One morning in January I wake in a cold sweat, shaken from a recurring nightmare about the Metropolitan Correctional Center. In the dream two guards storm into my cell in the middle of the night. One ties a rope noose from the ceiling and the other holds a heavy iron chain, stroking the metal through his fingers.
“Which way you wanna go, buddy?” the one with the chain says, the other snickering beside him. He points to the noose, then to the chain in his hands. “Take your pick.” His smile is wide, a mouth with no teeth.
It’s early—still dark out—but I know I won’t go back to sleep. I check my phone on the nightstand, which reads 5:02, and my heart jumps when I see that I have a new text message, from Skye! Sent at 11:50 the night before. I open it, suddenly wide-awake.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I keep putting it off, but I need to see you. We need to talk. Alone, no lawyers. Let me know if you can meet tomorrow. 5pm, Grand Central Oyster Bar.
Life springs back into my body. Skye wants to meet tomorrow. Tomorrow is today. I text her back immediately, a single line. Of course. I’ll be there. See you at 5.
That afternoon, like a high school kid prepping for a first date, I spend a ridiculously long time getting ready. I shower and shave meticulously, making sure to clip every errant hair, especially the ones near the back of my neck that I tend to miss. I put on khakis and the blue sweater that Skye always said brought out the color of my eyes.
Todd drives me to the train station. He knows I’m going to the city to meet Skye, but he doesn’t ask too many questions, which I appreciate. I wouldn’t have been able to answer them anyway. I’m filled with shock and a fickle, irresistible hope that has my stomach in knots.
She’s already waiting at a table when I arrive at the Oyster Bar two hours later, looking even more beautiful than I remembered in a cream-colored cardigan and dark jeans, her blond hair loose around her shoulders. Seeing her again, after so many days and weeks and months of not seeing her and wishing disconsolately that I could, feels like a dream. My Goose. But she’s thin—too thin, I can tell even through her winter clothes.
I want to hug her, kiss her, inhale the smell of her, but I follow Skye’s lead, and there’s no embrace. She gestures for me to sit. There’s a glass of red wine on the table in front of her, half-empty. Or half-full, depending on how you look at it.
“It’s so good to see you,” I say weakly. “You look—”
“I can’t stay long.” She uncrosses her legs. She sips her wine, and I notice the absence of the ring on her left hand. It’s probably in a dumpster somewhere, as it should be.
“Of course. I’m just—I’m so happy you reached out. You have no idea.”
“I’m not looking to reconcile with you, Burke.” Her voice is thin and firm. “Just so you’re aware.”
“I understand.” My chest deflates.
“I don’t want to drag this out.” Her cinnamon gaze lands on mine. “I wanted to see you so I could ask you one specific question, about something that’s just not adding up for me. The rest of it—this living hell you’ve dragged me through—I can comprehend your motivations, despicable as they were. But your threatening emails pretending to be Max LaPointe? The ones you sent from a fake address? Why? Why the fuck would you do that? Look me in the eye and tell me the truth, because I need to know.”
I’d played out multiple versions of this conversation in my head—imagining what Skye would say to me when and if we saw each other again—but an accusation involving Skye’s ex-flame was about the last scenario I’d been expecting. “What are you talking about?” I feel my brows knit together instinctively. “What emails from Max LaPointe?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Burke.” She narrows her eyes, her voice angry. “I never told you about the emails while we were … together—whatever the fuck that means anymore—I never told anyone. But you were sending them the entire time? You need to tell me why. I won’t ask again.”
“Skye.” My breath is shallow and choppy as I try to wrap my head around her claim. “I swear on my life I did not send you emails pretending to be Max. I mean, the jig is up. I’ve pleaded guilty to everything else. I’m going to prison. If I’d done this, too, I would admit it. I swear to you.”
Skye says nothing for a few moments, her brow furrowed. I can practically see the wheels turning in her gorgeous head.
“What did these emails say, Skye?” I ask gently. I’m afraid to hear her response, but I need to know.
She looks away, a mix of pain and shame all over her face. “They were … awful. Taunting. Called me names. Threatened me. I didn’t want to tell you about the ones I received when we were engaged because I was finally … happy.” She chokes out the word. “I couldn’t let Max ruin that. But now that I know they weren’t from him, I can’t stop thinking about who would want to hurt me like that. It felt like a low blow, even for you.”
Her words make me cringe—even for you—and then just like that, I know. “It wasn’t me, Skye. I promise you. But I have an idea who it might’ve been.” I add the last part before I can stop myself.
She nods. “Heather.” Skye’s voice is so small, so quiet, it’s almost a whisper.
The shock seizing me must show on my face.
“I know she babysat for Nate and me when we were little. I know she blamed my mom for the death of her little brother, and that she never forgave her for it.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Does it matter?”
A waitress comes by and I order a water. The restaurant is busy and bustling with the sounds and energy of Grand Central on a Friday—the squeak of rubber soles on the floor, the clinking of glasses, the loud echo of a thousand conversations happening at once. Now that Skye knows what led me to her, I feel a strange mix of relief and devastation.
“So Heather is really behind all this.” Skye shakes her head, recrosses her legs. “You guys needed money, and this was her idea of payback?”
I can’t bring myself to speak.
“And since my mom was already fucking dead, she moved on to the next best target?”
I shake my head. “Heather had this obsession with your mom, Skye, like—she wanted to be her, it seemed. She never got over the death of her brother, but I also don’t think she got over losing your mom. But you didn’t deserve any of this and I’m so insanely sorry. I’ll be sorry all my life. I meant what I said in my letter, every word. Every word in the Moleskine is true, too.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that.”
“And you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t know what I believe.” She stares into the bowl of her glass. “In the last entry of the Moleskine you wrote that you weren’t supposed to go through with the wedding. That marrying me wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Yeah. It wasn’t.” I sip my water, crunch the ice between my molars. I remember how blue the sky was that day, how anything seemed possible.
“But you did.”