by L. E. Flynn
The map Keegan brought with us the day we went into the woods. The one he said he just printed. He left it with me—I guess he got careless. Then I just so happened to notice the date at the bottom of the page, beside the website name. He printed it back in May.
I ended up giving the map to the police, but maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, because of all the stuff they found on his computer. And Kyla, Keegan’s ex-girlfriend or whatever, had plenty on him. I guess she had been stewing with it the whole time. You know the feeling—what it’s like to pretend something isn’t happening, or didn’t happen, because it’s easier that way.
I’m not even sure what all this means. Tabby was maybe doing something behind Mark’s back with Keegan. But she wasn’t doing anything behind my back with my boyfriend.
Here’s my truth—I just don’t think Tabby killed Mark anymore. I saw her as this threat the whole time, this shadow I was somehow eclipsed by, but it’s like when you look under your bed and realize there aren’t any monsters there after all, just some old socks. I guess that makes Tabby the old socks. I kind of feel sorry for her, because maybe she really did love Mark, and Keegan did something to him.
In fact, when Tabby gets found not guilty—and I’m pretty sure she will, because I’ve been watching the jury and I’m good at reading people—I might even ask her to hang out sometime. Maybe there really was a redheaded scout in the audience that night, and everything between us has been a huge misunderstanding. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I’m just that kind of girl.
14
KEEGEN
“YOU AND TABITHA formed a friendship,” Deveraux says. She makes friendship sound like some sort of disease. Tabby’s the goddamn disease.
“I guess so,” I say. I swear, the more questions she asks, the fewer syllables I can manage.
“She confided in you,” Deveraux says. “She trusted you.”
This time, I’m struck silent. She used me, I want to scream, but Tabby has already used up all my words along with the rest of me.
She came into the Stop & Shop and told me she was going to break up with Mark that night. I told her to come over after for a beer, but she never showed up, so I figured it was going badly. I realized I didn’t even have her phone number to text her and ask.
She wanted it that way.
Here’s what happened next, and it’s the truth. She came over two nights later, marched right in and sat on my shitty corduroy couch. “He won’t let me break up with him. He talked me out of it.”
Mark never even mentioned it. Whenever we talked, things were golden with him and Tabby. He was so full of shit. So determined to remain the goddamn golden boy for the rest of his life.
“I just wish he was more like you sometimes.” She bit her bottom lip. “He’s condescending and doesn’t listen. You’re the best guy. You’d make an amazing boyfriend.”
“Uh—” I had no idea what to say. She was full-on hitting on me. She even slipped out of her sweater, and was just wearing this tiny shirt underneath. I wanted her so damn badly.
“He’s going to be difficult to get rid of,” she said, staring at her fingernails.
I swear, those were her words. As if he was something terminal, like cancer.
“Get rid of?” I echoed, sitting down beside her. I pushed a piece of hair off her face. She let me.
“Maybe you can help me with that.”
“Help you how?”
“You know him the best.” She put her head on my shoulder, which made me practically stop breathing. “And besides, you’re smart.”
Nobody ever called me smart. She fed me like that, in these little bites, like she knew exactly what I needed to hear. We were made for each other, I decided, because nobody got me like she did. She fell asleep on my couch that night, in my arms. It was more intimate than sex.
She was wrong about me being smart. She was the mastermind the whole time.
15
ELLE
I FIND BECK at school today. He’s actually there, and today he just looks like a boy, a mortal, somebody pretending to be tougher than he is. He’s chewing gum, walking away from Principal Stanton’s office. Probably another detention.
“Hey,” I say. “Did you hear what happened with Tabby’s trial?”
“No,” he says. “Fill me in.”
He’s lying. He’s always lying. Maybe he and Tabby have that in common.
I thought she and Beck still loved each other. I was sure of it, more sure than I’ve ever been of anything, but I guess my brain is good at making me believe things that never happened.
All the times Tabby said to me: “I love him so much, Elle. I’d do anything for him. I love him so much it scares me.”
Anything, Elle. Like, anything at all.
It never occurred to me she wasn’t talking about Mark, and she wasn’t talking about Beck either.
16
KEEGEN
DEVERAUX’S QUESTIONS feel less like bullets and more like paper cuts. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that my skin is getting used to her form of shredding.
“You say Tabitha shared with you her fears about Mark. That he wasn’t the person he pretended to be.”
“Yeah,” I say. And it’s in this moment when I know there’s no way out of this that ends well for me, so I might as well start dropping bombs. “Mark started treating her like shit. He wasn’t the gentleman everyone thought he was.”
“He’s such an asshole,” Tabby had complained. “He blames me for everything. Just because his swimming isn’t going well. And I guess his grades suck. He’s getting all paranoid.”
“Yeah,” I said, even though I didn’t know that about his swimming, or his grades. I just assumed everything in Mark’s life was chugging along perfectly, like it always did. “You know, he asked me to keep tabs on you. When he first went back, at the end of the summer. Like he didn’t trust you.”
She touched my arm. “You didn’t do a very good job. You’re letting me get into all kinds of trouble.”
