drinking. I shove him and he steps back. But he doesn’t fall to the floor. He inches backward, latching down on a countertop to regain his balance. He laughs even more because of it, because of my paltry shove.
“That,” he tells me, “was a bad idea.”
