Jane Doe(37)

I watch as Steven gets off the call and scrolls through something on his screen. God, I hope I learn something useful soon. I’m unsure about how to accelerate my plan, and I’m not used to uncertainty.

I should do some laundry and go grocery shopping, but I’m bored with the idea of chores and bored with watching Steven groom himself. I click around on my computer a little and then open my file full of Meg’s pictures.

She sent me selfies all the time, but my folder is also full of photos she posted to Facebook. Photos of her laughing, smiling, looking sexy. There are photos of us together too, but I’m not worried Steven will recognize me from Meg’s social media. When I’m myself, my hair is dark, nearly black, and my makeup as well. If he were a woman—or just a man who took care with others—he might recognize my features despite the frosty pink makeup and the lightened layers of grown-out bangs. Luke recognized me, after all. But Steven doesn’t care about others enough to see the woman beneath the stupid pastel dresses and shimmery blush.

I click through the pictures, though I’ve long since memorized each one. Here’s Meg in a bikini making a silly face. Here she is dressed up in snowboarding gear and beaming past her scarf. And here’s a profile picture of her staring into the distance, looking a little sad and lost.

After she died, I backed up every photograph, because I was terrified I’d lose my phone and Meg would be gone forever.

I know she really is gone forever. I know that. She’s no longer in the world, and all I have are pictures. So I’m alone.

I’ve been alone before. I walk away from people. I leave them behind. But I’m the one left behind now.

I open a picture of her grinning into the camera, her blond hair pulled by the wind into streamers that stand up from her head. It was taken at the lake on my last visit, and the next picture is both of us together. I’m tan and smiling, my arm around her, and she’s leaning her head on my shoulder. Normally she shines next to me, but we were both trying to fake smiles that day. Me because it’s what I know, and Meg because her heart was breaking over Steven.

I can still smell her shampoo as the wind whipped her hair over my face. It was a good day, a really good day, but not good enough, apparently.

I want it back.

If this is what love is, it’s terrible. Why do people seek it out? And why have I ever wished to be like everyone else? Meg felt this pain when Steven stopped answering her calls. She felt this way when her grandfather died. I held her when she cried about it, though I’d been completely baffled by her weakness.

And that’s what this is. Love. It’s weakness. Vulnerability. It’s waiting for an inevitable wound and then praying it will someday heal.

I don’t pray, and I hate waiting.

I open the picture I’ve moved down to the very bottom of the file. It’s a selfie of Meg. She’s holding her phone out, arm stretched as far as it will go so she can get Steven in the picture too. She’s kissing his cheek, her eyes crinkled with a smile while Steven smirks at the camera.

Me and my Sweetie! That’s the caption she texted with the picture. Her Sweetie. The man who’d chipped slowly away at her unstable self-esteem the same way he was trying to do mine. Little comments about her looks, her intelligence, her choices, her hobbies. Pointed questions about her sex life. Then tiny approvals to soothe her hurt.

She’d gladly changed for him. She wore longer skirts and stopped going out with her single girlfriends. She brewed her own iced coffee so she wouldn’t spend so much at Starbucks. She stopped working Saturday nights at the bar and grill even though she made the most tips then.

Too many drunk guys, she explained to me. It’s not really safe. This from a girl who’d held her own working at a seedy nightclub at eighteen.

And, of course, she’d started going to church. She found God and discovered that she’d been living a wicked life of sin until then. Somehow the sinning with Steven didn’t count. I’m sure he came up with a sound explanation for that, especially when he pushed her to her knees and told her to make him happy. She probably never even questioned it.

I stare into Steven’s smirking face. The self-satisfied twist of his lips. The gleam of possession in his eyes.

He left her a voice mail while we were at the cabin. I listened to it after Meg dropped her phone and ran into the bathroom to sob.

Stop calling me. Stop texting me. We’re not going to be together. I will never marry a stupid whore like you. I would never let you raise my kids. And don’t call my dad again or I’ll show him just how many slut pictures you texted me. Do you think he’ll feel bad for you after he sees you spreading your legs like the piece of trash you are? You’re an embarrassment. The world would be better off without you in it.

I open the camera feed on my laptop and watch Steven smooth gel into his hair. He’s whistling. Once his hair looks perfect, he makes his bed and then dusts his hands as if he’s finished a big project. He’s so satisfied with his tidy little life.

I can’t wait to watch it all crumble into a smoking pile of shit.

My cat appears and rubs her cheek against me in approval. She understands exactly. The kill is fun, but toying with your prey is really the best part.





CHAPTER 28

“Is this dress okay?” It’s light gray and fitted. The skirt is knee-length, but the bodice shows off a little cleavage. I’m wearing a white cardigan over the dress and a delicate necklace: a gold filigree cross I bought this morning.