Hazel didn’t eat meat.
She told me when she came to the baseball stadium and I tried to offer her a hot dog. After that, if we ever ate somewhere together, I always scoped out the menu to make sure there would be something she’d like.
It’s such a strange thing to flaunt, but the gleam in Portia’s eyes tells me just the fact thatIknow is enough.
It’s worth it.
The urge to get up from the table and walk out of the tiny room is overwhelming, but that’s what she wants. She wants to know that she got me.
Before Hazel’s death.
After her death.
And now.
But I won’t give her the satisfaction.
“Dinner? Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” I say cooly, my expression neutral as I feign indifference.
“No, I just like knowing I won.”
“You didn’t?—”
“Oh, but I did.” Portia sits back in the hard chair and grins. “Tonight will always be tainted by the fact that youalmost lost everything. And no matter how much your little tech mastermind tries to scrub me from your life,I’m everywhere.And you’ll never know if you got all the accounts or stopped all the emails from being sent.”
She sighs wistfully as she shrugs her shoulders and lets them drop, a self-satisfied look on her face I wish I could slap off. If not for me, then for Hazel.
“But why?”
“The why is so boring, isn’t it?”
“There’s nothingboringabout taking your sister’s life.”
She rolls her eyes like it’s a nuisance to even mention it.
“All I wanted was to branch out a little butno.” She draws out the word for emphasis, the sound making my skin crawl. “She was worried about thebrand,but what about me? Was I supposed to be stuck illustrating children and puppies on absurd adventures for the rest of my life?”
My jaw nearly drops to the floor at her indignation. “You—you neverhadto be a part of it. Hazel could have found a new illustrator. She could have done it without you.”
Her response is mocking, her voice high and nasally. “But we’re twins, Portia. It’s mydreamto do this with you.”
“So killing her was the answer?”
“Itriedto reason with her. But she didn’t want to listen, and I got tired of being second best to myperfectsister.”
Her emphasis onperfectmakes it clear she didn’t think Hazel was perfect at all.
“What happened in Vermont?”
Portia crosses one arm over the other and studies her nails, the both of us so out of place in this interrogation room.
“I made nice.Promisedher I’d drop trying to push the young adult story I’d been writing, that we’d stick to whatever new series she wanted to work out in Vermont.”
“But that was never the plan.”
“No,”—she taps one nail on the table—“I dyed my hair and cut it to match hers before we left. She wasn’t even suspicious, just happy that we looked identical like we did when we were younger.”
I dig my own nails into my palm to hold back the tears at the callous way she describes buying a cheap truck with cash when they first arrived in Vermont, begging Hazel to go get her something from the convenience store, and then chasing Hazel down on the desolate road.
