The Break-Up Retreat(95)

Ran toward the office. Ran toward the phone.

She only made it a step before a hand got a hold of her hair and tugged, tugged backward, so hard she tasted blood, so hard she felt her scalp lifting from her skull.

And she lost her balance, and she fell.

For a moment, she was flying. Floating in the air. A singular eternity.

The knowledge ringing clearly within, finally.

This is not what love feels like.

And then, she was flying no longer.

She heard the crunching of her skull as it struck the cast iron shoe stand before she felt it.

And then she was on the floor, and she couldn’t move. She knew she had to move, but she couldn’t feel her hands. Or her feet.

Or anything at all.

“Linn? Linn? You’re okay, baby, you’re okay, I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t my fault, you shouldn’t have run like that, I got startled. I didn’t mean to, it was an accident. You’re going to be fine, okay? Can you get up? You have to get up, baby. Please. Come on.”

The voice dissolved into a buzzing sound, and then she couldn’t hear anything at all, anymore.

For a moment, it was a relief.

And then, that, too, was nothing.





Chapter 53


“I tried to help her.” Anna is crying, her eyes wide open. “I tried, but it was too late. It was an accident. But I knew no one would believe me. I didn’t mean to do it, but no one ever believes me. No one ever listens.”

“I can listen.” I’m grasping for something to hold onto, something to hold me upright.

Anna turns back to Martina.

“Do you know how long I stayed in that apartment with her?” she asks her. “With her body? Six months. That’s how much I loved her. I laid her in the bathtub and covered her with charcoal powder so that she wouldn’t smell. I sat there, and I talked to her. Every day. That is love.” Her voice is thick.

“You might not have believed me, your little doctor friend might not have believed me, but I loved her.” She wipes her upper lip, a ragged sob making her shake.

“I would have stayed there and died with her,” she continues, “but I knew I had to put an end to you. To all of this. I knew I couldn’t let you hurt any more people, the way you hurt me. The way you hurt Linn. I tried to report you, but those fuckers didn’t even do anything.”

For a moment, she’s silent, and then she grabs one of the awards from Martina’s desk and throws it at the wall. I let out a scream, and I duck, the world still spinning around me; when I straighten, on unsure feet, Anna is panting, her cheeks blossoming with color.

She stills, and strokes her hair behind both ears. When she speaks again, her voice is calmer. Surer.

“I tried to tell everyone. The ethics board. Journalists. Your loyal fans. But no one would listen. Because that’s how it is with manipulative people. You trick everyone, just like you tricked me. I knew no one would believe me without proof.”

She smiles, and there’s a terrifying pride in her smile, the way her skin is stretching, the way her cheeks are dimpling.

“So I came here to get proof.”

Anna turns to me.

“Just like you did, Isobel.” True warmth, permeating her words. “And we’re going to get it now, together. We’re going to tell the whole world what happened here. What she did.”

I know I shouldn’t. I’m too weak, still. I should just go along with it and not provoke her.

But I can’t. I have to know. If nothing else, I have to know.

“But what about Sandra?” Her name should be a ravaged wound in my mouth, but instead, even after everything, it is a comfort. As if just by saying it, I can conjure her, in here.

Sandra, who would have known what to do.

Anna’s face falls, for a moment, as though her mask has slipped. Under it is something naked and gaping.

“I didn’t . . . ” She shakes her head, and her lower lips trembles. She puts a hand up to her sternum.

“It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t supposed to happen.” She chews on her lip, looking down, and then asks, in a small voice: “Did you see her?”

“Yes.” And, oh, how it hurts.

“I’m sorry.” She sounds almost . . . tetchy. Like a child, caught doing something bad. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

“She shouldn’t have been here. It wasn’t. . . . No one else recognized me. No one was supposed to recognize me. But she did. She saw me, and she asked me what I was doing here, and she got upset. She said I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

For a moment, it’s like Sandra is standing here, next to me. Clicking her tongue in that annoying way she always used to.

Bullshit , she’d say.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt her.” Anna’s eyes are so round, and so innocent, that I can almost believe her. “She was coming to see you. I just . . . I had to keep her quiet. Until I was done. I tried to tell you, in the woods. I called your name. Didn’t you hear me?”

Her voice, out there, in the darkness. Isobel.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Anna pleads. “You have to believe me. I never would have hurt you on purpose. I’m not like that. You know me. You get me. We want the same thing. Sandra wasn’t my fault. It was . . .”