by Abigail Haas
CLARA: Too controlled, perhaps? I mean, this is a girl who’s been locked up in prison for months now. I have to admit, I was expecting her to be . . . more raw, a lot more emotional . . . Even before the cameras started rolling, she sat quietly, barely speaking, like she was analyzing the scene.
HEIDI: Right, and then when she does have a more emotional moment—here, where she’s talking to the parents and she starts crying, it’s almost too emotional, coming after all that calm.
CLARA: You’re saying she’s faking it?
HEIDI: It’s certainly possible. When people cry, for real, it’s an almost involuntary action; they just can’t help it. In the footage, if you keep your eye on Anna’s hands—
CLARA: We’re highlighting it on-screen here—
HEIDI: They stay folded, again, very composed. We’d expect to see her touch her face, wipe her eyes, maybe.
CLARA: That’s fascinating. Now, can we backtrack a moment and show you some footage from before the interview? This is background roll of Anna talking to her legal team, she’s got her lawyer there, and I want to show you this: Anna, getting very friendly with a young man we’ve identified as Lee Evans, age twenty-three; he’s a junior consul at the American embassy in the Netherlands. We contacted the embassy for comment, and all they’ll tell us is that Evans is not in Aruba in any official capacity. So, Heidi, what do we think? Is this a friend? A secret boyfriend? What does their body language say to you?
HEIDI: Whoever he is, they have a close relationship. You can see the physical affection when he touches her, the way she smiles at him.
CLARA: I would say he looks smitten with her.
HEIDI: Definitely not just a platonic relationship.
CLARA: Well, then, I’ve got to ask: What does this tell us about Anna Chevalier? I don’t know about you, but if I’m in prison, awaiting a murder trial, boys are going to be the last thing on my mind. But here she is, apparently flirting with a young man, in plain view of everyone.
MARTIN: And if I can add, we know there was confusion about her and her boyfriend, Tate Dempsey, and their alibis, which were later recanted. Anna’s always claimed he was the one who told her to lie, but looking at this tape, now I’ve got to wonder, you know—this is a girl with considerable feminine power. She’s got this new guy under her spell, even from behind prison bars. Getting a loyal boyfriend to lie for her would be easy.
CLARA: And we’ll get back to that later. But quickly, Martin, before the break, let’s talk about her bruises. A lot of people were shocked to see them.
MARTIN: Right, and I know this fight, this prison fight, has gotten her a lot of sympathy from some quarters—
CLARA: Even though the prison authorities have assured me she’s being kept in isolation now, away from other inmates.
MARTIN: I think seeing her like this, up close for the first time, has really driven home the reality of the situation. I mean, whether she’s falsely accused or not, this is a young girl, a teenage girl locked up in a foreign prison with women—all kinds of criminals, most of them older than her.
CLARA: Now, Anna says she was the one who was attacked, but the other girl in the incident, a Johanna Pearson, she says Anna is the one who started it. That Anna flew at her in a rage—well, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We’ve actually got some photos released to us, showing Johanna’s injuries after the fight. Well, clearly, it looks like Anna got off lightly here.
MARTIN: Wow. I mean, that’s some serious damage. The wounds to her face, a broken nose—
CLARA: And the hospital records say Anna broke two of this other girl’s ribs.
MARTIN: I’ve got to say, this is . . . This changes a lot for me. If Anna can do this with her bare hands, then I bet I’m not the only one wondering, what would she be capable of with a knife in her hand?
CLARA: We’ll be right back, after this message.
WAITING
I lie out in the prison yard every afternoon leading up to the trial. It’s the only perk of isolation, I guess, that I’m alone in my tiny, fenced-off strip of land, far away from the rest of the inmates. I don’t have to watch my back for fights, or gossip, I can just sprawl flat on my back in the yellowed grass, watching the sky.
