There was a pause as Lydia typed. Fast but not too fast, like she didn’t want to seem eager.
And then she found what she was looking for, and couldn’t hide it. Her eyes darted across the screen, taking all of something in. Taking a lot of something in.
Then finally, “Well. You should probably get out the good stuff. Maybe a nice brie or a block of Parmesan.”
“Is it that bad? Or that good? Or both together; I don’t know.”
“Brace yourself.”
“Just tell me, okay? What are you looking at?”
“Emails. Dozens and dozens of emails. From right after your accident.”
“Dozens of emails? No—there was one, there was just one. He only sent one and it was awful.”
“Yeah. I know. But the rest…I think you need to hear the rest. Here: “So I guess your dad or whatever has blocked me. Well, he can go fuck himself, too. Who the fuck did he think he was telling me that I wasn’t welcome? Didn’t I fucking drive you to the hospital? Was that like not enough to show that I didn’t have anything to do with that dumb fuck’s sudden decision to ram you off a fucking cliff? Because you know I didn’t at all. I didn’t even know what he was going to do all—”
She held up a hand before Lydia could go any further, partly relieved that she hadn’t so drastically misjudged him. Partly sad, that everything was just the way she had thought. He might not have sent that video to other people, but he had said she deserved it. And he’d kept saying it, apparently, over several emails.
“Okay stop. Stop. This was a stupid idea. I don’t want to hear any more.”
“I think you should probably just listen to the next one.”
“The next one where he starts complaining about my mom, too?”
“No. The next one where he says: okay so I fucked up. I know that I fucked up, too. I should have guessed he was getting out of control and, like, stopped him, but I just fucking didn’t, all right? It would have been a totally dumb thing to say: please don’t actively harm the person we shit on all the time. And every time I tried to bring it up he just laughed about it so obviously I didn’t think he’d push you off a fucking cliff. Jesus. Cut me some slack.”
Lydia looked at her over the edge of the laptop when she was done.
Maybe to see what damage she was doing. Maybe because she knew she was doing no damage at all.
“Well…I guess that’s better.”
“Just wait. Just wait, God there’s so much more. Listen: “I don’t know why I asked you to cut me some slack in that last email. You can’t hear me. You’re not holding any noose around my neck. So how come it fucking feels that way, huh? Why does it feel like I can’t breathe all the time and like I want to scream but I can’t because I’m being fucking strangled? I don’t even know what I’m being strangled by.
“Some days, I wonder if it’s my own hands.”
Letty closed her eyes about halfway through the words Lydia was reading.
It was easier that way to hear it. To just let her continue reading the email after that, like it was all just one big essay he’d written on the subject of her and him.
Why We Hurt Each Other, she thought.
Then Do It Again.
“You’re still in the hospital. I called up pretending to be someone else, some cousin of yours, and they told me you’re doing fine. They said you were lucky somebody got to you quickly and stopped the bleeding, but honestly I don’t even remember doing that. I guess maybe I must have, because the sweater I used is still covered in your blood. It’s stuffed in the back of my closet like that beating heart from the Poe story, only the weird thing is I don’t feel frightened of it. Sometimes I just take it out and hold it, and think about you spilling this messy map of nowhere all over the front.
“Sometimes I hold it to my face. It still smells like you.”
Letty almost told Lydia to stop after that.
But it was for different reasons than the first time. Her heart had started thumping at called up, and now seemed in imminent danger of collapsing in on itself, like a dying star. If Lydia kept on she was probably going to implode, and not just because of the words. She could hear Tate’s voice when Lydia spoke, so soft and warm. Could see his face, without the mask she constantly wanted to put back over it.