Heather shook her head, not meeting my eyes.
“She… she came in this morning. I mean, she saw us last night.”
My lungs squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. Had she seen? What had she seen? A loop of her voice sounded in my head.
What the fuck? Oh, my God, Max?
I couldn’t tell if it was a real memory or something my guilty conscience made up. I didn’t do anything, I kept telling myself. So why did I feel like I did?
I hadn’t protected her.
“Did she… did she say where she was going?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Heather shook her head again. “No, but she was crying. She looked… rough. Like she’d been through hell. She was barely dressed… you know, she had been with Rhett.”
My vision blurred at the edges. A red haze crawled in. I almost punched a hole through the goddamn wall.
I huffed, grabbing my phone out of my pocket. My fingers didn’t feel like mine.
“Max, please. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to see what it would be like,” she cried.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, coldly.
Heather’s jaw settled, and then she went in for one last attack.
“She moved on, you know.” She looked at me so matter-of-factly that it stopped me in my tracks.
“Shut the fuck up, Heather,” I warned.
“After she fucked Rhett, she hooked up with another guy—older. Black hair, dark skin. He had his hands all over her. Her hair was a mess, his hair was a mess. She was wearing his clothes. He was shirtless.”
The picture formed in my head instantly, too vivid, like it had been waiting there. Like I’d already seen it somewhere. Like someone was feeding it to me.
She wouldn’t do that to me, would she?
I stopped, staring at Heather, and then walked over to her dresser, ripped one of the drawers out, and threw it. It landed with a loud bang next to the bunk. I grabbed another drawer and threw it.
I screamed so loud, so deep, so fucking primal that my throat was raw. Heather shrieked.
“Max! Stop! You’re scaring me!” She had her hands over her ears.
Good, I thought, for one sick second. Then even that thought scared me.
I grabbed my phone again and found Mackenzie’s number in my favorites.
MRS. MCKINNON
As the phone began to ring, I looked over at Heather and said, “Have a great life, you fucking cunt,” before walking out of the cabin.
The phone rang and rang and rang, then flipped to voicemail.
“Hi, it’s Mackenzie! Leave me a message?—”
The sound hit me like a physical punch. For half a second, I felt like I was glitching. I stuttered into her voicemail like a scratched CD.
“Trouble… where are you? Please, please call me back.” My voice was shaking so badly I could barely get through the message. “I’m sorry. I don’t—I don’t know what happened. Please just call me.”
I ended the call and immediately opened my messages app. My previous message was unread.
