But the other girls were the ones who ended up coming for me, not the police. Felty wasn’t wrong. Someone did see me and Kevin at the party, closing the bathroom door, and pretty soon everyone knew. It must have been Lauren, because the rumor sprouted new heads the more it was repeated. I’d plotted to steal Kevin. I’d looked for him at the party. I’d been on a mission. For the rest of my time at Wesleyan, a good chunk of the student body would see me as the girl who fucked Kevin McArthur while his girlfriend killed herself.
And another, smaller contingent had an even more menacing theory. That I had done it myself. I had been spotted running through the Butts C courtyard, hair swishing in the dark.
There would be an investigation, and it would open up a question nobody had thought they would ever have to answer: can you kill a girl without actually killing her?
It was Kevin’s public reckoning. But it was just as much mine.
NOW
To: “Ambrosia Wellington” [email protected]
From: “Wesleyan Alumni Committee” [email protected]
Subject: Class of 2007 Reunion
Dear Ambrosia Wellington,
Our Red and Black Alumni Dinner for the Class of 2007 is the event that caps off a truly enlightening weekend. Please join us in the West Wing at Usdan for a three-course meal, drinks, live music, and more. This is a dinner you won’t want to miss. We’ll be talking about it for the next ten years.
Sincerely,
Your Alumni Committee
I consider not going to the Super 8. It would be easy to get on I-91 and keep driving back to Astoria, where I can worry about the consequences later. But if I don’t do it now, I may never get a chance to talk to Kevin. I may never get a chance to ask him what makes him so sure that somebody killed Flora.
The clerk at the front desk, a girl with a perky ponytail, tells me there is no Kevin McArthur staying here. I briefly wonder if Kevin called her beautiful.
I know Kevin is here. Maybe he’s just not here as himself. If he wanted to hide his identity, who would he become?
I paste on an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry. I meant John Donne.”
“Okay, let me check.” She types something into her computer and flashes me a white smile. “Mr. Donne’s in room one twelve. Have a nice day.” As if anything about today is nice.
I lose momentum when I get to his door. I knock quietly, almost hoping he’s not inside, because I have no idea what I’m going to say. Eventually, the door inches open, and he peers out hesitantly. “Amb?”
“Hi,” I say. “I took a chance that you still like John Donne.”
“What are you doing here?” He squints at me like I’m a stranger. I suppose I am.
“I’m sorry to just show up. But I feel like—I think we need to talk.”
“Okay,” he says flatly. “Did something happen? Did you guys find anything?” He’s wearing a white T-shirt and no hat this time. Without the sweatshirt on, I can tell he has been working out, keeping himself in shape, fighting the self-proclaimed fat kid who used to inhabit his skin.
“Flora’s sister is here. On campus. I don’t know if she has anything to do with it or not, but she’s here. We saw her at the dedication.”
Kevin blows out a breath. “Shit. Poppy never liked me. But she was a kid. I don’t see her doing something like this.” He looks down the hall. “You should come in.”
As he opens the door, I see it. The lazy tilt of his head, the barest hint of a smile. He’s under there, the boy who made me feel like I was unique. I follow him inside and we both sit on his bed. The curtains are drawn, pale light framing the window.
I start talking. “You said something earlier. About the person who wrote the notes being the person who killed Flora. Do you honestly think she was murdered?”
He digs his fingers into the duvet. “You didn’t see what I saw. Somebody killed her. It was plotted out—someone used my phone, then followed her back to the dorm. Flora wouldn’t have killed herself. She wasn’t—she wouldn’t have done that. And she would have left a note.”
“Did you tell the police?” A flare of heat engulfs my neck.
“Do you think they wanted to hear me? Her fingerprints were on the mug. Nobody was seen entering the building. No signs of a fight. I tried to tell them maybe she wouldn’t have put up a fight, because she was so upset. Or if it was someone she knew coming in.”
“But who would have done that and made it look like a suicide?”
“Somebody who knew it could be pinned on me.” He gets up and picks up his wallet from the nightstand, then pulls out a wrinkled piece of paper that has been folded several times. “I showed this to the cops. Sorry. Your name is on it.”
My name. I realize, as I take the paper, that I’ve never seen Kevin’s handwriting before. It’s big and blocky, letters bleeding together. It’s a list—me and Sully, and some of the Butts girls, plus Hunter, who Kevin believed Flora was cheating on him with.
“What’s this?” I ask. The paper is soft and worn, like Felty’s business card. Kevin’s personal albatross, the weight he has carried because of me.
“People she knew. People I saw that night. People who could have wanted to hurt her.”
“I didn’t want to hurt her. She was my—she was my best friend.”
“But you showed up at Dartmouth and told me she was cheating on me. Then I came to see her, because Flora begged me, and you and me—I wasn’t planning on hooking up with you. But I wondered after if you planned it. The way we just ended up in that bathroom. You had this look, like you won something.”
A blast of terror snakes up my spine. “I didn’t plan any of it, Kevin. I swear. I had no idea any of this was going to happen. That night, you and I just got carried away.” I scrape at the already torn skin on my cuticles.
“Did you write those messages?” His eyes bore into me.
