Chapter Forty-Two
Present: Day Six at Sea
Emma’s eyes are on mine when I set down the diary.
“I read this before.” The memory came flooding back to me as soon as I started reading.
“When I was staying at Courtney’s house the fall of senior year, I snuck into her room one night.
” Looking at Emma, I refrain from telling her why. “And I found this.”
Emma furrowed her brows. “Who was she talking about?”
“I don’t know. When I saw Courtney had written it on the day you broke your ankle, I worried it was you.”
Emma shakes her head. “I broke my ankle on October seventeenth. Two days before she wrote that.” She gestured toward the diary.
I cock my head to the side, straining to remember. I recall feeling sure Courtney wrote that on the day of her “prank.”
“Trust me,” Emma adds. “It’s not something I could forget.”
She’s right. That day had a much bigger impact on Emma’s life than it did mine, which leaves me feeling I have no right to argue.
But I remember standing in Courtney’s room, seeing that date in her diary so clearly and being sure it was the day Emma had broken her ankle.
Had I been confused? I meet Emma’s gaze. Or is she lying?
“Maybe she was referring to you,” Emma says, seeming to note the skepticism on my face.
“No,” I say. Courtney and I didn’t have a problem until I finally stood up to her the next summer on our rafting trip.
At least, I didn’t think we did. Even though Courtney had blackmailed me with that photo over the dish soap prank, I was still her friend.
It makes me feel ill now, how I’d let Courtney walk all over me because I somehow thought I needed her in my life. “It wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?” Emma asks. “When I skimmed through the rest of the pages, I came across a line in an entry from November about how Courtney’s revenge plan was working. How this ‘traitor’ was totally falling for whatever Courtney was doing to them.”
I can’t remember Courtney doing anything horrible later that fall or winter, aside from falsely accusing Bryson and Jake of being the ones to cause Emma’s broken ankle. I swallow. Which I’d so sickeningly gone along with.
Could Courtney have meant me? Looking back, it was obvious how Courtney had enjoyed watching me squirm and feel responsible over what we did to Emma. But I chalked that up to Courtney’s cruel nature, not because I’d done anything to make her feel I’d deserved it.
“It couldn’t have been me,” Emma says. “Courtney had already gotten you to help her break my ankle.”
“By accident. I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to—”
Emma holds up her palm. “What I’m saying is that I really don’t think Courtney was talking about me. She never did anything to me after that.”
I recall how livid Emma was when Beth and I visited her at the Port Angeles Hospital. When Emma believed it was Courtney who’d spilled the dish soap, not Bryson and Jake. Did Courtney find out Emma was bashing her behind her back?
“If it wasn’t you,” Emma lowers her voice. “Then it had to be Beth or Gigi.”
I steal a glance at the closed door to Beth’s cabin.
“Courtney never did anything to Beth.” Although that’s not true, I think, remembering the bookmark Courtney gave Beth in place of a T-shirt at the start of our hike.
And the fat-shaming comments Courtney used to make to Beth that Courtney tried to pass off as well meaning.
“Well, at least not to the extent of your broken ankle or those slut photos of Gigi that Courtney spread around school. Maybe it was Selena.” I add, “She started with us that year on the volleyball team.”
“I know who Selena is. But they weren’t friends for most of their lives.” Emma taps her pointer finger on the diary. “It has to be one of us.”
“You’re sure the rest of the pages weren’t ripped out when you found the diary yesterday?”
“I’m sure.” She tilts her head toward the deck above. “I’m going to ask Russell what it said.”
“Not by yourself. I’m coming with you.”