If I tilt my head just right, I don’t see the barbed-wire fencing or the top of the guards’ tower, just the expanse of blue sky overhead. Every ten minutes or so, a plane takes off, banking in a wide semicircle across the island before heading out—to America, or Europe, or some other place that’s anywhere but here. You’d think the ache would lessen watching them go. I must have seen hundreds of planes leave by now, day after day; but every time, I feel it fresh, the same sharp longing in my chest, to be on one of those flights, squeezed up against some noisy seatmate in the tiny row, spilling peanuts and watching bad movies on an eight-inch screen.
Going home.
A wolf-whistle cuts through my reverie, sharp. I sit up, turning to find somebody leaning up against the barbed-wire fence. I squint, confused, until the figure shifts out of the sun, and I make out his familiar blond hair and ice-blue eyes.
Niklas.
I freeze.
“How did you get in?” I finally scramble to my feet, slowly approaching him. He’s on the guard’s side of the wire, lounging and smug in loose surfer shorts and one of his preppy pastel polo shirts, the collar popped. I study him suspiciously, staying back from the wire. “You’re not allowed. Visiting hours finished this morning.”
“I pulled some strings.” Niklas’s eyes trail up and down my body, with its baggy prison jumpsuit now dusty from the dirt.
“Why?” I fold my arms across my chest, remembering sharply how unnerved I felt around him, like he was imagining me naked. Of all the guys in the bar that first night, Elise had to pick the creepiest of them all.
“I saw you on TV.” He smirks, casual with his hands in his pockets. “Nice show. I liked the part where you cried, very touching.” His tone is amused, almost mocking.
I shiver. “What do you want?”
“Can’t I pay a visit, show some moral support?” Niklas asks. “It must be tough for you here, all alone. Your friends all went back home, didn’t they? Guess they didn’t want to stick around for a killer.”
“I didn’t do it,” I say quietly, before I can stop myself.
Niklas tilts his head at me. “Maybe not.” He smirks again. “But that won’t make a difference, will it?”
I take a step back as he chuckles to himself. “Found yourself a prison bitch yet? Some action in the showers?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I always wondered, you and Elise . . . I suggested you come join us, but she said that wasn’t her style. That she didn’t like sharing you.”
I glare at him. “Stop it.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” Niklas looks around. “You were the ones saying I’d never make anything of my life, never be anyone, and here you are.” The smile slips, and his eyes turn hard as glass. “You girls thought you were so much better than me, didn’t you? Laughing at me, making me look a fool. Well, look where you are now.” He gestures around at the bars and wire. “And Elise . . .”
“What?” I demand. “What about her?”
Niklas stares back at me, hard and unflinching. “Maybe the bitch got what she deserved.”
VACATION
I down a shot of tequila, then another, the burn shooting down my throat like fire.
“Look at you go!” Elise whistles. “My girl’s going wild!”
I ignore her and grab another shot, this one lurid blue and peppermint-sweet in my mouth. We’re back in the bar from the first night on the island: the music still loud, the floors still sticky, the crowd still packed half-naked and sweaty in the shack of a room. I can’t believe it was only three days ago we partied here, happy and blissfully naive.
I drain the glass, wincing at the taste.
“What’s the deal?” Elise slips her arm around my waist and pulls me in close. “Not that I’m not a fan of this new party-girl
you, but I thought you said you were taking it easy this week.”
“Things change.” I duck out of her embrace and cross the bar, to where Lamar’s waiting against the wall, watching Chelsea and Mel dance and spin around the room.
“C’mon,” I take his hand, pulling him toward the dance floor. “Tate won’t dance. I’m all alone.”
“The girls are out there.”
“Yes, but I need a big, strong guy to protect me,” I tease. “It’s no fun without you.”
“Just one song.” Lamar laughs and lets me lead him into the crowd. It’s a fast song, with a grinding dance bass. I feel the alcohol seep through me: the giddy lift, the sweet veil slipping over my mood. This is what I need, an escape from the doubts creeping into my mind and all the questions as heavy as the flaking pendant against Elise’s neck.
I let the music take over, swaying close to Lamar. My arms are loose around his neck, my body against his. He’s more built than Tate—muscles from the football field, taut under my fingertips as I run them across his shoulders. He backs away slightly.
“Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I spin out, and then back to his body again, close enough to feel the heat beneath his loose T-shirt. He’s still frowning, but his body moves against mine with the beat of the music, slowly relaxing.
He’s always liked me. It’s nothing he’s ever said or done, but I can tell all the same. Like the way he’ll look at me sometimes, when I’m tucked in Tate’s embrace, or when we’re all dressed up for a night out—heels and skirts and hair falling down low—and I’ll feel his eyes on me, edged with something more than friendship. I never thought of doing anything about it, of course; it was just nice to know. Validation, I guess. And there’s Chelsea, and Tate, always Tate, filling my mind until there’s no room for anything else. But now, through the gentle haze of tequila and dark, pulsating lights, I wonder what it would be like if I’d picked Lamar instead. Easy, and sweet. Fun. Not this all-consuming hunger I have for Tate, the dagger-shards of insecurity slicing through me. He would be a satellite, not my gravity, the pull so strong it scares me sometimes.
I move closer, sliding my hands down his back. He sways for a moment, leaning in, and there’s a longer moment when we’re in sync, closer than we should be, then Lamar detaches himself from me awkwardly. “I should get back, to Chels . . .”
There’s a hand on my shoulder, and Lamar’s eyes go past me. “Hey, man,” he says quickly. “We were just going to find you. She’s all yours.” He swiftly hands me off to Tate, then slips away through the crowd.
I slide against Tate, still moving, not pausing for a second. He places his hands loosely on my waist and gives me a crooked grin. “Should I be worried?” he teases.
“Maybe.” I smile back, still feeling off balance. “Maybe I’m having a torrid affair with Lamar behind your back. You ever think about that?”
Tate laughs, pulling me closer. “No way,” he says, stroking my hair possessively. “He wouldn’t dare. You’re my girl.”
I fall into his arms, until he’s half holding me up and we’re barely moving on the dance floor, just standing there together.
His.
It’s weird and maybe wrong, but ever since Halloween—my costume pooling on the floor, an unfamiliar lust in his eyes—I’ve felt that way too, like I belong to him. Branded, by his kisses, his touch, all those nights grasping precious time and each other under the soft down covers in his room after dark. I’m as much his as Elise’s now, but the one thought that never slipped in, never even drifted across my mind, was that they could belong to each other.
Without me.
“I need to sit down,” I say, suddenly dizzy. I push him away, breaking for the edge of the dance floor. I grab on to the back of a booth, my head spinning. This is crazy, I tell myself, struggling to breathe. I don’t know anything; I shouldn’t even be thinking . . .
“What’s up, baby doll?” Elise collapses beside me. I blink.
“I . . .” I stare at her, the smudge of black glitter liner on her lids, the gentle pink swell of her lips. “I don’t . . .”
Her forehead creases into a frown. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Come on.” She takes my hand.
I don’t move.
“Anna? Come on, you just need some fresh air, then you’ll feel better.” Elise smiles, reassuring me. “It was the fifth shot, wasn’t it? What am I always telling you? You’ve got to pace yourself.”
I nod, and follow her out toward the exit. She grabs a bottle of water from the bar as we pass, and then the night air is cool against my face. I pause, disoriented, as the blast of music and voices recedes behind the closed doors, replaced with the hum from other bars on the main street—traffic and passers-by, and the distant crashing of the ocean.
“Easy there,” Elise murmurs, steering me carefully across the concrete walkway and onto the sand. “Give me some warning if you’re going to barf, okay?”
She bends, undoing the straps of my wedge sandals in turn and gently lifting my feet out of them as I lean on her for balance. She straightens. “Rule one: suede and vomit don’t mix.” She grins at me, and I blink back, still dazed. In the dark out here, her eyes are almost violet, large and luminous.
Elise rolls them good-naturedly. “Man, you really went hard tonight.” She kicks off her own shoes and then scoops both pairs in one hand, taking my arm in the other. “You good to walk?”
I nod again, and we slowly strike out across the sand, heading toward the dark stretch of ocean.