“Of course not.” My heart is a rapid drumbeat, panic making me dizzy. “Besides, you think someone murdered her. How could I have done it? I was with you.”
He rubs his hair. “I know. I just keep trying to make sense of it, and I never can.”
“She was drunk and heartbroken. Why did you even stay with her?” I snap, because the memory is an emotional conflagration, even now. “Why didn’t you just break up with her so you could both move on?”
“You don’t get it,” he says. “It was complicated. Our dads golfed together. My mom and her stepmom were, like, best friends. They were practically planning our wedding.”
I put the paper down and cross my arms. “So you strung me along. And you strung her along.”
“It wasn’t like that. It sounds bad. But hear me out. Flora was always there for me. The one constant thing I had. I knew she’d always be there. So yeah, I wasn’t in love with her anymore, but I wasn’t looking forward to breaking her heart either. I had to do it the right way.”
“You didn’t.” My voice is ice.
“No.” He rubs his jawline. “I didn’t. I ruined everything.”
He walks over to the desk, where a bottle of Jack Daniel’s sits beside a coffeemaker. “Do you want a drink? I need a drink.” He tips the bottle into a flimsy paper cup. When he swallows his first pour and goes for another, I can tell he drinks a lot, and often.
“Were there other girls you were emailing?” We’re veering far off track but I’m desperate to finally hear the truth.
He doesn’t look at me. “No. It was just you.”
“How about texting?”
His response is slower. “No.”
I’m collecting my frustration, trying to mold it into the right missive. He starts talking again. He knows I know he’s lying.
“I thought you blamed me like everyone else did. I mean, I never heard from you again.”
I soften against my will. “I sent you an email, but you never replied.”
He takes a sip of his drink. “I shut that account down. What did it say? The email?”
�
�I asked how you were doing.” I remember exactly what it said. It was half-drunk and sloppy. Hey, I’m so sorry this is all happening to you, I’m here if you want to talk, I still care about you a lot and that won’t go away.
“What do you think the answer was?” He laughs, a sound twisted and unholy. “You wanted to be an actress. I thought maybe you were acting the whole time with me.”
“I wasn’t. And I’m not an actress. Did you ever become a writer?”
He drains the rest of his cup. “I work for my dad. I didn’t do anything I said I would.”
I steer us back to the past, because talking about our failures is getting us nowhere. “Were you going to break up with Flora? You told me you needed time. And then…”
He blows out a breath. “And then I had to find her like that. It was—I can’t even describe it. And I won’t, because you can’t unsee it. I was going to let her know it was over.”
“So you could be with me.” I hate how I sound, eighteen and in desperate need of validation. Sully would crucify me for wanting to believe him, but I have to know it was all worth something.
“Yeah.” It’s more a grunt than a word. I wonder if he was like this on the phone with Flora, dodging her increasingly probing questions. I wish I believed him—no, I wish I had believed my own instincts the day Kevin and I met. I wish I had shredded his email address and zoned out when Flora bubbled over about their connection. But it’s too late for that.
“You went back to the dorm that night, but you didn’t see anyone around? Like, nobody in the halls or anything?”
“No. I could hear some music and stuff, but I didn’t see anybody.” He inches closer to me. “Look, when Sully called to tell me she got a note—”
Her name makes my ears ring. It’s not that he called her Sully, because everyone does. It’s that she called him.
“She told me you emailed her about it,” I say. His blank expression speaks volumes. “How did she get your phone number?”
The silence is horrible—it’s the same white noise from the aftermath of Matt and Jessica French. I know something hideous is happening but can’t fully process it.
“I guess she must have got it somehow,” Kevin mumbles.
Sully and Kevin. The screaming truth of them, right in front of me the entire time. I didn’t find him after Flora was gone, but she could have. She was always more creative, more resourceful. When I stopped being fun, she needed somebody new to play with. Rage sears my skull, but I’m almost angrier at myself than I am at Sully. I should have known.
Her words rush back, the night of the Double Feature party. You fucked him. Wasn’t it fucking amazing?
“You and Sully,” I say, my tongue heavy. “You slept with her.”
“Um.” He coughs. “A really long time ago. I figured you knew, but then she just told me you had no idea, and she wanted to keep it that way.”
She has no idea. Sully was talking to Kevin last night. I’m almost scared to ask the next part. “Are you with her?”
He sits down next to me, almost hesitantly. “No. God, no. She was a mistake.”
I can’t deny that hearing Sully described as somebody’s mistake fills me with satisfaction. She was an easy mistake to make. “But you talk to her.”
“Until she called me about the note, I hadn’t talked to her in forever.”
“When were you with her?” I need to know. “When did it start?”
He sighs. “She was just there. That night you showed up at Alpha Chi, she came up to my room, and—well.”
That night. Waking up on a moldy couch, Sully there, then gone. An absence she never bothered to explain, even when I asked.
“So you still expect me to believe there were no other girls,” I say flatly.
“I regretted it,” he says. “I wish I would have told her to leave, but my ego was, like, this hungry monster. It took what anyone fed it. And after Flora—well, everyone else wanted to see it starve.”
