“It always takes a full twenty-four hours for the dirt roads to be drivable,” he explains. “One downside to living in the sticks.”
“But it’s so nice out,” I say. The sun is pouring through the door, and I can already tell the day will be pushing ninety.
“Then enjoy it! Just not in town.”
As he leaves, I immediately hear the voice of my mom, clear as day. Just what I was trying to avoid. Whenever I was uncertain about a decision in life, she’d always say the same thing.
That’s your conscience talking.
My conscience told me to look after my dying mother when I was seventeen. But she didn’t die for six years, and for six years, I did my duty. Whenever I became resentful of Mom or jealous of my friends, I’d tell myself the same thing: Listen to your conscience. Do the right thing.
And then, when she died, and I was free for the first time, I went to college. Instead of studying something that would get me a job, I listened to my conscience again and studied zoology,because my conscience said the planet was dying and needed my help.
One day, Neil came along, a nice boy with a nice career. He wanted us to build a life together. And my conscience said again, ‘This is the right way to live.’ So I stayed with him for years, despite the other voice inside me, which at first was just a whisper, but grew into a shout, and then a scream, every time I was in his presence, telling me to burn it all to the ground, to live for myself, for my own wants, my own needs, my own desires.
I pick up a stone from the edge of the lawn and let out a grunt of frustration as I toss it into the trees. I know I’m lying to myself. I want my decisions to be clean and easy, but there’s nothing clean and easy about any of it. I still have a conscience, and I know what I’ve done is wrong. It doesn’t matter that Grace is cheating, too.
But I’m going to stay. I have no money, no other place to live. Ihaveto stay. I have no choice.
I try to distract myself by tidying up. There are dirty dishes to clean, clothes to put away, and new spider webs to sweep up. When I make the bed, I feel the rustle of paper under the mattress.
Grace’s diary. Bradley said she’d notice it was gone. I have to put it back.
I hurry down the trail to the main house. I knock on the door, but there’s no response, so I open it and call out.
“Bradley?”
There’s still no answer, so I step inside. For all I know, Grace is already home.
“Hello?”
As I approach the stairs, I hear the sound of water flowing through pipes under the floor. They must be ancient. If I owned this place, I’d be forever worried about the pipes and the wiring. It wouldn’t take much to burn the place to the ground.
I take the first step, then feel something brush against my ankles, and I let out a short scream.
“Shit. The cat.”
I kneel and see that it has the name ‘Gabriel’ on its collar. I try to scratch the cat’s chin, but it angles its head away, as if offended by my response, and trots towards the kitchen. I continue upstairs, and at the landing, I hear an extractor fan running in the main bedroom. He must be having a shower.
I continue to the small door and crawl up the stairs, careful not to scrunch up the diary entry. I go over to the desk and place the entry in its original stack of papers, sliding it near the bottom. It’ll be out of place, but at least it’s there if Grace goes looking.
When that’s done, I see that there’s a notebook on the desk that wasn’t here last time. It’s red and has a single word on the front cover.
Brie.
I drop it like it’s poison, then look behind me, worried that she might be standing in the shadows.
A notebook about me? I open the first page to find a list of attributes, initially focused on my body, then moving to my personality.
Slim. Attractive. Blonde. Sharp nose. Dimples. Smiles too much. Green eyes. Deeper than expected. Shy. Uncertain. Easily swayed. Servant. Threat. Naive.
I feel the sting of insults, mostly because I know they’re all true. But how does she know so much about me? We’ve barely had a conversation, and she’s always done most of the talking.
I turn to the next page and find a series of notes about my first day at Pine Ridge.
She comes to the door, shy, poorly dressed, and ill-prepared for the work.
She won’t speak unless I speak. She doesn’t stand up for herself. She has low self-esteem and has recently left her boyfriend.
