Chapter Twenty-Eight
Now
The last full day of the Welcome Back Weekend snuck up on us quickly.
I’d been worried that this whole fucked-up funeral-slash-party weekend, as Margo had so delicately put it, would pass at a glacial pace.
Instead, distracted as I’d been by our investigation and the strange case of Winona Hayes—and our growing fears that Steph, too, may have been murdered—it was a bit disconcerting to wake up and realize there were less than twenty-four hours until this fever dream ended.
I snuck back to my cabin before sunrise. I didn’t want the first article about this weekend being titled “Nepo Baby Walk of Shame, Days After Mother’s Funeral!” Trevor had watched me get dressed with a sleepy smile.
“Come back soon,” he said by way of goodbye.
I stiffened at the onslaught of memories—he always used to say that when I left his apartment—but he was already snoring again by the time I thought of something witty to say.
At the foot of the bed was the T-shirt he’d been wearing last night.
For whatever reason, I picked it up, buried my face in it.
Then I put it on and slipped out the door.
Almost the moment my head touched my pillow, I fell back into a deep sleep.
An hour or so later, I was startled awake again by the padding of Margo’s feet on the hardwood floors, the fridge opening and closing as she pulled out the oat milk.
Then, the sound of coffee being poured into a mug, the floor creaking again before the couch moved and she sat down.
I could imagine her pulling her laptop into her lap, her coffee balancing precariously in the space between her leg and the couch cushion. A copy of some old book on the other side of her, like a safety blanket.
“No coffee?” she asked, tilting her head at me when I entered the kitchen. “You don’t get humanlike until you’ve had your coffee. Drink up.”
It was an insult disguised as a joke, but it somehow felt like one of the most normal things she’d said to me all weekend. If she didn’t want to talk about last night, that was more than fine with me.
I shrugged, checking my watch. “The mess hall will be quiet right now. Thought we might want to head that way. Everyone’s on that big hike this morning, so it should be just us.”
Margo’s eyes lit up. “Shit. I forgot about that. Thank God, I want an espresso, like, yesterday.” As one of the final events of this weekend, Rig and Val were leading the guests on a hike to Lady’s Lurch.
“Let’s go,” Margo said, already slipping her feet into her sneakers.
When we got to the mess hall, it was empty. Inside, there were the remains of this morning’s breakfast in the buffet line, and Margo and I picked through for the best pieces of fruit and the crispiest pieces of bacon.
We were just sitting at a table when we heard the unmistakable sound of Trevor’s booming voice from the deck, just out of sight. Margo and I locked eyes for only a second before she lifted her plate and made a beeline for the door.
“Margo,” I warned, crowding her from behind, but she just waved a disinterested hand at me, like I was a fly she was shooing away.
“Bingo,” she said, pushing the door open. I swallowed hard, sensing danger. Whatever was about to happen wouldn’t be fun for anyone. Though part of me thought I should be grateful that it had taken this long.
We rounded the corner to see Chelsea, Wes, and Trevor sitting at a picnic table. They all had near-empty plates in front of them, as if they’d been out here for a while.
I froze, and it was six summers ago. Before Steph and Margo had ever arrived; before I’d ended things with Wes, and long before I’d even thought of Trevor as a real possibility.
I felt as though I’d left my body and was somewhere far above all of this, hallucinating a time when things were much simpler.
Seeing Trevor and Wes sharing a table might have been the strangest part.
They’d been friendly, more so than actual friends, when Trevor and I had gotten together.
Wes hadn’t been excited, obviously; he wasn’t rude, but he no longer threw a football on the beach with Trevor on his nights off, or took a sip from his flask when it was being passed around.
So it was jarring to see them now, so clearly comfortable with each other.
Wes and Chelsea sat close enough together that their elbows touched, and I watched as Wes plucked a blueberry off her plate and she swatted him away.
There was a smile on her face, strong and pronounced—she hadn’t smiled at me once since I’d been back.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look the way she was looking at Wes right now.
I felt stupid for not having noticed it immediately. Of course they were together.
It took until the screen door slammed shut behind us before the three of them turned our way. It was deathly quiet on the porch for a long, painful moment until Margo said, “Can we join you?”
