The Last Time I Saw Her

by Alexandra Harrington

  “Yeah.” She sighed, sinking down onto the sofa and pulling one of the throw pillows from behind her around to her chest. “I ran into Sophie last week, and…she doesn’t like that we hang out.”

  Max sat down beside her, resting his long legs on the coffee table. He thought about this for a moment, his face twisted at the ceiling like he was trying to hear music from far away.

  “Why?” he asked eventually. “Is she jealous?”

  A very loud JEALOUS OF WHAT!!! alarm rang through Charlotte’s head. They weren’t a couple—nowhere near it, she told herself. There was nothing to be jealous of.

  “No. I think she just hates me.”

  “Sophie hates everybody.”

  “Yeah, but she hates me more,” Charlotte said, cringing. “I think it’s different when you used to love someone.”

  “So, you didn’t want to hang out anymore?” he asked. He almost looked hurt.

  “It was more than that,” she explained, curling a loose thread on the pillow around her pinky. “Sophie kept talking about the night of the accident.”

  “What about it?”

  Spit it out, Charlie! she wanted to scream at herself. Why, after all this, was she still trying to protect Sophie? Trying to make her seem like she hadn’t threatened Max with a lie that could ruin his life? Sophie wouldn’t even entertain the thought of protecting Charlotte if the roles were reversed. Not anymore.

  “Sophie said everybody was drinking that night and that you probably were too, and I was scared she would tell people,” Charlotte blurted out quickly, “if we didn’t stop being friends.”

  Max was looking at a spot on the wall behind Charlotte’s head and not completely at her. There was no mistaking Max looking hurt this time.

  “And what did you say?” he asked finally.

  “I don’t really remember.”

  “Do you think she would really do that?”

  A good question. A year ago, Charlotte would have said no, absolutely not. Sophie was bluffing. “I don’t know,” Charlotte answered truthfully.

  “And that’s why you stopped hanging out with me?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Max stretched back into the couch, readjusting his feet. “Part of me’s a bit relieved,” he admitted. “I thought it was because of the other night, when I slept over in your bed.”

  The jolt of the memory made her accidentally pull the thread free from the pillow. “It wasn’t because of that.”

  Max took the pillow she was wrecking away from her and held it in his own lap. “We’ll just…slow it down, I guess, then.”

  She stared at him. “What?”

  “Us hanging out. Less public outings. More of this.”

  Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “But, Sophie—”

  “She’s bluffing. Or she’s not, and I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it,” Max said shortly. He turned to her, more seriously. “And Charlie, think about it. There’s no way that she could prove something like that.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do,” Max said, reaching out to touch her arm. “Because I was there and I wasn’t drinking. She just knows that would get to you. Sophie knows you, and knows exactly what she can prey on. That’s just how she is.”

  “What if she can fake it, though, or—”

  “Charlie, I promise. She can’t. And besides, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like you and I can stop being friends.”

  “This sounds like a very, very bad plan. One that will result in jail time.”

  He ignored her. “Thanks for telling me this, though.”

  There was no point in arguing with him. “I thought you deserved honesty. You know, at least once. You’re always honest with me.”

  “As far as you know.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Anyway. That’s my good deed for the day. Feel free to resume nursing your hangover.”

  “I wasn’t that drunk.”

  “Yes, you were.” That’s why you said you had feelings for me, idiot.

  He shook his head.

  “Do you remember everything that happened last night?” she asked, suddenly feeling brave.

  He looked at her and she knew he understood what in particular she was referring to. He stood up, bristling slightly, like he was annoyed.

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “Don’t bring it up again.”

  But he was smiling at the floor as he said it. Charlotte stood up and for a bursting moment was overwhelmed by an urge to hug him. Her body lurched forward for a second before she stopped herself, settling on a slightly awkward pat on the arm. When Max looked at her, she knew he knew what she meant by it. He chuckled quietly. She was relieved she wouldn’t have to give him up after all.

  “All right,” she said to him. “I won’t.”

  • • •

  “What time is Leo coming over?” Max asked.

  Charlotte glanced at the clock above the stove. “He said whenever he gets off work. A half-hour, maybe?”

  True to what he’d said, Max didn’t seem fazed by Sophie’s threat. He and Charlotte were still friends, just more quietly.

  “I miss him,” Max said wistfully from the living room as Charlotte rolled her eyes into the pot of Kraft Dinner she was stirring. “Can I use your phone charger?”

  “Mm.” Charlotte ripped open the powdered cheese packet and dumped it into the pot. “It’s in my work bag, by the door.”

  She licked a bit of fake cheese off her thumb.

  “Why do you have Sophie’s jacket?” she heard him call.

  Charlotte frowned and poked her head out of the kitchen. “I don’t.”

  Max held up an army green bomber jacket that had been hanging by the door.

  “Oh,” Charlotte said, crossing the room toward him. “Delilah left that in my car, the night I drove her home.”

  “She must’ve borrowed it from Sophie. I bought it for her for her birthday before we broke up.”

  Charlotte shrugged. “I guess.”

  “You should wear it in front of Sophie,” Max said, “so that she’ll call the police and say you stole it and have you thrown in prison.”

