The Elizas: A Novel(69)

“Because that would get you in trouble, right?”

“Just let it go!” Her hands flail in front of her face.

“I can’t!” I scream.

I back away from her, my whole body heaving. I don’t realize I’m crying until the tears hit my mouth. We both stand there for a few beats, hardened in our shells. After several ragged breaths, Gabby looks at me again. Her eyes are dark and wet. “It was me, Eliza. I did it.”

My hands fall to my sides. A garbage truck passes by, and I concentrate on that for a moment, staring at the red plastic string of a trash bag that got caught outside the hopper. I try to imagine what could be in that trash bag. Porn magazines? Yogurt containers? Body parts?

When I turn back to Gabby, her head is dipped so low I can see her straight, neat part. “What did you do?” I whisper.

“I was at a conference at the Tranquility the same day as you. I-it was a weird coincidence to see you there. You were in the bar, and you were acting so strangely. Like you were going to have another seizure. I tried to calm you down, but you got violent with me. I realized you were really, really drunk. So I walked you outside to get some air. But you kept freaking out. You were just so drunk, and you were acting so ridiculous, and I was afraid you’d say . . .” She takes a big breath. “I wanted to sober you up. I wanted you to just . . . rest. So I pushed you in the pool. It was a knee-jerk reaction.” Gabby peeks at me. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

“I was talking to you at the bar?” I try out, digging around in my brain. I wish I could remember this. I wish I could remember her.

“Yes. That’s right.” Her syllables come out choppily, like she’s pulling them, taffy-like, from her throat. “But then I walked you outside. I just didn’t want you making a spectacle of yourself. I was trying to do you a favor, but I realize now that it was a terrible decision.”

“What was I freaking out about?”

“I don’t really know. I couldn’t understand you.”

“So you pushed me into a pool just because I was being drunk and ridiculous? When you knew I couldn’t swim?”

“I know. It’s awful. I wasn’t thinking.” She covers her face with her hands.

“Is it because of what happened when we were young?”

Her head shoots up. “. . . What?”

“How I . . . wasn’t nice. The vodka thing. And when I put you in the closet. And the time you needed stitches and never told on me.”

Gabby places a hand to her mouth. “Oh God, Eliza. No.”

I choose to believe her, because she looks honestly confused. “Okay, but why push me into the pool? Jesus, Gabby, if you wanted to sober me up, you could have shoved me down an elevator bank or thrown me in a fire. At least people wouldn’t have immediately assumed I did it to myself.”

“I wasn’t trying to frame you. It just . . . happened. You were standing by the pool, practically ready to dive in yourself, so . . .”

“And then you just left?” I’m still so stunned. I really, really didn’t think Gabby was capable of this sort of thing.

Her eyes dart back and forth. “I was about to dive in after you, but then I heard someone coming. So I took off.” She tilts her head up to the pinkish sky. “I shouldn’t have. I was freaked about it the whole night. I was ready to say something the next morning at the hospital because I thought they’d have the whole thing on camera and figure it out anyway. But then I found out that the—”

“—security cameras were out because of the storm,” I finish for her.

Gabby nods. “Right. Still, I should have said something. I know how it looked. Only, by then you were saying someone was trying to kill you, and that’s not what I was trying to do, and then that guy who works with the police came, which never happened before because it always was so clearly a suicide attempt, and then . . .” She puffs her eyes and blows out a breath. “I’m awful. I know. I let everyone believe you were trying to kill yourself, and you weren’t.”

“Uh, I know I wasn’t.” I say this wearily, though, not triumphantly. I wish I were feeling something grandiose right now—I’ve solved it!—but I just feel numb. This doesn’t solve everything, after all. It doesn’t solve the piece about me being completely and totally healed. It doesn’t make up for the memories I’ve forgotten. “So Mom knows about this, too, I guess? This is why she tracked me down in that alley and deleted that picture off my phone?”

She nods sheepishly. “We were on alert after you mentioned Leonidas last week—he knows about what happened in Palm Springs, too. It was me he was talking to on the phone that day you overheard him. But we didn’t think you were going to actually confront him. But then Leonidas called Mom to say something strange happened at his office—some guy tripped and made a big scene, and when Leonidas came back to his desk, his phone had been moved. Something felt off, he said. He had a weird feeling you’d just been there.”

I grit my teeth. I knew Desmond shouldn’t have been so histrionic. And had I really been that obvious?

“So Mom walked over from her office to see if you were in the area . . . and you were. She found you in the alley. She didn’t intend to scare you, Eliza. She just wanted to talk to you.”