And now, looking more closely into her green eyes, I see that they’re almost identical to Maya’s. My stomach drops. I rub my arms through my sleeves as if I could scrub the resemblance right off my skin.
She hurries on, words tumbling out in an apologetic rush.
“I promise I won’t take much of your time. I just… need to say a few things, and then I’ll go. You’ll never have to hear about our family ever again.”
Her voice wavers, caught between guilt and determination. There’s a fragile quality to her tone, but a fierce honesty burnsbehind her eyes. It is the courage in her gaze that makes me want to hear her.
I don’t feel safe inviting her inside. Not alone, not with everything her last name carries.
I tell her to walk around the side of the house and wait by the pool. I grab my coat and my black wool hat with trembling hands, then step out through the glass doors. The cold air biting at my skin does nothing to calm my racing heart.
Chloe is already seated at the table closest to the pool, her shoulders drawn tight against the chill. I sit across from her.
The box rests on the table. Neither of us dares to touch it. For a moment, we both stare at it as the wind just blows around us.
“I’m not even sure coming here was the right thing to do,” she whispers. “But something in me said I had to. So I’ll just say what I came here to say… and then I’ll leave you alone.”
She swallows, gathering what little courage she has left. When she speaks again, her voice is steadier. Almost brave.
“My cousin… Maya… she wasn’t always like this,” she begins, her eyes distant. “When I was little, I wanted to be her. She was brilliant. She helped me with homework, though she’d sometimes say I was too slow. That I needed to work harder so no one would ever beat me.”
A faint, bittersweet smile forms on her lips. “We were almost like sisters.”
Her words feel heavy. There is so much grief and nostalgia in them.
“Even back then, Maya always craved attention,” she says. “But she was still good. Just… a sweet girl.”
She exhales, the breath trembling on its way out.
“When her mom died, something broke,” she says, her voice thinning. “She had therapy for years. She had all the support and love my parents and our relatives could give, but none ofit fixed what shattered inside her. Determination turned into selfishness. Intelligence turned into sharp edges meant to cut.”
Her gaze shifts toward the box, then back to me. She keeps going, because stopping would hurt even more.
“Your husband wasn’t the first married man,” she whispers. “There was a scandal in our town. The wife—her best friend’s mom—came home early and found Maya in bed with her husband. He was forty-one. She had just turned eighteen. It makes me sick just thinking about it. He deserved to be a pariah. I wish he’d been the one to lose everything, the one everyone truly turned their backs on.”
My stomach twists.
“But the sad thing is, Maya liked it,” Chloe continues, tears glinting at the corners of her eyes. “She liked the chase. The power. When her best friend came to our house and demanded to know why she did it, Maya just said,‘Because I wanted to. Because he wanted me, not your mom. Because I can.’”
I feel sick. So profoundly sick.
It isn’t just hearing about Maya’s past. It’s the realization of the damage she learned to inflict long before she ever crossed paths with Colin.
“My father blamed himself for his sister’s death,” Chloe says, her voice trembling but clear.
“All that guilt blinded him. He enabled Maya because she reminded him of the person he couldn’t save. He did everything for her… everything he couldn’t do for his own sister. And she used that guilt like a weapon. Got away with things she should’ve been held accountable for, over and over again.”
She lets out a bitter laugh, one that sounds too tired for someone her age.
“But knowing now just how far she went this time… for the first time ever, I heard my mom say the word divorce this week.”
Her expression falters.
“After everything… even he can’t excuse Maya anymore.”
Her fingers trace anxious circles on the box. She looks away, lost in memories she can’t escape.
“We spent the week sorting through the apartment my father was renting for Maya,” she says. “He told me things he’d been hiding for years. He said he saw your father as a good man. A friend. He felt relieved knowing his sister and niece were being loved and cared for by someone decent. A man of honor.”