“Nik texted me again,” Elise chatters, swinging our sandals back and forth. “I swear, it’s like the tenth time tonight. Wanting to know where we’ll be, what time I’ll get there . . . It’s kind of tacky, I mean, he seemed kind of cool to begin with, that whole ‘lord and master of all he surveys’ thing, but I don’t know, he kind of gives me the creeps now.” She pauses. “You know he did this weird role-play thing, when we were hooking up? He got off on the whole domination thing, you know, holding me down, trying to make me beg. I mean, I like getting thrown around as much as the next girl, but this was different. I don’t know. . . .”
We come to a stop just on the shoreline, where the soft, cool sand turns damp from the slow sweep of the waves. Elise crumples to the ground, her legs folded beneath her. I sit, hugging my knees to my chest. “Feeling better?” she asks, concerned. “Here.” She unscrews the cap and passes the water bottle to me. I take a sip. It’s warm but clear in the back of my throat.
“So . . .” Elise pauses. She sifts sand through her fingertips. “You going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“What?” I flinch. “Nothing’s wrong.”
Elise fixes me with an even gaze. “C’mon, Anna. You can’t pull this with me. Something’s been up with you all day. You barely said a word on the beach, and then you took that nap all afternoon—”
“I had a headache!” I protest weakly.
“And now you’re drinking like you want to pass out,” Elise finishes. “I know you, remember? Better than anyone. This isn’t you.”
I don’t speak for a minute, watching the dark shadows of the waves. The words are there, jumbled up in my mind, but I can’t bring myself to say them out loud. To accuse her, based on what—a bad feeling in the base of my spine, a mixed-up necklace, a shiver? It’s crazy. They wouldn’t do this to me. She wouldn’t do this.
“I guess I’m just stressed,” I say at last, looking down. I trace circles in the sand, pushing the grains into spiraling shapes. “College, and school ending. What happens after, you know?”
“That’s ages away.”
“It’s not.” I shake my head. “Graduation’s in a couple of months, then we all go off in different directions. This could be the last time we’re all together like this.”
Elise reaches out and squeezes my hand. “It’s okay. Some things aren’t meant to last.”
My eyes must have widened in horror because she laughs and says, “Not us. We’re set, rememb
er? You and me, doddering around an old estate somewhere in our nineties. Grey Gardens -ing it up.”
“Turbans and paste jewelry,” I agree quietly.
She grins. “With fifteen cats. And a hot pool boy.”
I laugh. It feels like a release somehow. Relief. And I realize the worst part of my stupid suspicions wasn’t even Tate, and his terrible betrayal, but the idea of losing Elise. Of her being gone from my life, cut away and buried for good.
Elise squeezes my hand again. “It’ll be okay, I promise,” she tells me. “It’s you and me. I don’t know about the others—maybe Mel, and Lamar, and AK and everyone come back every holiday, and we hang out and visit one another, and nothing changes. Or maybe we drift apart and don’t speak until our ten-year reunion. Shit happens, you know? You can’t control it. But us? We’re forever.”
I lace my fingers through hers in response. “I know it’s stupid,” I say, feeling as foolish for the things I haven’t said as the things I did. “It’s high school. We always couldn’t wait for it to be done. But now, everything so close . . . I like how it is, right now. I don’t want anything to change.”
“But it does,” Elise says softly. “Everything changes. But it can be better. Think about it, if we both get in to USC . . . you and me, California. We can hang out on the beach like this all the time, and not die of hypothermia.”
I smile, leaning to rest my head on her shoulder. I never told her I’ve spent these last weeks split, wavering between schools on the East and West Coasts, between proximity to her or to Tate. Now I’m glad I didn’t make a big deal of it, because it doesn’t feel like a choice anymore. Of course I’m going with her. Of course.
“Do you love me?” I ask, repeating our familiar refrain.
“You know I do.”
“How much?”
“Miles and miles.”
* * *
We sit on the beach until the world slowly stops spinning on its axis, then head back across the sand to the bar. I’m almost not surprised to find Melanie waiting outside the back exit, pacing back and forth and clutching her phone.