I explain it to Deveraux and quote Tabby, word for word. Of course Tabby doesn’t look at me. She knows it’s true, though.
“And you encouraged Tabitha to break things off. You were the driving force.”
“No. She was—it was all her idea. I was just there for moral support.”
“Moral support,” Deveraux echoes. “Did you insist repeatedly that Tabitha break up with Mark?”
I shake my head. I mean, yeah, I remember what I said, but if I were to tell her, she’d rip up my words like confetti.
Me and Tabby, having beers in my apartment. I liked that she didn’t complain that I only bought cheap shit. We watched a movie on my laptop and she was drifting off, her head on my shoulder. “You should just end things with him. Break up with him. He’ll get over it.”
“Why?” she said. “Is there a better guy for me?”
“Yeah,” I said. My lips touched her hair. “There is.”
“I told you,” she whispered. “I tried. If we want him out of the picture, we’ll have to do something else.”
She was so dark. Sometimes I had no idea if she was kidding or serious. But I glommed on to we. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her, but we both knew Mark had to be dealt with first.
A few minutes later, when I thought she’d fallen asleep, she said something else.
“He can’t know this is coming.”
17
ELLE
THINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT, maybe, if I hadn’t said what I said. If I hadn’t planted the seed in Tabby’s head, hadn’t told her exactly what Keegan wanted me to say. This is his pattern. I saw him with another girl. It was dark. I couldn’t tell if they were kissing but their heads were really close—
Back then, I thought Keegan and I had a similar interest. Making sure two people who had no business being together weren’t.
But he had a different agenda the whole time, and I practically sent her into the woods myself. A girl, a boy
, and a monster lurking in wait. Only two came back out.
Do you see what I mean, about how I had something to do with this? I told Tabby about the other girl, the one who probably doesn’t exist. I told Beck about Tabby’s kiss with Sawyer. And I told Beck that Mark wasn’t a good guy. Now I’m not even sure which were truths and which were lies, but I do know that everything could have had a better outcome if I had just not said anything.
18
KEEGEN
IT WAS A GAME TO HER. I can see that now, even though I couldn’t see it then. Mark came home for the summer and she went to meet him right away, and I hated her and wanted her to hurt. That night when we all went for dinner, I could tell Tabby knew what I was doing under the table to Elle and I could tell it made her upset.
“You haven’t been in Stop & Shop,” I told her when we all left the restaurant.
“I guess I have all the groceries I need,” she said, all clipped. I almost wanted to tell Mark about us hanging out, but I was afraid if I did, she wouldn’t come over anymore. As pathetic as it sounds, she was the only real friend I had. Mark was away at school most of the year and he had his college friends and teammates. I had nobody. Nobody except his girlfriend.
Then Tabby came back to me. She came to my apartment filthy, all sweaty and with dirt on her legs.
“You should come hiking with me,” she said. “It’s exactly what you need.”
We looked it up on my laptop that night. The Split, the Mayflower Trail. She said we’d go sometime soon.
“Maybe tomorrow,” I said.
“Not tomorrow,” she said. “Mark’s training all day.”
It was the worst feeling. She didn’t mean we as in me and her. She meant we as in the three of us, this fucked-up triangle I never wanted to be part of.
“Another time, then,” I said. “Mark has to be there, too.”
“Hey,” she said. “Look up how far from the Split to the creek. And if someone would die if they fell.” She rubbed my shoulders. “I’m just curious.”
That’s the day I knew she was planning something. I just didn’t know what.
19
LOU
SHARP EDGES IS LOSING its mind. Like, seriously flipping out. Some people think it was all Keegan, and some of them think he’s just the Clyde to Tabby’s Bonnie.
This feels so embarrassing to admit, but I used to want Tabby’s life. Like, all the attention she seemed to get everywhere. People noticing her. Now I just feel bad for her. It sucks that girls are either invisible or much too seen.
You never asked what happened to my acting career. Well, I kind of gave it up after the whole Blanche and Stella debacle. (I honestly can’t think of acting without seeing Mr. Mancini’s wife’s surprised face.) I found something I’m better at, something that doesn’t involve my looks at all. I’m a journalist. You’ve probably heard of me. My name’s Oberon, and I have a blog you might have read.
Surprised? Why? Because I picked a boy’s name? Well, I have news for you. (No pun intended.) When you’re a girl, you have to scream to get anybody’s attention. And even then, all they want you to do is shut up.
20
KEEGEN
DEVERAUX HAS MOVED on to a new subject. Kyla. Who is apparently one of her witnesses, as if this couldn’t get any more fucked up.
“Explain to the court how you met Kyla Dove,” she says.
“Tabby set us up,” I say. “She told me to go talk to her.”
“If Tabitha was secretly in love with you, as you’ve indicated, why would she encourage you to talk to another woman?”
“It’s complicated,” I say. They’re grinding me down—I don’t have the energy to explain anymore. But here’s the thing. Tabby practically picked Kyla out.
“The blond girl,” Tabby said when we were both drinking from Solo cups at a summer party. “The one with the slutty top and too much eyeliner. She’s your type, right?”
