The room, the world, is spinning.
“Why?” I manage. “Why would you do this? Make me think you had the same suspicions that I did. Make me think—”
“I don’t know,” she says quickly. “It was wrong. I’m sorry. I mean—I haven’t talked to her. Just text and email, direct messages, for a long time now. But I just thought—if I could get you away from it all, get you alone, out here where it’s quiet, maybe—maybe you’d see.”
She reaches for me, but I draw back. “See what?”
“See me,” she says, eyes shining. “Will, I’m right here. Flesh and bone. What happened between us last night—that was real.”
“Emily.”
She’s right. It was real. Her flesh. Her lips, our breath, my pleasure, the closeness. Even now, her delicate beauty, her soft voice.
But the lies.
Why do they always have to lie, leaving me to play the fool, the one waiting for a return that never comes?
Despair, anger, they wrestle within me. I hear Dr. Black’s voice, urging me to acknowledge and release my anger. But it’s too late. The world is fading.
Don’t tell on me, you little asshole, Claire said as she slipped out that night. Go back to sleep. If you say a word, I’ll tell Mom and Dad that you got a boner when you watched me sunbathe on the dock.
So when I heard them come home, I didn’t tell them that Claire was not in her room. I let my parents go to sleep, wake up in the morning, make breakfast. I let my dad go for his run and my mom do the laundry. And it wasn’t until just before lunch that my father said, “Are we going to just let her sleep all day?”
That was when they discovered that her bed hadn’t been slept in. She was out there all night, alone in the cold, dark water.
The guilt of that, it split me in two.
Why do they always lie?
“I’m the one who came when you called,” Emily says now. “I’m the one who is still here answering your calls, helping you with your career.”
She starts to cry.
“I love you.” It’s a whisper into her palms. “I always have.”
I can see that it’s true. Really true.
Through the fog of my anger, I can see how that truth motivated her to lie, to create this clever errand, to get closer to me. What a tangle. What a mess we all are. So many layers of truth and lies that no one knows what’s real anymore.
She takes something from her pocket.
“That photo from the Happy Cow. It was an old one, from the day we were all up here. I sent it to her from my photos a while ago. I fell in love with this place then. And it was here that I acknowledged for the first time—to myself—that I was in love with you.”
I can tell Emily is still hoping for a happy ending to this conversation.
“But she wasn’t wearing the necklace in the photo, and she was wearing it that day.” I barely recognize my own voice; it’s raw with desperation.
“She must have photoshopped it out,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
She opens her palm. There it is. Anisa’s silver infinity necklace.
“She gave it to me just before she left town. She wanted me to return it to you. But I couldn’t. How could I hurt you like that? When you were working so hard to get well.”
I look at it. It sits small and dull in her palm. I wanted to give Anisa diamonds—a huge glittering ring. But I couldn’t. I gave her all I had to offer, and it wasn’t enough.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I’m shaking. That thing, that dark, dark thing inside me. It’s raging. I really need to call Dr. Black.
“Because,” she says, “after last night, the raw reality of that connection, I don’t want anything false between us. Just the truth from now on.”
With Anisa, things used to get fuzzy. That’s happening now. A kind of siren in my head blocks out all other sound, makes it hard to think. Her face. Her eyes go wide.
“Will,” she says. “Will, are you all right?”
The darkness swallows us both. Then there’s nothing.
I posted on Instagram this morning, a lovely sunny-day shot of the red front door of my agent’s gorgeous town house office.
This is a big day, I wrote. Today I sign my first book deal.
I’ve really been growing my social-media presence, and I had a hundred likes in the first ten minutes. Even Anisa sent me a comment, just emojis: clapping hands and some stars.
It’s true; it really is a big day. My novel, which I finally finished, sold to a real publisher, one of the best—after a vigorous auction. My debut was acquired by a famous editor, one who has launched bestsellers and prizewinners.
Now I sit with Paul, my agent, the one with whom Emily connected me, as he and I page through the contract. We go over every detail in the enormous legal-size document.
Of course, even if the elliptical, purposely confusing language translated to “And upon literary stardom, you will relinquish your eternal soul,” I would sign.
“This is going to be big, Will,” Paul says. “Congratulations. And the book—it’s amazing. Just everything it needs to be. A great hook, perfect suspense. And that ending. No one will see it coming. I still think about it.”
He shakes his head in admiring disbelief. “I never once suspected the brother. Not for a second until the truth was revealed. Just masterful.”
“Thanks, Paul,” I say, lifting a modest hand. “I owe it all to you. Well, really to Emily first.”
“That was a hell of an auction. I owe her big-time for connecting us,” he says.
I feel a rise of something, a whisper, a niggle in the back of my brain. Guilt. Sadness. I push it back hard. Don’t look back, Dr. Black always says. That’s not the way you’re headed.
“Me too,” I say. “Big-time.”
We stack the documents, all the copies now bearing my signature. There’s a tidy pile on the varnished mahogany table. I can smell the ink. I thought the contract would be digital. But no. Publishing is still a pen-and-paper business. I’m glad. It feels more solid, more real this way.
“Hey,” Paul says. “Have you heard from her? Like, actually talked to her?”
“Emily?” I say with a disappointed frown. Tension creeps into my shoulders. “Not in a while.”
I can tell he’s trying to be light, casual. I think he has a crush on her.
He buzzes for his assistant, and a frazzled, bespectacled young woman hurries in. For a second, it could almost be Emily. Same anxious sweetness.
“Oh,” she says, breathless. She looks at me with eyes wide in admiration. I see that look a lot lately. I could get used to it. “I loved your book.”
“Thank you,” I say. “What’s your name?”
“Bella.” She blushes a pretty scarlet.
I take her hand and smile into her eyes. “Nice to meet you, Bella.”
“Really,” she says. “It was mesmerizing. Such an unreliable narrator. He hid so much from himself, we never knew what was true.”
I smile. “Well, we’re all unreliable narrators of our own lives, aren’t we?”
She nods, sighs. “That’s so right. Wow.”
When she’s gone, Paul is looking at me with a knowing smile.