It was Trevor who broke the silence, like I knew he would. For a millisecond, he locked eyes with me, and everything that had happened last night flickered through my brain, rapid-fire. The drinks, the honesty game, his bed—
“Of course.” He jumped up, pulled one of the Adirondack chairs from the corner of the deck to the end of the table.
Margo sat down beside Trevor before I could, leaving the chair to me.
It was a little too low to match with the table, and I pushed my food around in front of me, feeling like a baby in a high chair, almost sick at the smell of scrambled eggs.
This was too much. I was no longer hungry.
For a long moment, we all listened to the sound of Margo, making a show of cutting her food. When her first bite was halfway to her mouth, she smiled, like she was reveling in the tension. “Don’t let us interrupt you. Go ahead, finish your conversation. Like we’re not even here.”
Trevor fussed with the brim of his hat for a moment before glancing around at the rest of us. “No, that’s all right. You been having a good weekend so far, Margo?”
Her fork clattered to her plate, and she leaned back, as if she were a snake that had been waiting to strike. “Have I been having a good weekend? Wow, what a loaded question.”
She put her chin on her fist, sighing in a fake, dreamy sort of way, like she was reminiscing. “It’s been so great being back here. Remembering the way my best friend died.”
Chelsea gave me a pointed, withering look, like this was something I alone needed to fix. I opened my mouth to try, but Margo wasn’t finished.
“What about you guys? Having fun pretending like she didn’t burn alive?”
“You should leave.” Chelsea spoke through clenched teeth.
Margo raised her hands up in mock innocence, her mouth curling into a sneer. “Ooh, I’ve got a fun game. You can go first, Baby. You said yourself that we all remember Stephanie Bennett fondly here. Tell me, what was your fondest memory of Steph? I’m dying to know.”
Chelsea closed her eyes for a long moment. “I have nothing against Steph, Margo. I’m sorry that she’s gone, and what happened to her was horrible. But this weekend isn’t about you.”
“Fine, then, I’ll go first, if you insist.” Margo’s smile was jagged, cruel. “My favorite memory was—”
“Margo, please stop,” I begged.
Her eyes burned into mine. “Sorry, Little G, I forgot how uncomfortable you get with the whole truth thing. You can go if this is too much for you.”
“Don’t be such a bitch, Margo,” Wes said, voice low with anger and warning, at the same time that Trevor said, “Hey, don’t talk to her like that.”
She just laughed, the sound high-pitched and grating and not genuine at all.
“This again?” she said, gesturing between the two of them. “Why don’t you two just have a duel over her and be done with it.”
Kill me. Someone, please, kill me.
“I know what you’re doing.” Chelsea’s face was beet red.
She flipped her hair over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips in some sort of attempted show of dominance.
“You were the Phantom, you started the fire, and now you’re back to…
to sabotage us again. I see right through you.
You’re completely unhinged. This is all just some sick revenge fantasy. ”
Her words were eerily similar to what Wes had said to me last night in the mess hall, and my spine stiffened. Margo picked up a strawberry from her plate, set it on her tongue, and chewed it slowly.
But then, her mouth curved into a triumphant smile. “Wait a second. I thought the fire was an act of God. It was the storm from that night. Right? How could I have started the fire? Am I God now?”
“No one knows for sure what happened that night,” Chelsea said without much conviction, picking at a hangnail.
“No, no,” Margo said, wagging her finger in the air. “Can’t close back up that Pandora’s box. So, tell me. What’s the going theory, then? How did I do it?” She flipped the press badge hanging from her neck around and gave an exaggerated wink. “Off the record, of course. Between old friends.”
No one spoke. The sun was hot, scorching my scalp, and I pulled at the collar of my shirt, hoping for some air flow. Beside me, Margo sniffed with impatience, her lip curling as the seconds stretched out between all of us.
Finally, Chelsea squared her shoulders. “I’m not an idiot. And we were never friends. You made sure of that. But we’re not going to let you slander us. Anita deserves better.”
Margo raised her hands above her head, showing her bare arms to us, then patted herself down. “No wire here. Just tell me. I have to know. What was my motive?”
“It wasn’t her,” I said in a croak, and only Trevor looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
Wes and Chelsea were both staring at Margo, as though if they took their eyes off her even for a second, she’d burn this place down again.
