Friends Like These(88)

Bethany looks up at me then, without blinking. “I want a lawyer.”

“Good idea.” I close the folder and stand. “I think you’re going to need one.”





SIX MONTHS LATER





BETHANY


They were all accidents. Really. Well, I guess maybe with Derrick— but that was a decision I was forced into, by him. Well, him and Finch, it turns out— I’ve learned since that it was Finch who sent that stupid email. But how was I to know that everyone else had gotten the same email, when they were keeping it to themselves? A terrible coincidence, like Jonathan buying a house here, of all places. As soon as Jonathan mentioned looking for houses in the area, I tried to redirect him. Peter won out, of course, and he’d had his own reasons for fixating on Kaaterskill. Turns out, he and Luke met in college, too— Buffalo State, a SUNY school.

I’d known the risk of going back to Kaaterskill, even with my family long gone. But how could I have explained not coming along for Keith’s big intervention? He needed us. All of us. Did I also maybe want to prove something to myself? That this chapter of my life really was closed, that nothing was going to stand in the way of my future with Bates? Could be. I definitely second-guessed that decision when Jane’s little sister Julia introduced herself as one of Kaaterskill’s finest. Luckily, it didn’t seem like she recognized me— but then she’d been so young back then and I looked so very different now.

If only I’d been more cautious, less willing to push the envelope, maybe everything could have ended differently. And that makes me sad, because I did love Derrick as a friend— in my own way. But love and happy endings are often mutually exclusive. Despite what people like to believe.

It was all much more complicated than it seems, too. I guess that’s why I’ve agreed to talk to you, Rachel and Rochelle— over my lawyer’s objections. Because I want to be sure people know the truth. My lawyer says it doesn’t matter that we have a plea deal and that I already have my sentence and all that. He says that they can still find a way to use your show against me, at a parole hearing for instance. But I’m not worried. People will understand. I’m sympathetic, and believable. Always have been, always will be. You’re right, too, my perspective matters. And I agree that it would be good for me to finally tell my side of the whole story.

I mean, I know this: people change. And what starts out as a story you made up about yourself can eventually become the truth of who you are— if you want it bad enough. I am Maeve now. That’s the bottom line. And I have been her for a very long time.

But I didn’t forget everything that came before. I remember what it felt like to be Bethany. How miserable I was. And how sad.

I remember Jane, too. I loved her, by the way. So much. She was my best, best friend. She was fun and silly, and she really got me. I know what people thought back then: what a mismatch, Bethany and Jane. Why was perfect and popular and golden-hued Jane slumming it with someone like me?

That’s why that day down by the river crushed me so— when Jane started saying in her gentle, nice, well-meaning way that maybe I should think about improving myself. That she’d even be happy to help. I was beautiful, she said, especially on the inside. But there were things we could do to make my inner beauty really shine. She held my hands as she said it, beamed that dazzling smile of hers my way. And I felt her love. Limited, though, as it was by how beautiful she was— her hazel eyes glittering in the sun, her blond hair a bright gold. I’d always known it was only a matter of time before Jane came to her senses and saw me the way the rest of the world did.

And there she was, finally admitting it. Jane might have loved me, but deep down she thought I was just as ugly as everybody else did.

I didn’t realize what had happened until it was over, that rock gripped in my hand, Jane in an awkward pile on the ground. Well, not completely over. Jane was just unconscious then. The rest of what I did— I did after. I had no choice. And they needed to think some real sicko was responsible. They needed to at least find my bloody shirt to believe that I was dead, too. Of course, if they’d done their jobs and run tests, they’d have found Jane’s blood on that shirt, not mine. All that rain really did feel like the universe sending me a sign—I deserved a fresh start.

It was a risk enrolling at Vassar, so relatively close to Kaaterskill. I’d known that at the time. But when that married customer I was sleeping with bragged about how working in Vassar’s admissions office gave him so much power over so many young lives, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. By that point I was way past tired of the waitressing job I’d found in Yonkers and it was shockingly easy to blackmail him into helping me. In a way, I was honoring Jane’s memory by going to Vassar. It had always been her dream to go there. And, let’s face it, risk is always part of the thrill.

I didn’t plan things with Alice either. Yes, it had been my idea to stop at the Vanderbilt Mansion on the way from Poughkeepsie to Hudson. But I swear, when we got out of the car to sit by the river in the deserted park, I was still convinced I’d be able to talk Alice out of going to Hudson and that idiot Evan’s house. Because obviously she couldn’t do that. Alice was impulsive. She might go there with every intention of only leaving a note, but then something in the woman’s expression might grab her and next thing you know, she’d be throwing caution to the wind and knocking on the woman’s door. Alice was that consumed with making amends for something that definitely wasn’t her fault.