39 Sophie
Sophie
Sixth and Pine.
That’s where Marissa told Sophie she lives now.
She walks by several houses before she sees a cardboard box next to a trash bin with a picture of a crib.
She approaches the front door, painted a garish red, and knocks.
She cried all the way to her dad’s and made herself a sandwich to try to calm her breathing.
She hates herself for what she said to Elena and Joey.
She didn’t really mean any of it, did she?
Eventually she pulled out her phone just to see Talia’s name, just to see something that would ground her.
But all she saw there on the screen was the black-and-white picture of an ultrasound scan. Marissa’s ultrasound scan.
Nothing happens for a minute, and Sophie wonders if Marissa is still out, but then, just as she’s about to turn away, the door clicks open.
“Sophie.” Marissa wears wool socks and her hair is pulled back severely.
“We must have mixed up phones,” Sophie says. She can’t summon her usual friendliness.
Marissa smiles. “All good. Come on in.”
It is, honestly, the last thing Sophie wants to do. She just wants to go back to her dad’s, pack up, and maybe even head home. But she needs her phone, so she just says, “Sure.”
The inside of Marissa’s house is sterile. White walls and bright lights jar against the mountain view out the windows. A pair of black police-issued boots sits by the door next to a pair of men’s running shoes.
“I discovered nonalcoholic gin a few months ago, and I’m obsessed.
” Marissa gestures to a barstool on the other side of a white Formica kitchen island.
She goes to the other side and pulls two glasses out of a bottom cabinet.
There are sharp edges all over this kitchen.
She’s going to have a terrible time baby-proofing.
Sophie wonders if she’s thought about that yet.
She accepts the mocktail. Marissa slides a phone toward her, and Sophie gives her one in return.
“So, you’re getting ready for the baby already?” Sophie pockets the correct phone, already wishing she hadn’t come inside. It’s about as inviting as an ICU in here.
“Mmm. You saw the evidence by the recycling bin, then.” She smiles. “You know what it’s like.”
Sophie has the urge to ask if Marissa’s single, but she spots a modest ring on her left hand and recalls the men’s shoes by the front door. “The first year is hard,” she says, offering an ounce of polite conversation. “But it gets easier once they’re sleeping through the night.”
Marissa nods and smiles as if sleep deprivation won’t happen to her. “Is your daughter at home with your husband?” she asks.
“Wife, actually.”
Marissa makes an O shape with her mouth, and Sophie feels a sudden flush increasing her internal temperature.
Sophie always felt guilty that Marissa hadn’t been part of their initiation into the magic, but it wasn’t her choice.
That decision was made by Barbara and Carly, Quinn’s and Joey’s moms. They never explained why they chose the four of them beyond saying they chose only the most trustworthy, but Sophie is starting to piece together how such a decision is made.
Marissa would never have been chosen. Some people are innately repulsive.
“All those years. I am surprised you never came back to see Joey.” Marissa puts her glass down and wipes the condensation from her fingers on her pants. “I always thought you two were close.”
Sophie realizes there’s no question in this statement, and she feels herself bristle inwardly.
She has been through her relationship with Joey and Elena with her therapist but still feels an ache when she thinks about how they missed so many years of friendship.
And now…she doesn’t know if it can be repaired. “We used to be,” she says honestly.
“Well, I don’t blame you,” Marissa says. “Joey is absolutely obsessed with Quinn’s death. She thinks someone killed her. Did you know she basically questioned everyone here? Sometimes I think—” She waves a hand as if to say, “Never mind.”
“What?”
Marissa scoots her stool closer to Sophie’s, and Sophie leans away instinctively. “I probably shouldn’t say anything, but Quinn’s case file is missing. And we have files stored as far back as the sixties, so we should still have it. But I’ve checked, and it’s not there.”
Sophie is immediately on alert. She looks down at the floor, just in case her eyes betray her.
“You know what, I should ask River Hunstad,” says Marissa. “His dad used to be the police chief. He might know. But it just has made me think. River and Joey…” She lets the sentence trail off.
Sophie beats a thumb against her glass. She takes a sip.
“They’re sleeping together.”
Sophie coughs as the floral drink slips toward her windpipe. “What?”
Marissa’s satisfied expression is tantamount to gloating. “Oh yeah, they’ve been hiding it”—she puts air quotes around the words hiding it— “for months now, maybe even years. Did you really not know?”
This last question is unnecessary, but Sophie bites her tongue. Joey never said anything about being with River, and the way she peppered him with questions just an hour ago—the internal turmoil when she found that antler must have been excruciating.