“What happened after Flora?” There’s the need I always try to keep at bay, warping my voice.
“She found me in Fairfield and told me she believed I didn’t send the texts. You have to understand, I was so messed up, and nobody even wanted to look at me. Then she got bored, I guess, and took off. I didn’t think I’d hear from her ever again. And I didn’t, until she called about the note.”
“So you were her boyfriend.” I don’t know what’s more impossible to digest. That Sully was with Kevin, or that she was with anyone.
“No.” His hair falls in his face. “I really knew nothing about her. And sometimes…” He trails off.
“Sometimes what?”
“Sometimes it was like she just wanted to keep me in her sight.”
I know the feeling, I could say, but I swallow the words as his fingers brush up my arm. I don’t stop him. Because Sully isn’t here, and Flora isn’t here, but I am.
“Did you ever think she did it?” My skin is hot with anger. I want him to say yes. I want somebody to hold her accountable for something. And as the question leaves my mouth, I realize it was exactly what I came here to ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “At first, I suspected everyone. But I don’t think she cares enough about anyone to do something like that.”
I blink furiously, my brain catching on an unbidden thought.
Maybe she cared enough about me.
But I don’t have time to process it before Kevin brings one hand to the back of my neck, the other to my face. He kisses my ear, then my collarbone. His mouth, fever-hot on my throat as he presses me into the duvet.
I could do this. It’s my chance to get revenge on Sully, on the girl who managed to take what I wanted while convincing me she had given me everything. I could sleep with Kevin. Game on, Sully. You’re not special.
But I’m the one to put my hands on his chest and push him off me. Because I don’t want this anymore. I don’t know this man, who tastes like whiskey and desperation. I don’t need to know him. Maybe it’s different now because Flora isn’t here to compete with. Because it was her magnetic softness I wanted the whole time, not her boyfriend.
“I can’t do this. I’m married.” Adrian, the one constant in my life, who pledged to love me forever. He deserves better.
Kevin nods. He’s disappointed. It’s nice to be the one letting him down. “I hope you ended up with someone who treats you well. I meant what I said back then. You deserve someone great.”
My voice is small. “I did.”
Kevin smooths his shirt. “Flora deserved better too. I ruined her life. That’s why I really decided to come here. I mean, yeah, I want to clear my name, but mostly I just want whoever did this to get what they deserve.”
I stare at the piece of lined paper next to me, imagining Kevin poring over it, trying to solve the mystery. I can’t help him piece it together without implicating myself. I sent the messages. Kevin and I went up to the bathroom. Then he was gone, and how long were Sully and I at the party after that?
Long enough for somebody to finish what I started.
“What if—” I hesitate. “What if more than one person worked together?”
Kevin frowns. “I thought of that. But nobody was seen entering the building. And pretty much everyone was at that party.”
Nobody was seen entering the building.
But someone was seen running from it. The rumors, the messages on the ACB. I saw AW running from the Butts that night in a slutty outfit—she did it.
There were two of me the night of the Double Feature.
She has a pattern, Lauren said. Sully could pressure anyone into doing anything. She put the phone in my grasp, giggled as I typed. She made sure the phone got back to Kevin, wiped it clean to get rid of our prints. Everything looked like it was done on an impulse.
Now I see Sully, hovering over her best friend, Evie, convincing her that the Oxy would be fun to try. I see Sully with her arm around Flora, telling her what Kevin was doing back at the party, pushing her to do
something extreme to get back at him.
Sully, I want to scream. Sully, what have you done?
I can already hear her answer. Nothing she wasn’t going to do already.
The phone on Kevin’s nightstand rings, making me jump. He picks it up. “Hello?” More impatiently now. “Hello, is anyone there?” He puts the phone back in its cradle. “Wrong number, I guess. That’s, like, the fourth call today.”
There is no us. I had served my purpose for Sully. I was with Kevin that night, my insides a hideout. Sully made sure that it was the last time we would be together. But I can’t tell him any of this.
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” It feels like the most honest thing I’ve admitted in a long time.
“Yeah. It’s messed up. And all because I didn’t have the balls to break up with my girlfriend. Because I wanted to have sex, and she didn’t, so I found it somewhere else.”
“But you and Flora—” You and Flora. I heard you in her bed.
“Flora thought we were waiting until we got married.” He pinches the skin between his eyes.
I wait for that to sink in, along with what it means, but it doesn’t want to penetrate. Lying in bed, listening to Flora and Kevin, bedsheets rustling. I made an assumption about what they were doing, because it’s what everyone was doing. Flora never told me they were waiting. I flash back to Halloween, the pilot and his hands all over Flora, my blind eye to what was happening.
“I have to go.” I stand up, sickened with myself. “I guess we both have to live with it.” It’s all there is left to say. Flora died and we lived, marbled with shared pain.
“Don’t go.” He reaches for my hand. “Stay. Please. You’re safe here.”
I memorize his face and see him for what he is, for what I first saw at Dartmouth: a tarnished golden boy with pretty words. I could take him from Sully, but she wouldn’t care. Nobody means that much to her anyway. Except maybe me.
The Girls Are All So Nice Here Page 22