It's One of Us(110)

The girl got into the car.

A confluence of events.

Desire made real. A surprise trip. The timing of her arrival. Another five minutes and she would never have known. Instead, Olivia was stuck in an overheated car parked by a lake, listening to a besotted and wet girl crying about her perfect boyfriend blowing her off.

Crying about how much she loved him.

How much he loved her. All the things he’d told her. How beautiful she was. How perfect. How sweet. How no one had ever made him feel like this before. How she was his first true love. That’s why she slept with him; he was so flattering, so honest and upfront. And now she was pregnant, and he wouldn’t talk to her anymore.

She flipped down the visor, the little mirror reflecting her truth. “He tried to strangle me. I kicked him in the balls, and he let me go. Look at my neck.”

Yes. Look. The bruises were growing darker by the minute.

“I heard your fight.”

“What?”

“I heard him say you slept with his roommate. Is that true?”

“Why do you care?”

“Is it true?”

The girl’s eyes narrowed, and the asp inside reared. “Who are you, anyway? It’s not like he’d give you the time of day. You are so not his type.”

“You don’t think so?”

There must have been something in Olivia’s face, because the girl tensed. Got edgy.

And leaped out of the car.

The rain was coming down at a steady clip, and the girl hunched into her jacket, arms around her waist again as she headed toward the lake.

Olivia followed her down the path. Something in her had shifted, broken open. She was furious. She didn’t know if she was mad at Park or this girl, but she wanted answers.

The girl whirled on her. “Why are you following me? Leave me alone.”

“You want to know who I am? I’m the one Park Bender really loves. I’m his girlfriend. We’ve been together for years. And I think you’re lying. I think you just want his attention.”

“Oh, screw you.” The sneer was nasty, and she lunged at Olivia, arms up.

Olivia ducked the punch and hit the girl with her own, connecting solidly, across the side of her head.

The momentum and the punch took her off balance, and the girl went down in the weeds headfirst. With the thump of her body on the path, the heat went out of Olivia.

Served her right. The girl had tried to punch Olivia in the face. She’d had no choice but to lash out.

Olivia started back toward the car. “Get up. I’ll drive you back to campus. Stay away from Park.”

There was no response.

A chill ran down Olivia’s spine. She walked to the girl’s side. Knelt. The girl’s eyes were open, wide and staring. As Olivia watched, they went as blank as the darkened sky above.

Panic shot through her. She touched the girl’s neck where her pulse should be. Nothing. Blood oozed from a deep, wide cut on the side of her head.

Oh my God oh my God oh my God.

Olivia was frozen. She didn’t know what to do. Call Park? The police? How was she going to explain this? It was an accident. The girl was trying to hurt her. She was defending herself. The girl must have hit her head on a rock when she fell.

Fifty lines ran through her mind; none of them were right. Line fifty-one was the only one that made sense.

Hide her.

The lake was close. She could hear the water lapping against the bank.

Thunder boomed, making her body shudder, and a thin streak of lightning showed her the path. The girl was heavy, but smaller than Olivia. She managed to get her onto a shoulder and staggered to the lake. There was a small ledge that jutted out over the water. It would have to do.

She filled the girl’s clothes with rocks.

Rolled her closer.

Pushed her off the edge into the water.

Heard the deafening splash.

Olivia cried all the way back to Nashville. And never spoke of her surprise trip to Chapel Hill to anyone. But that letter. Written to a grieving mother. Not so much a confession as a plea for understanding. It was an accident. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. Please, please, forgive me.

Then someone else knew her secret.

A man, who read her sins, obsessed over them, and recreated them.



EPILOGUE


AN ENDING

Some would say the divorce happened with undo haste, but when two people are determined to be consciously uncoupled as quickly as possible and have nothing left to fight over, the process is simpler. He wanted the house, she did not. She wanted the Jeep, he did not. Their business assets were too individualized to benefit one another, so they stayed with their owners. There were no more embryos to fight over. They agreed to split the proceeds of the memoir and the subsequent documentary; she was such a big part of the story, it was only fair.

Other than that, they quickly faded from one another’s lives.

When you share a secret so big that it will bury you both, you take a sacred vow of perpetual secrecy, and move on. A little more than hope for the best, a little less than surety.

Park and Darby married a year to the day after their first face to face meeting. Olivia thinks it strange, their intense attraction. He killed her oldest child, after all. But they shared a second, a vivacious, brilliant, beautiful girl who they both dote on. Darby supposedly understands Park in a way Olivia no longer can and has been instrumental in helping him connect with his biological children. She helped him complete his dreams of having a family. Olivia doesn’t resent him, or her, or them. Not anymore.