Chapter 11 #2
Rachel lifts Ashley’s legs off her lap and gets up from her spot next to her sister, walking over to me, sitting down and brushing a hand against my shoulder.
“It’s okay. Didn’t it feel good to let it out yesterday?
This is a safe space. I promise, they’re going to be able to help you way more than I could. Trust me.”
She is asking for trust. Something I don’t give out freely anymore. But the other girls are sitting around, waiting, expectant, and this feels like a test. One I need to pass.
I take a deep breath. “Okay. I told Viv that my friend…died. It was a freak boating accident on Lake Michigan.” I pause, trying to gather myself, blanking out any and all memories so I can stay focused.
“But the truth is that Sage and I were both writers. And Sage stole my idea. Wrote the book I was going to write. And then sold it for six figures. She got a movie deal, and people were already talking about awards and sequels. But it wasn’t hers.
She went behind my back and took everything I had worked on. ”
“Wait,” Fiona says, recognition dawning. “Your Sage is Sage Tartnet? Author of A Song of Scales and Salt?”
“I wasn’t going to call it that,” I grumble.
Piper bites out a laugh. “Oh yeah? What, then?”
I can’t tell if she’s holding my gaze behind the sunglasses, but I lock eyes with her anyway. “I called it The Last Time We Drowned.”
“Oh, that’s way better,” Ashley murmurs, so softly I’m not sure I hear her right.
“Hell no! She stole your idea?” Fiona says, face red with indignation. “Why didn’t you sue her?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t have the money. She did. And stuff like that is notoriously difficult to prove. Cases get thrown out constantly.”
“But after she died…” Viv points out, trailing off like she doesn’t want to actually say it.
I bow forward, a tree pressed down by the wind.
“I didn’t see the point. It would have been petty.
She’s gone. She left behind a family. A father.
A mother. Friends. What good would it do for me to come out of the woodwork now?
Sage isn’t here to defend herself or explain or even tell the truth.
The book isn’t mine anymore. It died with her. ”
Ashley’s face twists. “Bitch,” she spits, but there’s a harshness in her voice that sounds…put-on. As if she’s injecting a bitterness she doesn’t really feel.
I can’t tell if her insult is directed at me or Sage.
Rachel chides her twin. “Hey, she’s dead, remember?”
“Listen, sometimes it’s okay to speak ill of the dead. Like when the dead are thieving assholes,” Fiona grunts. She glances at me, amends her words. “Sorry, Charlie. I’m sure there was a reason you were friends with her. But she did act like an asshole.”
“She didn’t deserve to die,” I whisper. “I would never have thought…never have wanted…”
“We understand,” Viv says, still holding her phone tightly. “We understand completely. You’re safe here. We’ve got you now.” She glances down at her phone, tapping the screen as if checking the time, and then sets it down on the mirrored coffee table in front of us.
“What happened? During the boating accident?” This comes from Piper, who is suddenly morbidly interested.
“She doesn’t have to tell us if she doesn’t want,” Fiona says quickly.
And I don’t want, but I also get the sense that they’ll ask again eventually, and I’d rather get it over with now.
“Sage was doing what we used to do together—writing on the boat, drinking, swimming as a reward for solving a plot hole or planning the perfect twist. But this time she was alone. She forgot to drop the anchor or something. The boat floated away from her. It got too far, dragged by the current, and she got tired, and she…” I pause, dropping the words.
“It’s horrible,” Rachel consoles, grabbing my hand. “And there was no way to call for help?”
“Sage’s phone fell off the boat when it was floating away; it’s still at the bottom of the lake somewhere,” I reply, disliking the detached tone of my voice. But it’s the only way I can get through this.
“No one saw her trying to get back onboard?” Piper asks. She’s greedily slurping from her drink, but the tension in her shoulders and the slight lean of her torso toward my love seat indicates she’s more engaged now than she was during the rest of the meeting.
“According to the authorities, no one noticed until it was too late. It’s a huge lake, it looks like an ocean from the shore.
There were a lot of people nearby; swimming, boating, not paying attention.
Milwaukee in the summer can get rowdy. Big drinking culture.
” I steel myself, trying not to imagine Sage’s last moments.
“Drowning is quiet. You’re there one moment, the next you’re under the waves, inhaling.
It can be hard to spot sometimes. Sage…slipped under. ”
“Jesus. What a scary way to go,” Fiona says.
My stomach is an immovable rock of pain. They know so much. But they don’t know everything. They don’t know about the woman I thought I saw in the water earlier. She had dark hair like Sage. What if she was—
That wasn’t real.
“If you need anything, Char, we are here for you,” Viv finally says. “Anything at all.”
“Thank you.” And because I have their attention, because I can’t think about Sage for one more second, I decide to ask.
“Last night I saw something…weird in my bathroom. Someone traced a message on the foggy surface of the mirror.” I don’t mention the incomprehensible timing, how the mirror steamed up out of nowhere.
I don’t mention the faces lurking behind my reflection or in the water.
I don’t know how to explain them without sounding nuts. “Were you guys pranking me or…”
“Uh, no,” Viv scoffs, arching a brow. “We’re not a YouTube channel for twelve-year-olds. We don’t ‘prank.’ That’s not on brand.”
“What’d the message say?” Rachel asks.
I pause before answering. “It was about Elena. The girl I replaced.”
Piper stops drinking. The twins share an identical twitch. Fiona’s jaw tightens. Viv stiffens, her soft gaze melting to reveal a stony expression.
The room goes dead silent.