We Were Never Here(73)

“Okay, if you’re such a great friend…” I pointed at my computer, upside down on the floor. “Then why the hell are you blackmailing me with a photo of Sebastian and me together? That I needed to solve a damn riddle to find? What kind of devoted best friend does that?”

    Her mouth dropped open, then emitted a scoff. “You think I’m blackmailing you?”

“We said we’d delete everything from the trip! And I did!” I was gaining steam now. “You lied to me…for a year.”

“Christ, Emily, think about what you’re saying.” Her palms splayed. “How was I supposed to know what would happen next? I took it because he was hot and you rarely bring guys home and I thought you’d thank me later.”

She looked so earnest, with the frustrated energy of a five-year-old who needs you to know she’s telling the truth. But…but this was more of her skillful manipulation, right?

“Then why keep it? Why set it up for me to find, for Christ’s sake?”

“Because I was scared.” She clutched her hands together. “You looked ready to crack, Emily. I was so scared of what you might do.”

I flicked a tear away. “So why send it now? How is that not blackmail?”

“I sent it because you kept talking about telling someone. How much you wanted to be open with your new boyfriend or whatever. It’s not blackmail, it’s…a reminder. That there’s a photo tying Sebastian to you. I never, ever want to use it. But I needed to make you see.”

What the hell kind of logic was that? I shook my head. She’s lost her damn mind.

“And also, wow, the nerve,” she went on. “What did you think? That I’m this bloodthirsty psychopath?” She took a step toward the bed, and I scrambled up into a seated position. “You, of all people.”

After all I’ve done for you…after I killed a man to save your life. I braced to hear it, heart pounding.

But instead, she crossed her arms. “After what you did to Sebastian.”

I stared at her for a moment. “Wait, what?”

“Don’t play dumb. I watched you kill him.”

    Beneath me, the bed slanted, a boat on rocky seas.

“What are you talking about?” Kristen had hit him with a floor lamp, swift and hard, sent him sprawling onto the floor. But that wasn’t what killed him; that just drew blood, knocked him off his feet. And then…

“Are you kidding me?” she yelped. “You wouldn’t stop kicking him. I had to pull you off him.”

Stop. Stop. Stop. Blood trickling like paint down the floor lamp. Behind me, Kristen’s eyes wide, thunderstruck. Blood mottling her hands, her wrists, her shoes.

“No.” I shook my head, then heard my voice rise into a shout: “No! That’s not how it happened. I…I had to stop you.”

Sebastian’s head on the floor, nestled against a leg of the metal bed frame. I’d looked into Kristen’s furious eyes, and then detected motion before I could even process it.

Three kicks, four, blood staining the metal leg and pooling into the cracks in the laminate floor.

“Stop. Stop. Stop.”

Finally I’d heard Kristen’s pleas, distorted as if we were underwater, scuba diving in the deep. Crying, begging me to stop. And I’d turned, grabbed for her. She lunged toward him, murmuring in horror, but I dragged her away and into a hug, and we’d leaned against each other, shaking.

“No,” I said again, weaker now. “That’s not how it happened. You’re…confusing me.”

“That’s exactly how it happened.” She reached the edge of my bed and stopped. “You killed Sebastian and I’m the reason you’re not in jail for it.”





CHAPTER 31


You killed Sebastian.

No. This wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. This was classic gaslighting—messing with my head, screwing up my memories with the deftness of a grifter. Or a magician, poof—Kristen had made her culpability disappear. My stomach twisted like a towel wrung dry.

But I had to stay alert, I had to be safe. Strategic, for once, like her. And the safest distance between Kristen and myself was as many miles as I could manage.

“Okay,” I said. “Clearly I’m not thinking straight. I—I told you I looked into Jamie when we were Up North. You said your old stuff was in those boxes.” I pressed my damp palms into the comforter.

“I can’t believe you went through my things,” she replied. “Such a violation.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I forgot about it until…well, finding that photo of Sebastian and me sent me into a tailspin. I guess it was, like, a psychological defense to seeing the picture and just kinda losing it. I went down a rabbit hole.”

“A rabbit hole of what—researching the fire that killed my parents? Contacting my old therapy center? What are you even accusing me of?” Shiny tear tracks ribboned down her cheeks.

Shit—my defense made no sense, not when I’d contacted Westmoor days before finding the Dropbox photo.

But Kristen seemed too worked up to notice. “I don’t know what to say. That someone I love and trust would even have these thoughts about me…” Her hand slid to her midriff, as if I’d stuck a knife there. “I can’t tell you how hurtful it is.”