Her arms are wrapped around a boy whose face is so familiar to Brittany, a face she saw in a courtroom, a face she still sees in her nightmares.
Sterling Northcutt.
The man—no, the boy, the boy, hadn’t the judge kept calling him a boy? Oh, this fine upstanding boy, never did anything wrong before, never ever until he got super fucking loaded one night, got behind the wheel of a car, and wiped out Brittany’s entire life—who killed her family.
“I don’t understand,” Brittany says, her body still numb, her heart slowing to half its normal speed as she looks at Amma, her best friend—the one person who actually understood how alone Brittany felt—with her arms wrapped around the man who ruined her life.
Amelia-Marie and Sterling, CUUUUTIES IN LUUUUUUV, the caption reads, and Brittany keeps looking at that name, Amelia-Marie, wondering if maybe there’s a mistake, knowing that there’s not.
Amma.
“You said you met her in a grief group, right?” Chloe asks, and Brittany nods, remembering the room with its smell of burnt coffee. How Amma had picked the empty chair next to her; how, when Brittany had told the story of what had happened to her, Amma hadn’t said anything—had simply nodded, reached over, and taken her hand. At the time, Brittany had been grateful that Amma hadn’t pushed her for more details, hadn’t asked any follow-up questions. Now, Brittany realizes, Amma had already known everything there was to tell.
There had been tears streaming down Amma’s face during that first session, and seeing her break down, Brittany had felt a wave of relief. How nice it had been, to have a stranger share her grief. How good it felt, to no longer be so alone.
“She must have been, like, stalking you or something,” Chloe goes on. “She lied about having a dead boyfriend to get close to you? It’s just, incredibly fucked up. And not only that, she’s loaded.”
More pictures, more links.
Amma at her fancy Catholic school, photos from her mother’s Facebook page of Amma all dressed up on a horse—a fucking horse!—and another of Amma when she was younger, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower with her parents and two older girls.
Oddly enough, that’s the one that takes Brittany’s breath away.
“She said … she said she’d never been to Paris.”
Chloe puts an arm around her. “Jesus, what a lying bitch.”
Brittany shakes her head, her eyes welling with tears. “She lied to me about all of it. About her family, about her background. About where she’s lived and traveled. Why?”
“People are weird.” Chloe sighs. “Maybe it was some kind of atonement or something? Like, ‘Sorry my boyfriend killed your family, let me make it up to you by being your friend’？”
The words make Brittany wince, and her stomach clench. Had Amma been there in that courtroom? Had she seen Brittany? She must have. All of this had to have started on that awful day.
“Or maybe she was just curious about you, you know?” Chloe adds. “In any case, it’s pretty fucked up. And it’s a pretty complicated lie to commit to.”
It’s more than fucked up. It’s a betrayal that Brittany almost can’t fathom, and she’s suddenly so angry, so fucking furious …
“How did you find out?” she asks.
Chloe just shrugs.
“Something about her whole vibe just didn’t feel right, you know? So, I looked her up. Found it all in a couple of minutes.”
Of course. Of course, all those answers were right there, but Brittany had never even thought to google her, had believed Amma when she said she didn’t really do social media, that after what happened to her boyfriend, she tried to minimize her internet presence as much as possible. And Brittany had just … trusted her.
She had fucking trusted her.
“But I guess the question now is,” Chloe goes on, “what are we going to do about it?”
Brittany doesn’t know the answer to that. Confront Amma? Show her what she’s discovered?
She can picture it. Morning, Amelia-Marie, she’ll say snidely.
But that’s not enough. It would shock her, maybe upset her.
But it won’t hurt her.
Brittany shakes her head. “I have to think about it,” she finally replies.
“Of course,” Chloe says, dropping her lighter in her bag. As she does, Brittany catches a flash of gold, sees the band of a watch lying there, and it seems familiar—but honestly, she’s seen so many fucking watches, chains, even rings lately, that she can’t be sure.