Marissa seems to interpret Sophie’s silence as shock, and it is, in part. “It’s weird, right? Dating her dead friend’s ex. That’s probably why they’re keeping it a secret.”
“Huh,” says Sophie. She cannot picture Joey and River together, but she hasn’t been here for fifteen years, so she supposes anything could have happened in that time. Though it would be out of character for Joey to betray Quinn like that, even Quinn’s memory, unless she really cared about him.
“So tell me, what is going on with you three? I can tell there is something brewing.” Marissa picks an ice cube from her glass and watches Sophie’s reaction.
Sophie struggles to keep her face blank. “Nothing’s going on. We’re just visiting.”
Marissa laughs without smiling. “You haven’t been back in years, and suddenly you’re here, breaking into people’s homes, arguing in public. I’m not an idiot, Sophie.”
Sophie winces inwardly but forces her face to remain passive. “Allegedly,” she says.
“What?”
“Allegedly breaking into people’s homes.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me before I find out myself?” Marissa leans in even closer, and Sophie realizes that she’s suddenly become Officer Berg.
Sophie holds her nerve. “Is this an interrogation?”
Marissa pauses for a beat, searching Sophie’s face intensely. Then she leans back on her stool and rubs the crest of her belly. “Nope.”
A door clicks open in the front hall and thunks closed. There’s the sound of keys being hung on a hook, and then a man tosses out a distracted, “Hey.” The sound of it snaps Sophie’s taut nerves about Marissa’s questions in half. She knows that voice.
When he walks into the room, Sophie feels herself drifting out of her body. The man is stocky with blond hair and a square jaw slashed through with a scar, with some pockmarks on his cheeks—shadows of his youth. She recognizes him instantly.
His eyes find hers, and he shows surprise, at first, that someone who is not his wife is sitting in his kitchen. Then, his surprise turns to something else. He knows who she is. He leans in and gives Marissa a kiss, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Sophie.
She shoves her stool back and mutters something about having to go to the bathroom. Marissa, apparently oblivious, points her down the hall to the right.
Tanner McGrath. Marissa is married to Tanner McGrath. Her thoughts spin and whirl as she flushes, washes her hands, looks at herself in the mirror. She’s thrown back to that night. His demands were clouded by alcohol. “Take off your bra now. Just one more. You like it, don’t you?”
She tries to steady her breathing, but it’s coming too fast. She is lightheaded, swelling with the acute need to leave this house. She shouldn’t have come inside. She should have known.
The hall is dark when she turns off the bathroom light. She takes one step in the direction of the kitchen and bumps into someone. He’s as thick as a brick wall and smells of sweat. Her senses fire with alarm.
“Sophie Stringer,” he says. “I heard you were in town.” She can’t look at him, even though she feels his gaze on her.
She wants to push past him, but she finds she’s rooted to the spot, just trying to catch her breath.
“It’s nice to see you again.” His voice is like claws scratching at the insides of her ears.
It sends bile bubbling up her esophagus.
“Get out of my way,” she says. She’s suddenly shaking.
“What’s wrong?”
Sophie can’t believe it. Beneath her panic about what happened a million years ago in that room, what he did to her, how he made her feel as small as an insect—beneath all that, Sophie can feel it.
He’s still a predator. He might have a baby on the way, but she knows who he is at the core.
He leans in toward her, and she wants to scream.
She wants to vomit. She wants to leave. Above all, she wants to fucking leave.
Tanner reaches above her right shoulder, toward her hair, and she holds her breath. The light above them blinks on.
Then, a voice. “What are you doing?” Marissa stands at the end of the hall, staring at them. Sophie feels like a teenager caught doing something she isn’t supposed to. And Marissa is all shock and reprimand now, glaring at her like the devil incarnate has cursed her home.
“Babe.” Tanner slides away from Sophie. “I was just turning on the light.”
Marissa looks at him, hard, and then she nods, like she believes him. She looks like she always believes him. Her next movement is a jerk of the head. Her eyes find Sophie’s, and they bore into her.
“You should go.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s not what Sophie means, not even close, but here she is, apologizing for existing like she always does because it doesn’t matter what she says. Her body is insisting: Leave. Leave. Go now.
“Marissa, don’t be rude to our guest.” Tanner looks down at Sophie’s lips and reaches for her arm. Her stomach lurches. “Stay,” he whispers.
She clocks the distance between her bag on the stool in the kitchen and the front door, and then she wrenches free of him. She thinks she hears her name on the way out, but she does not stop.