I wanted to tell her she was my type, but instead, I just shrugged, and pretty soon I was practically being shoved into Kyla.
Deveraux clasps her hands together. “Tabitha knew you were lonely. She knew you were often the third wheel in her outings with Mark. Is it not believable that as your friend, she would want to help you find a girlfriend so you’d have that constant in your life?”
“No—it wasn’t like that. Tabby didn’t mean it. Kyla was—” She’s here in this courtroom, watching me squirm, hearing me confess the worst. “I never felt that way about her.”
“And did Tabitha seem jealous of your new relationship?”
Tabby’s smiles, the ones she reserved for me. The ones that stripped me down to nothing. She saw under my skin and what she saw there didn’t make her look away.
“Yeah. She did.”
I’m not sure if it’s true. Tabby wasn’t jealous like she was of Mark’s Instagram girls. Maybe because she knew Kyla would serve a greater purpose. She told me it would be good for me to date someone. She practically insisted on it.
Around the time of Kyla, Tabby stopped coming over at all. When I finally got her alone, I asked her if Mark was pissed about us hanging out.
“Why would he be?” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it briefly before letting go. “We’re his two favorite people.”
But I could tell by the way she said it that he didn’t know about us. And she kept it that way for a reason.
21
BRIDGET
SHE TOOK THE GATORADE with her. Mark had alcohol in his blood, but hers showed no traces. There were two bottles, one for each of them.
What I don’t understand is how a third Gatorade bottle with Keegan’s DNA was magically found buried near the creek two days ago. How it was underground, then it wasn’t. It’s like somebody knew where to look the whole time, but was waiting for the right minute to say something. Or it’s like somebody was told.
22
KEEGEN
“EXPLAIN AGAIN HOW YOU and Mark spent the morning before the hike,” Deveraux asks.
I’m sick of talking about it, but if I don’t talk now, I may never get a chance to again.
“Mark showed up at my place, and we went to Rita’s for breakfast. It was like he knew something was up, and he was super nice to me all day, even though things hadn’t been the same since we had that argument about Tabby. The one Kyla overheard. He ordered a shit ton of food and we didn’t talk about Tabby at all, and it felt like the old days, before girls and before things got messed up between us.”
I leave out what he said when we paid the bill and left. He said something that changed everything.
“I’m sorry. About that night. I was wrong. I must have been jealous or something, but I feel horrible about it, dude.”
He felt horrible for accusing me of something I had been guilty of the whole time. He felt horrible, when I had literally been fantasizing about a world without him in it. I almost started to cry.
“I told him about Tabby,” I say. “That she came over sometimes. That we were friends.”
“And how did he react to that?” Deveraux asks.
“He was cool with it,” I say. “He said Tabby was a good friend to have.”
I leave out the surprised look that took over his face. I leave out what he really said. “I know she was worried about you since you don’t really have anyone. I trust you, dude.” I leave it out because it was so fucking patronizing.
Here’s the rest that I can’t tell Deveraux. I hung out by the woods, watched them start their hike. I guess I had nothing better to do. Tabby was laughing, and holding Mark’s hand, like they were a real couple, like she wasn’t constantly bitching about him and plotting to end things for months.
I realized that if she could do that to him, she could do that to me. That maybe she’d been doing it to a long chain of guys. That my allegiance was to the wrong person, but it wasn’t too late.
So I went back to Kyla. And yeah, she’s saying I wasn’t there when she woke up, but I needed some air, and I took a wa
lk. I couldn’t sleep, because I knew I fucked up. Yeah, Mark was a golden boy, and yeah, I wanted him tarnished, and yeah, he stole every girl I was ever interested in, but I never wanted him dead. I should have warned him, because if I knew Tabby, I would have known she was capable of going that far. What were her exact words? He can’t know this is coming.
The weird thing is, Tabby never gave me her phone number, and never asked for mine. We always just got together somehow, her showing up at the grocery store, her showing up at my apartment. I think she knew the whole time that this was going to happen. She got close, but made sure we never crossed a line. That girl covered her tracks. And the stuff that the cops did find—I can guarantee she wanted it that way. I mean, she made me search for that stuff about the trails. Because she wanted us to go hiking sometime. That’s what she wanted me to think.
Deveraux takes another one of those dramatic pauses I really hate her for, and I’m bracing myself for the next onslaught when she nods. “No further questions.”
I can’t decide if they’re the best or worst three words I’ve heard.
Before I stand up, I make the mistake of glancing at Tabby. Her eyes are right on me.
And she’s smiling.
THE COLDCLIFF TRIBUNE
December 11, 2019
Cousins to take the stand in slain boyfriend case
By Julie Kerr
After revelations that rocked the murder trial of Tabitha Cousins, 17, Cousins herself will finally take the stand tomorrow to tell her version of the story. New evidence linking Keegan Leach, 20, to the murder of Mark Forrester, has upended a trial that was expected to focus solely on Cousins. It’s now looking like Cousins herself may have been a victim of Leach’s obsessive tendencies, and Forrester may have paid the ultimate price.