A lapdog?His words were like a blow to the center of my chest. “I don’t do that.” And what did he know? “We actually have more in common than you’d think.”
“Oh yeah?” Nate laughed, sarcastically. “Like the fact your ancestors were owned by hers?”
My cheeks flamed. “Don’t do this. Just because you’re not in Sterling and all you do is make music with a bunch of stoners—” I stopped myself when I saw his hurt expression.
Nate took a minute to answer. “Hey, look: what Princeton means to me and what it means to you, those are two different things…” I opened my mouth to take it back, but he put up a hand. “Thosestonerswho are my friends?” His eyes flashed with what I could tell was hurt and anger. “Jamal’s pre-med and volunteers at a hospital on the weekends. AJ works a full-time job to support his family while goingto school, and he’s still going to graduate with honors. So yeah, all we do besidesschool and workis make music and smoke a little weed on the weekend. Give me a goddamn break.” He was breathing hard.
“I didn’t mean—”
“That society you’re in,Greystone?”
I looked at him, surprised. I hadn’t told him I was in Greystone. Had Cecily?
“—bunch of power-hungry pricks. They let you in because right now it’s a good look to have one light-skinned Black girl around.”
It stung with truth.
But at the same time, he didn’t understand how much I needed Greystone to make something of myself. How muchNaomineeded it. I had a level of privilege, there was no denying it—but Nate’s mother was still alive, his brothers in Chicago, not on the other side of the country. Naomi and I didn’t have anyone.
“Look, I don’t have the luxury to turn down an opportunity like this. Maybe you would’ve turned down Greystone…but some of us have to make compromises to survive.”
I was pushing myself to my feet when he reached out and grabbed my hand, held it tight. “Hey,” he said, and when I looked at him, his eyes were filled with emotion. “Forget it. Sorry, this shit—gets me heated.”
He draped an arm around me, and we sat in silence, the air heavy between us. Nate moved his other hand onto my thigh, and when I met his eyes, he was looking at me differently. His eyes were darker, more intense, and before I could say anything else, he pulled me toward him and kissed me.
A few seconds later, I pulled away, tore my dress over my head, and pushed myself off the ledge.
And with a rush of wind, I was falling. Down. Down. Plunging into the ice-cold water, air whipping from my lungs, and for a moment, everything went dark, and I wondered if my body was having an adverse reaction to the cold. I heard my blood rushing in my ears and felt the weight of Nate’s words as they circled around me. I wondered if I was the awful one, being with him, or being in Greystone, or whether I was going to drown in this ice-cold water and none of it mattered.
When I finally breached the surface with a gasp, I caught mybreath and looked up to find Nate standing on the ledge, shirtless, shivering. I laughed at the sight of him.
“Water’s perfect!” I shouted as I swam for the shore.
“You’re full of shit!” he replied, and with a howl, he jumped too.
Part Three
Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.
—Daniel Kahneman,Thinking, Fast and Slow
Chapter Thirty-Three
Maya
June 2023
After the funeral, Nate, Dani,and I return home to our apartment—a two-bedroom, fourth-story walk-up in Brooklyn. I’m exhausted, body depleted from the lack of food and sleep, the intermittent tears, muscles aching with a dull throb that seems to have started in my head and worked its way down my spine, through my limbs, all the way to my fingertips.
—
Once settled backinside, Nate and I both sink onto the couch in the living room and sit there in silence. Why hadn’t the police searched Margaret’s house? Presumably because Naomi hadn’t lived there for four years…and yet it seems like her high school bedroom would be a logical place to look—if they thought it was a murder,I remind myself. But an accidental drowning, it seemed, required much less investigation.
I’d told Margaret what I suspected about Matthew’s involvement, that I hadn’t trusted him since I was at school, and about the note I’d found in Naomi’s room, and how the police weren’t taking this seriously. “I hate that man with a passion,” she’d said.
—
Margaret knew himwell, better than I did in some ways. They were both involved in the Legacy Foundation, and she’d seen through him from the start. “He’s a narcissist, that’s what it is,” she’d said oneday, after returning from a board meeting. It was a Friday, a few weeks before my sister’s death, and we were having a glass of wine by the pool. “He cares about nothing but himself, really. I can’t believe he’s managed to find a third woman who wants to marry him.”
