“Tyler said you’re getting married. Said your ring was worth more than this house. Said you’re a counselor at some fancy private school and you’re off for the summer.”
“I don’t have any money, Annaleise. I have nothing to my name. Bet I’m worth less than you, even.”
She rolled her eyes and stood, but I still had to look down at her. “You’re here to sell the house, isn’t that right?”
I nodded.
“I’ll give you some time, then.” She slid her phone into her back pocket.
“You’re fucking crazy,” I said. “Does Tyler know you’re this fucked up?”
She held her hands up, like I’d done from the window as she peered at me. “I just need a way out, Nic.”
“Get a job,” I said, then remembered the money my brother had given me to help me get out. I had someone. I had help.
“Yeah, I’m working on it.” She stood at the door. “Two weeks, Nic. I’ll give you two weeks.”
“I can’t—”
“Really,” she said. She grabbed the ring from the center of the table. “I bet this is worth that amount alone, isn’t it?” I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know. She slid it onto her pointer finger. “I’ll keep it safe until you pay.”
“You’re making a mistake. You can’t take that,” I said.
She opened the door. “Call the police. I dare you. I’ll hold this as insurance.”
She really was daring me. What will you do, Nic? The past or the future? Run away again, or stay and pay your debts?
I couldn’t figure out why Annaleise was doing this to me. Why she thought she could. She was a quiet girl, a timid girl, a lonely girl.
That’s what I could see of her from the fragments of my memory.
And what must she have seen of me?
Me on the other side of the door, after my mother died, as she delivered food and I stood there, silent and broken. Me at the fair as Daniel hit me, as I remained on the ground, weak and shaken.
Sad and quiet and pushed around.
She saw me as the broken girl.
She didn’t know the other parts of me. She didn’t know me at all.
* * *
AFTER I HAD PARKED Tyler’s truck behind the caverns, and after he’d slid that ring on my finger and I’d crawled across his lap—
I saw Corinne. Saw Jackson’s car come to a halt at the edge of the cavern parking lot, over Tyler’s shoulder, through the trees. What is it? he’d said. Nothing, I’d said. Just Jackson and Corinne. Ignore them. They can’t see us.
I saw Corinne throw open the door and yell something at Jackson. Heard Jackson’s muffled voice yelling something back, then him pulling away, the tires kicking up dirt. Through the woods, that’s the way she’d go to my place. But she disappeared around the curve, walking down the road.
“Should we go after her?” asked Tyler, twisted around in his seat, watching the same scene.
But I was full of her words, telling me to jump, and seeing her with my brother, which seemed like the ultimate betrayal after he’d just hit me. She went to comfort him, not me. She knew, and she leaned against his side. Ignore her, I’d said to Tyler, turning his head to face me, and Tyler had been all too happy to oblige.
We left for home not long after. I eased the truck out onto the road, high beams on in the dark, Tyler’s ring on my finger. We took the first curve, and there, thumb out, skirt blowing with the breeze, stood Corinne Prescott.
She stood at the edge of the road with nothing. She’d left her bag at my house earlier, a common Corinne maneuver to see who would pay for her. Whether she could talk the vendors into covering the cost, whether she could convince one of us. I’d paid for her Ferris wheel ticket. I’d paid for everything. Because on the tip of Corinne’s tongue was a truth I wasn’t ready to share. A trump card. Emotional blackmail. A dare.
Bailey had sneaked in a few miniature vials of whiskey from her dad’s collection. She pulled one out at the top of the Ferris wheel, took a gulp, passed it to Corinne, and Corinne handed it to me, her eyebrows raised. I took it from her outstretched hand, held it to my mouth, felt the burn of the liquor on my tongue, on the back of my throat. I was starting to make a decision right at that moment, as I let it slide back into the bottle instead.
She’d grinned at me. “Tyler’s here,” she said, pointing him out in the crowd.
I leaned over the edge with her. “Tyler!” I called.
She took another swig, then followed it up with a piece of spearmint gum. “Truth or dare, Nic,” she said, slowly rocking the cart back and forth as Bailey giggled.
“Dare,” I said too fast. There were too many truths, too close to the surface.
“I dare you to climb on the outside of the cart. I dare you to ride it like that. On the outside.”
And then later, with her thumb sticking out, her eyes meeting mine through the windshield: I dare you to drive on by. I dare you to pretend you don’t see me here. I dare you.
Annaleise didn’t know—I always took the dare.
* * *
I STILL KNEW TYLER’S number by heart. He answered his phone, and I could tell from the low hum of noise in the background that he was at the bar. “Hey, Nic, what’s up?”
The kitchen light shone off the glossy surface of the pictures, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Did you know your girlfriend blackmailed my dad?”
“What?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Want to know how I know? Because she just came to my house, trying to blackmail me.”
“Calm down. Hold on. What?”
“Your girlfriend! Your fucking girlfriend! She has pictures, Tyler.” I saw them again on the table, and I sucked in a sob with my breath. “Pictures of a girl. A dead girl. A dead fucking—”
“Oh, God,” he said. “I’m coming.”
I stared at the pictures for so long, they turned blurry. Trying to talk my way out of what they were. What they meant. Everything was grainy and indecipherable. But it was my porch. And that was a girl, wrapped in a blanket.
That was enough.
* * *
I WAS WAITING ON the front steps in the dead of night when Tyler’s truck pulled in, and I led him straight back to the kitchen. “Look,” I said.
He picked up a picture, held it to his face, twisted it back and forth. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Annaleise gave you these?”
“She’s had them for the last five years!”
“Is that—”
“What do you think, Tyler? Of course it is.” I choked on a sob. “What the hell is she doing on my porch?”
But wasn’t that what Dad had told me when I asked? She was on the back porch, but just for a moment . . .
“Whose shadow is that?” I asked. Wondering whether my dad was the one who put her on the porch, or whether he knew about it from the pictures. Because if it wasn’t Dad, then it was—
“Nic?” The front door swung open and I dove for the pictures, brushing them back into a pile on the table as Daniel walked in.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
Tyler rubbed his face, looked between the two of us. “He was sitting next to me at the bar,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You should go,” I said, my back to the table, desperately hiding the pictures.
“Nic. Move away from the table,” Daniel said.
But I thought of the shadow, which could’ve been from one of two people. “Go home to Laura,” I said. We were all about to break open. The final crack. It was time to understand.
The line between Daniel’s eyes deepened, and his steps took on a slow and dreamy quality, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to walk over and see what was on the kitchen table. He reached around me, picked up a photo off the top, narrowed his eyes as he twisted it back and forth in front of his face. “What is this?” he asked. Then, louder, “What is this?,” like it was my fault. And then Tyler was pushing Daniel out of my face, and I was pushing Tyler, because I had to do something.
“It’s pictures of Corinne!” I yelled back, tears stinging my eyes.
Daniel stared at the picture, his hand trembling, and his eyes slowly, slowly, rose to meet my own. We stared at each other over the dark corner of that photo. Even now I had trouble asking. Silently, I mouthed: You?
He shook his head just once.
Tyler turned around and looked at Daniel over his shoulder, then at me. “Who is this?” he asked, pointing to the shadow.