Confidential(32)

“Do you have regrets?” Now we’re talking.

She breaks down into tears all over again.

“Tell me the truth,” I say. “It’ll be better for you that way, I promise.”

She looks into my eyes. “I am telling the truth. I always tell the truth. That’ll be on my tombstone someday. It’ll be my downfall.”

“But you didn’t answer the question. Do you have regrets?”

“Not when it comes to Michael. I’m at peace with everything I did.”

“Did you kill him?” My voice is gentle, the way I picture Dr. Baylor spoke to her.

Another nose blow, which has the convenient effect of allowing her to avoid eye contact. “No,” she says, “I could never. I love him.”





BEFORE





CHAPTER 25





FLORA


I wished Kate were flying out of the Oakland airport, instead of San Francisco, and that it wasn’t a Sunday, so I had a good excuse for making her call an Uber. But no such luck: it was a forty-minute ride, and inside my Lexus, the tension was palpable.

I forced myself to speak. “I know it’s been a strange visit,” I said, “but I hope you can tell my parents they have nothing to worry about.”

“You mean lie to them?”

“They have nothing to worry about.”

“I saw what I saw.”

I kept my eyes on the road and my jaw tight. “And what was that?”

“I saw you subservient to a man. Playing his game. Dancing to his tune.”

“You saw wrong.”

But how convincing could I sound when the only reason I was talking to her at all was because of Michael? I couldn’t blow up our friendship, our sisterhood, since I needed to maintain my influence over her to protect him and his profession. Kate loved me, I did believe that, but if I told her how I really felt—that I couldn’t trust her anymore, that our relationship wasn’t what I thought all these years—I would lose all control. Then I’d lose Michael. Lose Michael, and I had nothing. Ergo, just get through this car ride, then send her on her way. End well.

Maybe that was what Kate meant when she said I was subservient to him. I’d never loved anyone like this before, and it was a type of bondage.

But that wasn’t all she meant. The other night, I came back from Michael’s and shook her awake. She sat up on my couch, bleary-eyed, sans makeup, defenseless. I flashed on the many sleepovers we’d had growing up, all the history we’d shared, the ways I’d always looked after her and she, in turn, had looked up to me, and I felt a searing pain in my abdomen, as if I’d been impaled.

“How could you?” I said. “How could you tell him the truth?”

“I had to,” was her reply.

“But your allegiance is to me, not to him.”

“That’s exactly it. I am loyal to you. I’m trying to help you get away from someone who’s only out for himself. You had every right to confide in me, I’m your family, but he doesn’t care about that.”

“I gave him my word, and I broke it.”

“He should never have asked for your word.”

This wasn’t supposed to be a referendum on my relationship with Michael; it was supposed to be about her actions. But somehow, I hadn’t been able to keep that thread going. “I could have told him no.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

No, I couldn’t have. Not without potentially losing him.

But regardless of what she thought of him or of me, Kate had no business razing my relationship to the ground. Or trying to. She hadn’t succeeded. Or she had, I didn’t know. It depended on the hour. Michael had become so volatile and moody, maybe he needed to see a therapist himself.

For the past two days, it had been “don’t come around,” “don’t call me, I’ll call you,” “forget where I live,” “okay, maybe I do need to see you,” “I’ll come to your house,” only of course that wouldn’t work, since Kate was still there. Now that she was leaving and he could have me anytime he wanted, he might very well have changed his mind again. My remorse was fraying at the edges, yet my love was holding firm. I just needed to ride this out. Sometimes love was bondage. But it was still love.

“Just because he’s a therapist doesn’t make this healthy,” Kate said to me now.

What did she know, anyway? She’d never had a healthy relationship in her life! I wasn’t even sure if ours qualified anymore, after what she had done.

But I promised Michael I’d do anything, so I told her that I appreciated her concern and that I’d think about what she’d said. I had to make nice, for him, but I was burning inside. I kept my eyes on the road.

“All the time you were struggling,” I couldn’t resist saying, “I never judged you.”

“You mean my addiction? That’s a disease. You being with Michael—that’s a choice.”

I bit my tongue. Who was Kate, with her past, to go deciding what was a disease and what was a choice, who should stay together and who shouldn’t?

She could claim to be looking after my mental health, but she was the one who’d sent me into this state. I was just lucky that he hadn’t dumped me altogether after the betrayal. Now I had to live with that sword hanging over my head. I needed to be seductive, and I couldn’t make any trouble; I couldn’t state any of my own needs or desires, because I just had to stay in his good graces. We’d been so close to being a normal couple, to going public, and then Kate had to open her mouth. She’d put me back in a subservient position.