Chapter 40 Amelia
Amelia
I can’t help but gasp as the pieces fall into place.
It all makes perfect sense. No wonder Brett made such a point of flirting with Jamie as soon as he arrived.
And during the pickleball tournament, even forcing her to be his partner.
He’d been toying with her, enjoying the fact that he had a connection to her that no one else knew about, that no one else could know about.
What a jerk. And I’m the idiot who brought him along this weekend.
I wonder if that’s the entire reason he came with me—to torment Jamie.
Jamie sits in her chair, still as a statue, staring at the table in front of her.
Part of me wants to go to her side and give her a hug.
But that’s a very small part of me, so I stay put.
Plus, with all this wine in my system, that’s a long way down the table to travel.
I cannot believe Brett. And here I thought he was just a pretty face to have fun with over the weekend.
“You’re an addict?” Roxy says with a bit too much joy in her voice.
Across the table from me, Beth bites her lip, lost in thought.
“I’m an addict,” Jamie says. “I tried to quit after Sunny died, but I couldn’t.
I graduated addicted. I went through med school addicted, started my career addicted.
And I still am, to this day. Last month, I decided to try to get clean and wean myself off the drugs, but Brett didn’t like that idea, not at all. ”
“So he came here to give you a message, didn’t he?” I ask. And here I thought he was actually into me. I’m an idiot.
“Yep, I’m one of his biggest customers,” Jamie says. “He told me he was here to send me a message, to let me know he’d ruin my life and expose my addiction if I didn’t keep buying pills from him.”
“What a piece of shit,” I say. “I really had no idea about all of this.”
“I know you didn’t,” Jamie says. “I’m good at hiding this part of my life, from everyone.”
“But how do you hold it all together? Your job, your kids? And Greer doesn’t know?” Beth says. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve gotten skilled at hiding, like most addicts. We’re sneaky,” she says. “I never stopped, couldn’t stop. And Brett was there all along. As a pharmacist, he has easy access to what I need. We even work for the same hospital system.”
I try to see the addict in Jamie, but all I see is her outward perfection, her career, her loving family. “I don’t know how you’re doing this,” I say. “I mean, everybody knows I have too much of this stuff.” I hold up my glass of wine. “I wouldn’t be able to hide this from anyone.”
“Well, I have had a lot of practice managing to show up for my patients, my kids, my husband. I convinced myself I could keep my two lives separate,” she says.
She looks up from the table, tears in her eyes.
“I even had sex with Brett sometimes, when I was short on cash. It was part of the price I had to pay to keep my life running smoothly.”
Whoa. I mean, we did have fun fooling around, but I didn’t need to have sex with Brett for drugs. That’s a whole other level. And I don’t want to think about them together.
“Brett kept making remarks to you. I heard him,” I say. “It was irritating me, but it must have terrified you. All those little digs about how you’re such a rule follower, what a great doctor you are, how lucky Greer is.”
“He was warning me. Letting me know he had the power to expose me to Greer, to all of you, for the fraud that I am,” Jamie says with a sad shrug.
“What a jerk,” I say. “Sounds like he deserved to die.”
“Amelia! Stop that,” Beth says as a loud snap echoes overhead.
A deafening crack reverberates through the night.
We all freeze in disbelief as a cacophony of destruction tears through the air.
The ceiling groans and gives way under the weight of a falling giant tree, and shards of plaster rain down like confetti as the tree crashes through, its branches shattering the tablescape.
Crystal glasses clatter against fine china, and the floral arrangements are reduced to chaos in an instant.
The tree brings with it a cascade of debris and leaves, creating a whirlwind of broken branches entwined with shattered glass.
I hear myself screaming as the lights go out and the dining room is plunged into darkness.
I crawl out from under the tree, scrambling to safety before there’s another loud crack and the tree trunk falls through the roof and onto the dining room table.
I hope everyone else managed to get out of there unscathed.
I don’t really know, though. I was too busy saving myself.
Self-preservation is a vital life skill, one I’ve been utilizing this entire, chaotic weekend.