“We shared a bunk bed. I would have known if she was sneaking out in the middle of the night.”
“Not a bad point,” Margo mused, like we were discussing something banal, like last night’s dessert.
“No,” Chelsea said through gritted teeth. “I don’t believe anything Greer says, not about the two of you.”
Not about the two of you. Margo and Steph. She’d never put it in such frank terms before, but I’d long suspected as much. That summer had ruined Chelsea and me, irrevocably. Because if Chelsea cared about anything in this world, it was unwavering loyalty. Us against them.
After the fire, when I was more focused on Steph’s death than what would become of Dread’s Cove, she’d seen that as a shocking betrayal.
And then I’d left altogether, moved to Atlanta, and blew all of my lifelong plans into dust. Chelsea had never looked at me with such contempt as when I’d packed up my things that morning, a few days after the fire.
“You’re making a mistake,” she’d said, arms crossed and eyes tight with emotion.
“You’re abandoning your family. You’re abandoning me. ”
She’d been right. And I’d done it anyway.
“I know you’re the one who’s been sneaking into my cabin, leaving me those notes,” Chelsea continued, her voice rising. “FUCK YOU written on my mirror? Setting off my fire alarm in the middle of the night? Seriously? What are you, a child?”
I reared back in my chair, startled by this revelation. “Wait, someone’s been sneaking into your cabin? Chelsea, what else did—”
But Margo was louder than me, and my question was drowned out. “Seriously, I’m getting bored. Tell me my motive.”
“You forget that I know you, Margo,” Chelsea said, practically spitting now.
“I was paying attention that summer. You’re not as smart or as subtle as you think you are, okay?
It was obvious that you were jealous of Steph.
You were mad she liked Greer more than she liked you.
And because you’re—you. You don’t need a reason to be mean.
You just are. The girls were all scared of you.
Everyone was. You’re a bitter, terrible person. That’s why.”
Wes gave a nod of agreement, while Trevor’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline; my jaw dropped open in surprise. Even when Chelsea had confronted me in the past, it had never been so outright. I had never seen such brutal rage, shining bright on her face.
“That’s what you think?” Margo’s voice had dropped into a charged, dangerous whisper.
“That I’m the bitter one? Isn’t that a little rich, coming from you?
” She waved a hand around. “You know this is all Greer’s, right?
You can work as hard as you fucking want, but you’ll never be her.
You’ll never have Olsen as your last name.
You can even take her scraps into your bed, if you want.
” Margo winked audaciously at Wes, and he and Chelsea both blanched.
“I want to point out, I did see that one coming. But I digress. None of that matters, Baby. Because when you die, there won’t be a big funeral like yesterday.
No one will come out of the woodwork to celebrate you and your prolific life.
Absolutely no one. You’re like a piece of dust, blowing in the wind.
Nothing. And somewhere in that pathetic, shriveled heart of yours, you know that.
Which actually makes you just about the most bitter, sad person I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering. ”
Several things happened in rapid succession, so quickly that I could hardly keep up.
Chelsea lunged at Margo from across the table.
I stood up from my chair, not knowing what else to do, my own voice erupting into a hoarse scream I hardly recognized.
And then Trevor was there, throwing his arm in front of me to keep me from getting closer, and Wes was pulling Chelsea away from a crumpled Margo.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Margo hissed, and Chelsea was crying, beating her fists against Wes’s chest. Margo stood and staggered backward, and we locked eyes.
For just a moment, I was sure I saw a streak of pride. She’d finally made Chelsea Riggins break for real. It only took five years.
I had a brief flash of her words last night, her confession—Chelsea was just like me.
Trevor held out his hand. She hesitated, like he might be faking her out, but after his exasperated “Come on, Margo,” she let him pull her up to standing.
I made to reach for my plate, but Trevor gave a brisk shake of his head, and I snapped my hand back. He nodded in the direction of the door, dismissing us. “I got it. Why don’t you walk Margo back?”
He passed her off to me as if she were a child and we had shared custody. I gave him a weak nod, hardly daring to look at Wes and Chelsea, who I could hear taking gasping breaths.
When we were safely back inside, I rounded on her. “What are you doing? Are you just playing some kind of game?”
She pushed past me, her shoulder knocking into mine. “I don’t play games, Little G. I win them.”