  “You aren’t funny,” Charlotte snapped as Max unzipped the pockets and jammed his hand inside. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for money. Here,” Max handed her a wadded-up crumble of receipts, “trash from your arch-nemesis.”

  “Hilarious,” Charlotte said as she uncurled the soft papers. They were debit receipts or something similar.

  “Mail them back to her, one by one,” Max suggested.

  “What is wrong with you?”

  It was a deposit slip, Charlotte guessed. It said Sophie’s full name under the header. Deposit amount: two thousand dollars. Jeeze. The date at the top was October of last year. She thought the next receipt she unfolded was a duplicate…until she saw the date: November.

  “What is it?” Max asked.

  She handed the papers to him. “Sophie’s banking stuff. Is there more?”

  Max traded her the jacket for the receipts. Charlotte stuck her hand in the other pocket, her heart pounding like she was doing something wrong. Two more, for December and January. Both for two thousand dollars.

  “Is this weird to you?” she asked Max. Looking at them, it was like she could almost, almost piece together what they meant. Like trying to remember the lyrics to a song.

  “Yeah.” Max nodded, looking right back at her.

  Where would Sophie get this money? Who would regularly pay her an even two grand? What was worth that kind of money?

  “Sophie was getting paid?” Max asked.

  “For what? Something from the accident? Damages, or whatever?”

  He frowned. “Pretty sure I would know about that,” Max said.

&nbs
p; “What about insurance?” Charlotte suggested.

  “I don’t…I’m not sure how insurance works. And this says cash deposits. So it can’t be like a transfer or automatic deposit or anything like that,” Max said, looking thoughtful. “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the accident.”

  “What else could it be, then? Does someone owe her money?” Charlotte asked him.

  “I dunno.” Max shrugged. “I can’t see who would owe her that much. And the only money I can see Sophie acquiring for herself would be, like, revenge money.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “It can’t be that.”

  “What did Sophie do?” Max asked finally.

  That was the wrong question, Charlotte realized. She replayed what Max had said. Revenge. Who would Sophie be blackmailing?

  “No, it’s what did they do to Sophie,” she breathed. She looked at him—he wasn’t quite there yet. “Revenge money. You’re right.”

  “Charlie, what?”

  “What if Sophie knows who hit her?”

  twenty-five

  Charlotte flicked a switch and the hefty camera snapped to life in her hands.

  “I’m surprised the battery isn’t dead,” Max said from beside her.

  Charlotte folded her legs underneath her on the floor, straightening her back against the side of Max’s bed. She flipped through the photos on the fancy camera Max had gotten as a gift for “graduating” grade ten. Max’s words. Charlotte wasn’t sure the jump from grade ten to eleven merited a graduation present.

  She squinted at the bright screen, the daylight from the windows obscuring her view. She cupped her hand around the edge of it, trying to block out the sun.

  “Hey,” Max said, pulling her hand back to her lap with his. “I wanna see, too.”

  Charlotte had spent the last week or so since Connor Hickey’s party making an extremely conscious effort not to flinch any time Max accidentally touched her. Not that she did it in a freaked-out way. Just, like, in a more-aware-of-him way. Like when you hear a familiar song on the radio and you weren’t expecting it.

  On top of that, on top of everything, was whatever they’d riddled out from the receipts in Sophie’s jacket. It was just a theory with no real proof, but the way it fit together made Charlotte nervous. Could she and Max be right? Could Sophie know, and have known since right after the accident? The first receipt was for that same month. September 2016. He never said it, but she knew it was hurting Max. That Sophie may have hard evidence that he hadn’t been at fault, when they all knew how hard on himself he had been since last year. That there might be someone else everyone would blame. They didn’t really talk about it. Charlotte still had a feeling they were missing something.

  “Haven’t you looked at them?” Charlotte asked, thumbing back in time through the photos. They were of a party she didn’t recognize—it must have been from when she was gone. She almost never missed social events before she went away. Sophie wouldn’t let her.

  Charlotte flicked to a photo of Sophie and Delilah embracing in front of a beer pong table, Sophie tall and slender, red war paint on either cheek. The photos weren’t from when she was gone; they were from before.

  “I haven’t looked at them,” Max answered her question.

  “These are from the party before the car rally.”

  Max, who mirrored her position on the floor, leaning back against the bed, stretched his legs out, and re-adjusted them for something to do. “You are correct.”

  Most of the pictures were of Sophie and their old friends. Charlotte could never get over how beautiful Sophie was—is, she thought—how, even in pictures, it looked like all the light in the room was refracted through her.

  “I used to think seeing her in the chair was weird, but this”—Max nodded to the screen—“this is weirder.”

  Charlotte switched the camera off. “It’s weird what you get used to.”

  “Also weird that Sophie now wants me to go to jail.”

  “You need to stop joking about that.”

  “She was just messing with you,” Max said seriously. “You need to realize that.”

  Charlotte picked up the camera again. “What if we can use this? What if there’s something on here that can prove it? That you didn’t drink?”

