I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. It’s as bad as it gets.”
I told her everything. Everything from Sue showing up at my apartment in Willingsworth, to the accident that killed her, to lying to Dan, to lying to the police, to lying to Sue’s husbands and child, and all the lies in between.
When I finished, I had to pat myself on the back—because I big-time got her to top her slack-jawed, bug-eyed shock from earlier with the crater-faced one before me.
“Sarah!”
“I know,” I cried, clapping my hands over my face. “I know, I know, I know!”
“How— How— How?!” she settled on. “How could you just throw your twin sister off a fucking cliff?!”
“Trust me, that wasn’t the hard part.” I slammed my hand on the table. “I’ve been wanting to throw that bitch off a cliff since I was eight years old, and when I walked through the door and discovered she planned to surprise me with Micah, Rhodes, and Alex—jumping on another chance to hurt me while our mother lay upstairs dying?”
Hatred curled my hands into fists. “I wanted to throw her off twice.”
“Okay... okay, yeah,” she whispered. “That is brutally cruel—even for Sue. But how in the world are you passing yourself off asSue to her husbands? They’ve been dating, living with, and raising a child with her for ten years!”
“I know! I have no idea how I’m doing it other than that those relationships are strained to snap, Court. They want Sue out of their lives for good, so they’re not looking too hard at me or why I’m acting strange.” I flicked away. “They’re barely looking at me at all.”
I felt her eyes on me. “And that hurts your feelings, doesn’t it.”
She said it like a question, but it wasn’t one. Courtney was always able to see right through me.
“Yes, it does.” My eyes stung. “You know what a massive crush I had on those guys my entire freshman year. And then after they graduated, I virtually stalked everything they did and everywhere they went. If there was anything I wanted as much as Yale, it was to be in Micah’s, Rhodes’s, and Alex’s orbit,” I said. “Now I finally am, and they look at me like bear shit on the welcome mat. And speaking of bears, Alex locked me outside with one this morning.”
“Excuse me?!”
“Yep. No exaggeration. He saw the fucking bear behind me, locked the door, and walked away.”
She gaped at me, speechless.
“I was fine,” I quickly added. “The bear didn’t try to come after me when I hurried my butt off the porch and to the front door, but the look in Alex’s eyes when he did it...”
I tossed my head. “He truly despises Sue. The only thing I can’t figure out is how she knew to go for them in the first place. Inevertold Sue how I felt about those guys. I wasn’t an idiot.”
“Uhhh....”
“Huh?” I raised my head, locking eyes with her cringe. “What? What is it?”
“Babe, I... I think I know how she figured those three were the perfect targets of your emotional annihilation.”
“What?” I sat up straight. “How?”
Courtney sighed. Picking up her own cupcake, she chomped a big bite. “After that day in the auditorium—when you just suddenly disappeared and I didn’t have a clue what happened other than that you were expelled.After that day, I kept going to your house almost every day for weeks, trying to get in to see your mother to ask what happened to you.
“At first, the staff let me in but told me I had to wait in the front hall until your mother was ready toreceiveme,” she mocked, putting on all the pompous airs that word deserved. “Hint: she never came down.
“Eventually, she must’ve told the staff to stop opening the door for me, because they started leaving me on the welcome mat—banging and shouting for someone to let me in.” She blew out a breath. “Well, one day, the door flew open and your mother was there—looking down on me like I was the most disgusting, filthy piece of trash she’d ever seen.”
Court’s eyes glazed. “She told me she had no daughter by the name of Sarang Kim—”
The sentence cut me like a knife.
“—but if she was the mother of the person I was referring to, she must’ve lost said daughter to the influence of vulgar, insolent little sluts like me.”
It was my turn for my jaw to drop. “She said that?! Oh, Court, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly.
