Never Have I Ever(94)

She started with my hair again, working her way down as before, talking the whole time. The words came clipped and fast, and I could feel the rising tide of her fury kept in check behind them.

“You aren’t noble. Come on. I can read you easy. I can read you, because I am you. You checked the angles, Amy. If you let me drown, you were so fucked. You never saw my certifications. You lied, on paper, to your shop and that crew. That would have come out. You would have lost your job, maybe faced charges. Probably been sued, and your husband, your neighbors, your coworkers, they all would have wanted to know why you would lie like that for me. Maybe all your secrets would have come out anyway. But you saved me to save your own ass, and oh, now you’re supposed to be my hero?” She was being quick but thorough, already crouching to check my legs and feet, her skirt hiked up to keep the pale, pretty fabric of her dress off the filthy tiles. She glared up at me. “While I’m down here, should I rain tears and kisses on your feet, dry them with my hair? Should I say, ‘Oh, Amy, thank you for my life, let’s call it even’? And just like that you’re off the hook.”

I shook my head. I’d known that wasn’t how this would work right after we broke the surface. Even as she’d floated helpless as a baby in my arms, she’d been rasping at me that nothing had changed. She was too desperate for the money to absolve me now. It was interesting to hear how she tried to justify it, though, and I understood her better. She’d mocked me for living a lie, but she did it, too, exactly the same.

She got up and stomped out of the bathroom, and I went with her, back to the new table. We sat, and she picked up my drink and took a big gulp of it.

“Another round?” the bartender called.

I shook my head. “We’re good.”

Roux ignored the exchange, her eyes on me, insistent. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I shrugged. There was truth in what she was saying.

“I thought some of those things, but that’s not why I saved you,” I said.

“Sure,” she said, that disbelieving word, but this time it was not enough. She leaned across the table, hands on my drink. “You’re such a liar. You’re lying to yourself right now.” I was looking at her with a kind of pity, because every word she aimed at me was really about her. That story she told Luca, about people needing to pay and her helping them, as if she were the high priest of karma itself, she believed it, too. She had to, to live with herself. It was the largest silent lie I’d ever seen, and I lived with some whoppers. She was trying hard now to find a way to stay karma’s agent, the hero, and still take my money. “I see you, Amy. I know you. You’ve wrapped yourself in a pretty skin so thick it even fools you, but I see you. You can keep that skin on if you want, but you’re damn well going to pay me for the privilege.”

I shook my head. Maybe so, but how thick does a skin have to be before it’s realer than the meat inside? I was already working to undo my steps, rewinding myself to the woman I’d built, reattaching to the family and the home I’d made. I’d started with Tig Simms, sending him a single text.

We missed our window. I love my husband, Tig. I’m not the kind who’ll ever leave him.



I’d hit send, and then I’d blocked his number and deleted our text history. I thought it would be enough. We hadn’t started anything. Not really. Not yet. We’d only heard the echoes of what might have been, the lives we could have owned if any of a thousand little moments had been different. Tig, with his love/cake tats and his easygoing smile, wouldn’t pursue me. If I wanted it to happen, I would have to move toward him, and I would not. I couldn’t keep Tig as an escape route. I couldn’t have a fallback plan. If I was going to fight to keep my family—and I was—I had to be all in.

“I want you to understand,” I told her, and my voice was very gentle. “I am a lot like you. I see myself pretty clearly right now. I could fight you, Roux. I could even win.”

The Polaroid I’d stolen was tucked away inside my purse. I took it out now and slid it across the table to her. She stared down at this version of herself, her mouth working.

“You’ve been busy.” I could hear the smallest tremble in her voice.

“I’ve been playing,” I told her. “You were right. I was in the game. Deep in. But I’m done now.”

She ran her fingers over the image of her own ruined face, and she must have been wondering what else I’d found. I could see wheels spinning behind her eyes, cataloging the secrets hidden in her house; I was under no illusions I’d found everything she had to hide.

“When?” she asked, tapping the photo.

I waved that away. “Doesn’t matter. I was there. And I saw what I saw.”

Her spine elongated. “Now you’re playing poker.”

I shook my head. “I’m not playing at all. I’m out,” I said. I meant it. “I found a lot of things. Your money, what’s left of it. Your fake IDs. Your pot. Your search history; I know you’re taking Luca to the Maldives. No extradition there, but I don’t think this is about avoiding a warrant. This is about custody. You’re going to the Maldives to keep your kid.” I was guessing, but I’d guessed right. She blinked in spite of herself, and I knew I’d scored a direct hit. “I could find the man that did this, Roux. Blackmail you back. If you told my secrets, I could tell him where to find you.” I touched the picture.