Only If You're Lucky(47)

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, Eliza and Lucy being as similar as they are. Even when I talked about Eliza that first night on my bed, Lucy had a wariness to her, an obvious envy emanating from her eyes like she felt the need to compete with someone already in the grave. Eliza loved the danger and Lucy does, too, so maybe the idea of dangling herself in front of someone who might lash out and bite, someone who already has, makes him all the more appealing. A danger so palpable she can taste it every time he gets close, like metallic on your tongue just before lightning strikes.

I keep turning it over in my mind, trying to understand it, when I hear a noise from outside. The same muffled movement I heard on Halloween: a slapping door, a gentle scraping. Someone clearing their throat.

I sit up, listening quietly before climbing out of bed and turning on my light. Just like last time, it sounds too close to be coming from the yard—but it’s not coming from inside the house, either. I open my door and tiptoe into the hallway, glancing into the bathroom, just in case.

It’s empty, like I knew it would be: no Nicole on the tile, loose limbs at harsh right angles. The heave of bile trying to claw its way out.

“Lucy?” I whisper, walking to her room next. The door is shut, the way it usually is, and I think about knocking, but instead, I just place my hand on the knob and twist. “Luce, do you hear that?”

Her room is partially illuminated by the glow of the moon through the curtains, those neon stars alight on the ceiling, and almost immediately, I see that it’s empty.

“Lucy?” I ask again, opening the door wider, even though she’s clearly not here. Her comforter is flung back, an imprint of where her body once was on the mattress. A single pillow housing the shape of her head. I resist the urge to step in farther, instead closing the door again and making my way into the living room, perching myself on the edge of the couch.

I think back to earlier in the night, when the boys were leaving. I had stood up, collected our glasses, a silent cue that the evening was over. Lucy acted like she was heading to bed, too, hands on her hips, yawning in the hallway. Watching until they all filed out the back door, into the shed, and disappeared into the dark.

Unless, of course, she was waiting for me to shut myself in before she left, too.

But if Lucy went next door, who would she have gone with? In the months we’ve lived together, I’ve never once seen her spend the night anywhere other than here. It can’t be Trevor, surely. Judging by the way she looked at me at dinner, eyes on mine as he worked his charm, she would never go home with our roommate’s boyfriend … although I do remember her laughing about it the day I moved in, teasing Nicole as she tossed the pillow in her direction.

“If you don’t want him, I’ll take him. I’m not going to apologize for introducing you to the most beautiful boy on campus.”

Maybe, once I left, Trevor had stayed, lingering in the yard before walking back inside, convincing Lucy to head home with him, too. She was drunk tonight, more so than usual, but it still doesn’t feel like the kind of thing Lucy would do. It’s definitely not Lucas—she always acts so annoyed at his immaturity, his silly sense of humor—and she couldn’t care less about Will or James. She hardly even talks to them.

Which only leaves Levi.

“She wouldn’t,” I whisper, but already, I know that she would. She’s just like Eliza: drawn to the risk of him like adrenaline, like pheromones, some chemical reaction that leaves her helplessly high. The fact that he’s been dubbed dangerous, off-limits, is only making him more desirable to her, the same way Eliza would flaunt herself in front of her window. The way she was still out with him that night, even after we found the proof of what he did, who he was: the missing picture, her open door. The stomach-churning smell of him everywhere we looked.

I think about going back to my room, getting in bed, trying to forget about it all the same way I tried to forget about those videos on my phone, when I hear a noise again—but this time, it’s different. Unmistakable.

This time, it’s coming from above. A heavy thump like someone walking on the roof.





CHAPTER 34


I run outside and crane my neck, the sky above granite black. There isn’t a cloud in sight and the stars look like little pinpricks in fabric, so sharp and clear they take my breath away.

“Hey!” I yell, the sound of my voice making me strangely self-conscious in the otherwise silence of the night. It feels like talking out loud in an empty room, searching for proof you really exist. “Who’s up there?”

I hear more shuffling and turn to the right, squinting my eyes, trying to make out shadows in the dark. I still can’t see anything so I walk around to the side of the house, angling for a better view, when a figure emerges out of nowhere, like whoever it is was lying flat on their back and suddenly decided to sit up straight.

“Hey,” she responds.

“Lucy?”

The voice is unmistakable. It’s Lucy up there—maybe alone, maybe not—and I get the distinct feeling I’ve interrupted something.

“What are you doing?” I ask, walking closer. “How did you get up there?”

“The lattice,” she says, leaning back on her hands. I can see the red glow of a cigarette between her fingers, the shadow of her feet bobbing to some undetectable beat. “If you stand on the railing, you can get your foot on the bottom one and climb up.”