“No, I…I just don’t get it. You said you reached for a knife with George. That was you. I don’t understand how that could have been anyone but you.”
There’s a little space created between us as he leans back to take me in. I don’t see any other option other than to admit, “I did. I did grab a knife. But he punched me as soon as I grabbed it. Knocked me out. When I woke…” Deep breath. “When I woke, he’d been stabbed. I thought it was me, that the knock to the head made me forget or I just blacked it out.”
The room is too silent, and my husband is too still. Even though I feel it coming, I’m still wounded when James removes his hand from mine.
“And you…” His jaw is clenching and unclenching. He takes asmall shuffle away from me. It feels like a mile. “And you thought you killed him, didn’t you? You lied to me.”
I’ve made my bed and now I have to lie in its soiled sheets. My chin eventually offers James an acquiescent nod. Our marriage has been burdened with more secrets than I know if it can bear.
“But remember, I didn’t do it,” I say.
He won’t look at me. “You think. And you lied. It’s not a small lie, Nat.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But this—my innocence—that’s all that really matters. My therapist knows I didn’t do it, and I know that, too, now. I’m not a killer. It means Will has nothing to hold over our heads anymore. We’re free.” Which is a blessing. My plan to remove Will from the equation was born of false confidence. If I’d tried, who knows how catastrophically I might have failed?
James’s eyes meet mine and although the skin around them folds, smile lines engaged, the distinct emotion that reads from them iswary. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s great news.”
The reassurance in his voice rings false. He’s a good actor, always has been, which is why he’s such a good boss; we never see him sweat. But not everyone is as observant as I am, and I can see the gentle sheen covering his brow.
29
Then
Claire
When I find myself cradling my sister outside a shitty university pub, her eyes at once as manic and as vacant as a shell-shocked soldier’s, what I immediately want more than anything is for Luca to pay for what he’s done to her. I know he’s a dead man walking.
It was sickening watching it unfold, understanding before Nat did. Or before she wanted to, at least. A couple of her friends were decent, concerned, but she was too wrapped up in her despair to notice the whiff of smugness that floated beneath some of the looks traded across the pub table. There’s a certain delight to be had in Nat being put in her place. The failed Oxbridge hopefuls of the world don’t like to be made to feel inferior, and Nat, who by now has learned how to be more well-liked than most of them, can afford to be taken down a peg or two. It makes me want to smack the smugness off their faces. They’re lucky Chris’s phone is the only thing I went for.
After freeing Emily from campus security, we retreat to Nat’s student digs. Popcorn, chocolate, wine, ice cream, pizza. Emily orders it all to the house, insists we don’t pay. I think of the coins in my bank account and am grudgingly grateful. We cuddle up together in Nat’sbed, an afternoon sleepover. We play the “fuck him, he’s trash” game: endless volleys of insults about Luca traded across our small circle, but Emily and I seem to be the only ones with paddles to play. So we play the distraction game instead: movies, TV shows, thumbs scrolling social media. Did you see this? And this? And this?
It all passes over Nat. Words wash over her as she stares off and the sky outside darkens to an inky black. Emily and I trade worried looks.Is she going to be okay?
The three of us eventually fall asleep, tightly squeezed in beneath the covers, that question resounding in my head before consciousness fades. I do feel her get out of bed. Nat, that is. I assume she’s gone to the toilet. Am too sleep-drunk to think straight, using the moment of lucidity to stagger out of the sweaty trap of her too-full bed and into the adjoining room that her housemate’s offered up as extra sleep space while on holiday.
As a result of my new spacious, peaceful bed, I don’t notice Emily leave at all. It’s only at three when my phone buzzes beneath my pillow that I wake. Clearing the alarm I set, I see Emily’s texts.
[02:03] Woke up and Nat wasn’t here. Didn’t want to disturb you, so headed out to look for her. Think she’s at that party to find him. If she’s not there, might need to call you in as backup.
[02:47] Found her. She’s pretty high, but otherwise fine.
Fuck. I was hoping—wishfully, I know—to slink off to the party alone. I’ve heard Nat wax lyrical plenty about wonder boy’s holey heart and the party felt like a good opportunity to test how much it can handle. Break my sister’s heart and I break yours—fair trade.
It also irks me that Emily wouldn’t think to wake me so we could go together. Or, more likely, intentionally left me lying there. Sometimes, it’s like she’s competing with me. Like she wants to prove that she’s the better sister.
Anger creeping in at the thought of Nat anywhere near Luca, I dress as inconspicuously as I can and walk my way over to the party house through the lamplit streets, still littered with drunk students making their way home. By the time I spot Nat at the house party, watching from a distance as Emily tries to keep up with her wild dancing, she’s clearly off her face. It tells me all I need to know. Things haven’t gone well.
Part of me wants to stay with her, make sure she’s okay, even though I can see that Emily is trying to do the same thing. I’m transported back to Marc’s bathroom all those years ago. It’s so easy for these boys to push her over the edge.
There’s something grotesque that squeezes at my chest at this thought. The truth is, I love her so much and I hate her for what she lets them do to her, for the lesson she refused to learn after Marc. It’s both that love and that quiet hatred that pushes me out of that basement room and up into the kitchen, where I’ve seen a group of frat boys lingering. As I’ve hoped, Luca is still there among them. He spots me, a gentle crackle floating beneath the bass, under the pressure of the can now more tightly constricted in his hand.
“Hey,” he says. “Claire, isn’t it? Nat’s sister?” His grin is a little too big and his eyes are a little too wide, darting side to side at the friends around him. I can spot another actor a mile off, can see that Luca’s smile is painting over something a little desperate. I realize that, like my sister, he needs to be liked. But Nat’s lacking the thing that makes Luca dangerous, the thing that makes him a little too loud, a little too gregarious, a little too reliant on “good banter”: crippling insecurity.
A couple of Luca’s friends shuffle uneasily, sniffing and rubbing at their noses. It’s clear that something that Natalie has done has rattled them. A little pride swells in me at that thought. She hasn’t just let him get away completely scot-free. Still, I’ve been hoping he hasn’t seen me in enough of Natalie’s Instagrams to recognize me as her sister, let alone name me.
“Yeah.” My smile is equally fake. “You must be Luca.”
He crosses and uncrosses his arms. “Listen, you must have heard about the uh…the um…”
