Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Ijolt awake with my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might bruise my ribs from the inside, my skin damp with sweat that cools too quickly in the darkness and leaves me shivering beneath the sheets.
For a moment I don’t move at all, I just lie there staring into the dim outline of the ceiling, listening to the low, steady hum of the fan overhead and the quiet, even rhythm of Bennett’s breathing beside me, trying to anchor myself in something real.
I draw in a slow breath, then another, willing my body to follow the same calm cadence, but it doesn’t work. The dream clings to me, thick and suffocating, not fading the way dreams usually do but settling deeper, as if it belongs somewhere inside me.
I can still feel it, the subtle, constant sway beneath my feet, the air heavy with salt and diesel, and beneath it all, Phillip’s voice cutting clean through everything, loud and self-assured and impossible to ignore.
Carefully, I push myself upright, moving slowly so I don’t wake Bennett, and press my palms against my temples as if I can physically force the images away, but they linger anyway, sharp and immediate and far too vivid to dismiss.
We were on the yacht.
Of course we were.
Phillip loved those outings, not for the quiet or the water or even the company, but for the performance of it all, the gleaming white deck, the curated guest list, the unspoken understanding that everything about it was meant to be seen and admired.
In the dream, we were just off the coast of Marco Island, the Gulf stretching endlessly around us while the sky burned in soft streaks of orange and pink as the sun dipped toward the horizon, everything arranged into a picture of perfection that almost felt too precise to be real.
Whitney and I were stretched out on the deck with cocktails in hand, the condensation sliding down the glass and pooling against my fingers, while Bennett stood near the helm trying to talk business, something grounded and practical, something that belonged in the real world.
Phillip, as always, had taken control of the conversation, his voice carrying easily across the open space, filling it, dominating it, leaving no room for anything else.
He was talking about a deal he had just closed, something large, something impressive, and the satisfaction in his voice was unmistakable, the kind that didn’t need acknowledgment because it assumed it already had it.
“That’s the thing about me,” he had said, his tone almost conversational, as though what he was saying wasn’t worth questioning. “I always get what I want. Money, power, whatever I decide I want, it ends up mine.”
I can still hear it, every word settling heavier now than it did then.
He laughed after that, low and certain, and then he said it, almost like an afterthought, something tossed into the air as if it carried no weight at all.
“I know enough people to get away with anything. Hell, probably even murder, if I wanted to.”
At the time, it had sounded like bravado, like another one of his overblown, self-important remarks that were easier to ignore than confront, but in the dream it lands differently, sharper, quieter, as if the truth had always been there and I simply hadn’t been listening closely enough to hear it.
I remember turning to Whitney then, expecting her to react the way she always did, with a subtle roll of her eyes or a look that passed between us, something unspoken but understood, a shared acknowledgment that Phillip was being himself again.
But she didn’t look at me.
She was staring out at the water, her face pale in the fading light, her expression distant in a way that felt wrong, not distracted or bored but removed, as though she had already stepped outside of the moment entirely.
That was when the unease began, not sudden but creeping, something that started low in my chest and worked its way upward until it settled into something heavier, something harder to ignore.
There was something in the way Phillip said it, something in the way Whitney didn’t respond, something that didn’t fit no matter how I tried to place it.
It felt too real.
Too close to something I hadn’t allowed myself to consider.
As if he wasn’t joking at all, but revealing something and trusting that no one would take it seriously enough to matter.
And then I woke up.
The memory dissolves around the edges, but the feeling remains, sharp and lingering, and I drag my hands slowly down my arms as if I can warm myself back into the present, but the chill stays, buried deeper than skin.
It was just a dream, I tell myself, but the thought doesn’t settle the way it should. It doesn’t feel like something imagined, it feels like something uncovered, something pulled forward from a place I had left untouched for too long.
I turn my head slightly and look at Bennett, still asleep beside me, his face relaxed and unguarded, untouched by any of this, and for a moment I consider waking him, asking him what he really thought of Phillip, whether he ever saw something beneath the surface, whether there were signs that I missed or moments that felt off to him too.
But I stop myself.
Because if he didn’t see it, if none of it existed outside of me, then what does that say about what I’m doing now, about the way I’m going back and reshaping things that were already lived and finished?
Still, my mind won’t let it go.
It moves backward on its own, turning over memory after memory, searching for something that feels solid, something I can hold onto and say this is where it started, this is where it shifted.
Dinner parties, vacations, long afternoons that blurred together into something polished and effortless, every moment curated and contained within the kind of life that looked perfect from the outside.
How many times did Phillip say things like that?
How many times did I laugh, dismiss it, decide it wasn’t worth the discomfort of questioning?
And how many times did Whitney do the same, smoothing over the edges, explaining him in a way that made everything easier for the rest of us to accept?
A slow, heavy guilt settles in, spreading through me with a weight that feels impossible to shake.
I should have seen it.
Not just heard it, but understood it, recognized the shift in Whitney before it became something irreversible. The way her smile stopped reaching her eyes, the way she seemed to withdraw just slightly, like she was holding something back that she couldn’t quite bring herself to say.
But I didn’t look closely enough. I didn’t ask. I let it exist in that comfortable space where nothing has to be named to be ignored.
The last dinner we had at their house rises to the surface without effort, as if it has been waiting there, ready to be examined.
It had felt off even then, though I didn’t say it out loud, didn’t allow myself to linger on the feeling long enough to define it.
Phillip had been louder than usual, sharper, his words edged with something that felt more aggressive than entertaining, and he drank too much, spoke too much, filled every silence before it had the chance to exist.
Whitney barely spoke at all.
She moved through the evening quietly, picking at her food, her wine untouched, her attention slipping in and out of the room as if she wasn’t fully present in it.
At one point, she looked at me.
Just for a second.
And she smiled.
It was small, controlled, the kind of smile that asks you not to look any closer, not to question what sits just beneath it.
I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.
And I didn’t.
I let that be enough.
My throat tightens at the memory, and I press my lips together, willing the emotion back before it can fully surface, but it lingers anyway, sharp and insistent.
I should have asked. I should have pushed. I should have made it real instead of letting it stay in that quiet, unspoken place where it couldn’t be confronted.
Now she’s gone, and all that’s left are fragments that don’t quite fit together, pieces of something I should have understood when it still mattered.
I lean back against the headboard, my gaze fixed on the ceiling, my thoughts circling back to the same place no matter how far I try to push them.
Phillip’s voice.
That laugh.
That certainty.
Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe it was just another careless remark, another exaggerated version of himself that was easier to dismiss than to examine.
But maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe it meant something.
And maybe I missed it.
Bennett shifts beside me, his hand finding my arm in his sleep, warm and steady, grounding me in a way that almost makes the rest of it feel distant, but not enough to quiet it completely.
I close my eyes, focusing on that single point of contact, on the rhythm of his breathing, on anything that feels stable and real, but the thought remains, quiet and persistent.
I don’t know what’s real anymore.
I don’t know if I’m uncovering something that was always there or creating something out of guilt and grief and everything I failed to see.
But I do know this.
I’m not letting it go.
Not now.
Not when something is beginning to take shape.
No matter how far back I have to go or how carefully I have to pull it apart, I will find out what happened to Whitney.
I owe her that much.
I owe her the truth, whatever it turns out to be.