People Like Us(56)

“What happened?”

“My best friend tried to secretly record me confessing to killing Jessica, a cat, and one of my other best friends.”

He slides his hand across the table and takes mine in his. It’s rough and soft at the same time.

“The good news is that I don’t think you’re much of a suspect anymore,” I say.

“That’s funny.” He pulls his wool hat off and shakes his hair to unflatten it. “Because after Madison Farrell died, they came around again. I don’t think I’ve seen the last of them.”

“Do you always tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“The truth isn’t always enough,” he admits.

“I’ll drink to that.” I raise my cup and he bumps his fist against it.

He sighs. “I didn’t know Madison. Why are they asking me about her?”

I can’t think of a reason. Unless they really, really want to draw a connection and I’ve been underestimating how much the police have been focusing on Greg all along. God, did I play a part in that? “Wish I could tell you.” I pause. “They asked me about you.”

“Ah. So that’s where the blade line of questioning originated.”

I feel my face turn bright red. He doesn’t look the slightest bit disturbed. “You mentioned the blades. The police didn’t release that information.”

“Oh my God, Kay, I must have killed my girlfriend,” he says in a mocking voice.

I wait. “I know if you were confessing you would be crying or something. Because you loved her.”

“Justine told me how you and Brie found Jessica. We both cried. Is that satisfactory?”

I feel stupid. “I’m sorry.”

“This is real Game of Thrones shit. I mean clearly you’re Cersei.”

“What? No. The wildling with the red hair.”

His face splits into a grin. “Ygritte. She has a name. She dies.”

“Don’t they all?”

“Some of them get to avenge first. I like to consider myself—”

“Jon Snow. Your hair gives you away. But don’t even think about it.”

Greg leans back in his chair. “I like that we can be tactical adversaries and still converse like friends. Is this what it’s like to live in a comic book?”

I shake my head. He puts me in a good mood. He reminds me so much of Todd before Todd was ruined. It hurts and feels good at the same time.

“Why don’t you suspect me?” I ask him. “Even my best friends think I’m capable of murder.”

He pops a piece of gum into his mouth and chews thoughtfully, and then looks straight into my eyes. “Because you don’t have the face of a killer.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“Oh? Why are you so sure I didn’t do it?”

“Well, I did talk to the cops about the whole blade thing,” I admit. “But it’s true. You don’t seem like you could have hurt Jessica.”

“What do the neighbors always say in the interviews? Quiet guy, kept to himself. I never thought he would be capable of something like this.”

“My neighbors think I’m definitely capable of something like this.”

“Well, my classmates whisper.” He taps his fingertips on the table rapidly like he’s playing a silent piano concerto. “Let’s not feel sorry for ourselves. We get to live.”

I try to smile but something misfires. “Do you think we’ll still feel that way after twenty years in prison?”

“Do you know what I really thought when I first saw you?” he asks, his eyes clear as a still pool.

“Get out of my coffee line, you stuck-up bitch.”

He grins and brushes his wavy hair out of his face. “Who is this girl who ruined my play?”

I shrug, uncomprehending.

“I directed the fall student showcase production last year. I had this narcissistic habit of watching the audience, because by opening night, I’d done everything I could with the actors, and I just wanted to see how people reacted to our work. And in the fourth row, six seats from the left aisle, there was this girl who had texted and whispered through half of the show. As did half of the audience. The only ones with their eyes really glued to the stage were parents of the actors.” He rolls his eyes and smiles into the palm of his hand. “But toward the end, people stopped texting. Because almost everyone starts paying attention at the end of Our Town.”

I place a hand over my mouth, remembering. That was the show Brie and I went to the night we met Spencer and Justine.

“And during Justine’s farewell speech, this girl who had been texting and whispering and smirking this whole time just got this beautiful, haunted still look on her face. And because of exactly where she was sitting in relation to the stage, a pale beam of light fell onto her, like a spotlight. And silent tears started running down her face, just at the moment I had been desperately begging Justine to start crying.”

I remember that speech. Justine’s character had died and returned to her life to say a final good-bye to everything she would miss. Every single word had stabbed me like a pin in a separate and distinct section of my heart.

“And I thought, girl in the audience, you are ruining my play, because you are the ghost. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, because I had dreamed you without knowing you. I felt like I had somehow picked this play unconsciously just to meet you. Then you suddenly got up and ran out of the theater. And then later at the cast party, before I got up the nerve to speak to you, I saw Spencer Morrow slobbering all over you, and then you insulted my play pretty harshly and called me a six-foot-tall Gollum, and my second impression superseded my first.”