  Max screwed up his face and pulled the camera away from her. “Charlie, c’mon. You’re looking for a photo of something not happening? And I don’t think there’d be many pictures of me in there.”

  “Why?”

  “I think I was with Amy most of the night.”

  “Why?” she said again.

  Max looked to the ceiling, and then his dresser, but not at her. “Why do you think?”

  “Oh.”

  “Sophie wouldn’t have cared.”

  “Did you run it by her first?”

  Max rolled his eyes. “Nothing happened. We were just hanging out. I just wanted Sophie to think something was happening. I only did it because I was mad at her. You’ll remember, she had been pissed at me all week.”

  “Okay,” Charlotte said shortly. It wasn’t her business. But an uncomfortable sort of feeling settled in her stomach. Like she owed it to Sophie to tell her, which was stupid.

  “It’s not like I was supposed to be with you.”

  Charlotte felt her eyebrows shoot up. “Uh, yeah. I didn’t say that. I didn’t even say anything.”

  “You seem mad.”

  “It seems like a shitty thing to do to your girlfriend.”

  “This is also the girl you just told me was going to lie to the police to get me in trouble. Sophie deserved it.”

  Charlotte glared at him. “No, she didn’t. That was a year ago. She didn’t then.” Sophie, who at that exact time had been pregnant with Max’s baby.

  Max laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, right. Sometimes I wonder if you and I are talking about the same person.”

  “And it sucks,” Charlotte said, “that you would go after one of Sophie’s friends the second you and Sophie get in a fight. I don’t know who I feel worse for. Sophie, or those girls you use to get back at her.”

  “Well, at least you aren’t sorry for yourself for a change,” Max blurted out. He looked up at her once the words were out of his mouth and for a split second she thought he was going to take it back, but they were interrupted when the door opened.

  “Charlotte,” Deirdre drawled in a cheery voice, her entrance an ominous wave of expensive perfume and hair products. “I thought you were here.”

  “Hi, Deirdre,” Charlotte said, pulling herself to her feet and thinking about how Max would had lots of time to contemplate the meaning of feeling sorry for oneself while he rotted in prison. “I’m just leaving, actually.”

  “No, no,” Deirdre said, fluttering a hand at her. “I made dinner. I set you a place.”

  “Oh, no, really, I don’t want to impose—”

  “Well, to be honest, I thought you were Leo, you two sort of have a similar…tone,” Deirdre trailed off. “Anyway. Please, stay. I made tetrazzini.”

  Max heaved himself into a standing position and Charlotte wasn’t sure if he was going to forcefully escort her out. Their eyes met for a quick second and she could tell he was angry.

  “Should be ready in about twenty minutes,” Deirdre trilled, sauntering out of the room in what had to be a white-wine-

  embellished gait.

  Charlotte raised a hand to her face.

  “Twenty minutes,” Max grunted and moved past her, following Deirdre out the door.

  “This looks really great,” Charlotte said honestly as they approached the table, even though it was closer to forty minutes of extremely painful non-conversation with Max later.

  There were only four seats at the elegant-looking table; everyone forced to face each other. Charlotte slid into a leather-backed seat across from Max,
who wouldn’t look at her. Simon emerged from his office, eyes on the phone in his hand—a very normal, not-suspicious looking iPhone, Charlotte noted—when he reached the table. He looked up and his eyes fell on her.

  “I thought you said Leo was staying for dinner,” Simon said to Deirdre.

  “Well, I said I thought Leo was staying.” Deirdre pulled herself into the table. “Leo is the only person Max has had here in forever—no offence, Max—so, I just assumed.”

  Simon didn’t seem to have an answer to that, and sat down opposite Deirdre. “It’s nice of you to join us, Charlotte,” he said finally.

  Charlotte had not forgotten the implications Simon had made at Max’s birthday regarding her being a gold-digging floozy, but she aimed a vague smile in his direction anyway. Charlotte thought of her dad, who was never rude to anyone.

  “Shall we say grace?” Max asked dryly.

  Deirdre snorted into her drink.

  The plus side was Deirdre’s turkey-mushroom tetra-something-or-other pasta turned out to be very good. It had been a while since Charlotte had eaten anything that didn’t come out of a box.

  “Charlotte, Max tells us you’re taking next year off to work,” Deirdre said delicately, as if Max had informed them she was taking the year off to commit crime.

  “Uh, yeah,” Charlotte said slowly. “I just don’t have the money right now, for school.”

  “I took a gap year,” Deirdre said in an encouraging tone that surprised Charlotte.

  “To work?” Max piped up.

  Deirdre shot him a look, like he already knew the answer. “No.”

  “Ah, right.” Max jammed a forkful of pasta into his face. “Forgot. Brewery heiress.”

  Deirdre took a long drink.

  Huh. Charlotte twirled the noodles around her fork, watching Max fish what looked like a bit of green onion out of his teeth. So Deirdre hadn’t married Simon for his money. She must really love him to move to River John. Like, head over heels. Max swiped the green onion on the edge of his plate. Charlotte wondered what love like that must be like.

  “Max is going to Dalhousie,” Deirdre said.

  “I know,” Charlotte replied. “That’s where I’d like to go, eventually.”