I couldn’t find anything about Jamie’s death, the mysterious “accident” Kristen had referenced. Nothing about Kristen’s parents either. I sat back on my heels. It could still be a fluke. Maybe Kristen really did attract accidental death the way a brown banana draws fruit flies.
I took a few pictures of the photos and the yearbook—I’d google Jamie later and didn’t want to forget her last name. As I was packing everything back into the boxes, I heard a groan above me, somewhere north of the drop ceiling. My pulse ticked up—time to go.
In the basement’s ugly back, I slipped the boxes onto a rack and hurried over to the utility light. I gave the space a final glance, then went rigid: Something in the corner had moved, something alive in the darkness. I fumbled with my phone and beamed the light that way, and two shiny eyes stared back.
A tiny mouse, rigid with fright. I didn’t notice my surge of frosty fear until I was already laughing.
* * *
—
In the morning, I asked Kristen to turn the hotspot on, but she waved me away. “It’s Saturday,” she pointed out. “We can be off the grid.”
“Don’t you think we should check if there are…any developments? In Chile?”
She carried her coffee mug to the sink. “I’m not worried. Hey, I’m gonna go for a run.”
After she left, I ransacked the closet where the hotspot had been the first night, but it wasn’t there. I dug through drawers and cabinets, peeked at the floor near all the power outlets. I groaned in frustration. Why was she cutting me off?
I climbed the path to the parking pad near the street—a higher elevation, so maybe I could get a signal. I got a goofy text from Priya and two sweet ones from Aaron, and I wondered again if he was annoyed that Kristen had steamrolled his dinner plans. But I couldn’t get enough bars to reply, let alone load my email or read the news. Frustration jolted down my arms. Who did Kristen think she was?
When she returned, red-cheeked, I called her over from the picnic table. “Can you please go get the hotspot? Please. I’ll feel so much better if I know there’s nothing in the news.”
She rolled her eyes, her chest still heaving from the run, and disappeared inside. I followed her and watched her unplug it from an outlet in the downstairs bathroom—one of very few I hadn’t thought to check.
“Why were you charging it here?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
She handed it to me and then marched back outside with a yoga mat under her arm. I clicked the link in Nana’s email and, head buzzing, searched for any related news—but there was nothing.
I exhaled. I started to reply to Aaron but couldn’t figure out what to write—I felt like such an impostor, a terrible girlfriend masquerading as an honest one. As a good one, one who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
I set my phone on the counter and went outside. I found Kristen on the boat dock, moving gracefully through a yoga flow. I watched her for a moment; a few yards out, an otter’s head erupted from the water, and its little eyes regarded me before sinking back under the surface. Like he knew.
“Care to join me?” Kristen called, from Side Angle Pose.
“That’s okay.”
She shifted into Triangle Pose. “All good on the Internet?”
“Um…I guess so.” I gazed up at the distant tree line, where a bald eagle was carving long ribbons through the sky.
“What is it?” She folded her mat in half and walked over.
“It’s nothing.”
“Did you find something?”
“No! I…forget it.”
“What?”
I crossed my arms. “I just…hate having this secret. It’s like a wall that keeps me at arm’s length from everyone.”
“But we don’t have that wall. We’re in this together.” She leaned against a tree. “You can talk to me.”
“I can’t, though. Every time I bring it up, you change the subject. You shut down.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t intentional. But…what is there to talk about? We can rehash it a million times and stress ourselves out, but that won’t change anything. I thought we both wanted to move forward?”
“I do, but…it’s keeping me from getting close to other people too. It’s just…it’s tough, okay?”
“I know it is.” She placed her palm on my forearm and I pulled away.
I sighed. “It was different after Cambodia.”
She tilted her head, listening.
“It was awful, but with enough time—and your help, obviously—I could kind of put it in a box and go back to my old life. I could stop thinking about it all the time, I wasn’t…reminded of it or anything. And I didn’t have anyone to…” I trailed off.
Her eyes widened. “What? Go on, then.”
I shook my head. How could I explain it? I wanted to let my guard down around Aaron, but I felt the secret cutting through our fledgling relationship like a sickle through grain. A pang of self-disgust followed: how gross, thinking that having a boyfriend made me a better person than her. More eager to be authentic.
Her eyes turned red and filled with tears. “I risked everything for you. When I saw you needed help in that hotel room in Cambodia, I didn’t even think—I just acted, because you’re my best friend.”
It hung between us, and she didn’t need to say the rest: I saved your life—I killed for you—and this is how you repay me?
“I told myself you’d do the same for me,” she said, her voice low. “But I thought it’d never happen to me—I’d never be attacked, no guy would ever try to hurt me. And then when it did, in Chile…I wish I could take it all back, Em, I do. But I thought we were in this together.”
I started to cry too. “I’m sorry, Kristen. I just wish we could tell someone.”
“But why? So you can relieve your guilty conscience and then spend the next ten years in jail? Think about that—no, I’m serious, picture it. You want to spend your thirties in a women’s prison in, like, Fond du Lac?”
I hesitated, so she finished the thought: “Do you want me to spend my thirties there too? Because it’s all or nothing.”
I shook my head vehemently. She reached for my hand and threaded her fingers through mine. She swung our fists together, like we were kids playing Red Rover. Together, a wall, an impenetrable force.
“I know it’s hard,” she said, “and I’m sorry we’re in this position. But it will get better. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but it really will start to fade, like it did last time.” She snuffled again. “When my parents died, and then Jamie, I didn’t think I’d ever get over it. And I was kind of right—you don’t move on and never think about it again. But things…shift. Life becomes this new trajectory where these are the circumstances, and life goes on. Does that make sense?”
I nodded.
She heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry that the sight of me makes you feel bad.”
“Kristen.”
“I am. I dunno what else to say. You’re not— I’m not saying you’re being mean or unfair or anything. I really am sorry.”