Now Kristen strolled over to a waiter and held up two fingers. “Una mesa para dos,” she said. She always was a quick study. He let her choose a table and she gave me the nicer seat, facing the interior; her view was of me against the wall.
“This has been such a fun week.” She reached out and squeezed my forearm. “So laid-back and magical.”
“Exactly what we needed,” I agreed, unfolding a napkin.
“I haven’t been this relaxed in a long time.”
Stop. Stop. Stop. Blood trickling like paint down the metal pole. Kristen’s eyes wide, amazed. Blood mottling her hands, her wrists, her shoes.
“It’s like no time has passed,” she said. She snapped open a menu. “We can pick up right where we left off, like nothing has changed. And that’s how you can tell we’re true friends.”
CHAPTER 3
What happened was this: A man attacked me in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and we killed him in self-defense.
He was a backpacker, a South African dude with a big blond beard and huge hairy arms, freckled and tanned. He’d turned to us in a dank bar—to Kristen, casually gorgeous in her elephant pants and tank top sans bra—and asked how we were liking Cambodia. He was what we called a “duder,” fratty and loud, but cute. After a few minutes, he stuck out his hand （“I’m Sebastian, by the way,”） and Kristen told him her name was Nicole. It was something we’d done in college: tossing out a fake name to indicate how little the interaction mattered, how sure we were we’d never see this guy again. After Ben, it’d kept me from jumping back into anything too quickly—something Kristen warned me about. And during our trips, using aliases gave nights a thrilling, what-happens-in-Vegas undertone.
I played along, introducing myself as Joan. But Sebastian the South African was actually funny. And in the way it sometimes does when I feel like the less-desirable friend, my wit flipped on like a light, zapping and sparking with impeccable speed and timing. Kristen didn’t seem to mind; he was more my type anyway, and she did the appropriate wingwoman things: fluttering around, chatting with strangers.
The hours dwindled; the air cooled. First the bar died down, then the streets outside followed suit. The roar of passing motorbikes softened to a purr, punctuated by occasional shouts from drunk tourists. I touched Sebastian’s rough bicep when he made me laugh, and he pressed a palm on my waist when we moved to let a waiter pass. “Nicole” bought us another round of Angkor beer and, as we toasted, shot me a knowing grin.
Talk, inevitably, turned to “getting out of here.” He was staying in a hostel even crummier than ours, renting a bed in a room packed with bunks—so Kristen, the saint, insisted she wanted to hang around this dead bar for one last solo beer. “I’m sure I’ll be back at the hotel by…midnight?” she proposed, and Sebastian and I nodded gratefully, and it was all very clear to everyone.
Kristen grabbed my elbow on the way out and asked it one more time: “You’re good?” And I hesitated. I didn’t know this guy, after all. My one-night stands and third-date hookups back in the Midwest （ranging from fun to regrettable to maaaybe not really what I wanted but I went along with it because I’d stupidly found myself in bed） had had a pall of familiarity around them—neighborhoods I knew, a cellphone and three digits I knew by heart. This was different. Neither Kristen nor I had had a vacation fling. But then I beat back the unease, the kind that so often creeps up when you’re a woman moving through space, because this guy was funny, and hot, and he wanted me.
I think about that moment a lot, when I patted Kristen’s arm and turned away. How it changed the course of our lives, Kristen’s and mine. How our path forked off and veered, leaving behind so many untouched threads funneling out of the center like a lace doily. One where I gave into the wariness and changed my mind, and Sebastian huffed off into the night. Or I rerouted on the spot and we made out in the bar or on a jungly street corner instead.
But as it was, on the knotted thread I followed that night, Sebastian and I left. As we were heading out, a camera’s light flashed the world away, and when we blinked through it I couldn’t tell who’d taken the shot—one we’d unintentionally photobombed in the little bar. I think about that picture sometimes, too, how someone has it likely locked away in the Cloud, unaware it’s of a missing person in his final public moments. It could be very, very bad if the right person came across it—connected the dots, turned it over to South African authorities. Who knows what else is unwittingly documented in people’s phones and hard drives and dusty photo albums, background noise that would swell with meaning to a different audience?
Sebastian and I walked together through the mosquito-choked air, hand in hand, and his palm slipped down to squeeze my ass as we got to the hotel’s front door. The on-duty employee was asleep on a lobby sofa, and Sebastian’s thumb stroked mine as we waited to be let in. Heat building in my groin, a sexy full-body kiss as soon as we were shut into the room.
The making out was hot at first: I discovered he liked to mix pleasure with pain, catching my lower lip in his teeth, raking my hair back with a sharp tug. Not my thing, but it was a turn-on to feel a bit like prey, so desirable he could barely contain his animalistic urges. And I’d had enough sex education over the years—quizzes in magazines and wine-fueled talks with friends—to know that the way to Blow His Mind, to Be His Best Ever, is to show that you’re into it and read his nonverbal cues. So I gave his blond hair a yank. Turned a neck kiss into a bite. Ran my fingertips over his bare back and abruptly curled my fingers, ten tiny scratches, and smiled against his lips when he moaned with pleasure.
But then—something changed.
And that’s where my brain wants to haze out, switch to another channel. Stop. Stop. Stop.
The sensation of his mouth on my nipple tipped into pain. I gasped and pushed at his cheek, and he moved to kiss me again. Then his fist closed around my hair and tugged so hard tears pricked my eyes. I was surprised and dim, “Hey, not so rough.”
He smiled again, his movements still smooth. “C’mon, we’re just having fun.” His teeth found my earlobe, bit down until I yelped.
I sat up against the headboard. “You’re hurting me.”
“You’re so fucking sexy.”
“I’m serious.” I swatted his hand away from my breast.
He moved as quickly as a Venus flytrap, snatching my wrist in his palm. “You’re going to make me work for it, huh?”
“We’re done.” I clambered off the bed. “I think you should go.”
His eyes hardened. “You’ve been leading me on all night.”
A tear snaked from my eye, but I kept glaring, kept acting tough. “You need to leave.”
But then he reared back and slapped me. “Or maybe this is how you like it?” Shock crystallized on my cheek, the pain like the peal of a bell.
An icy plunge as lust turned to fear, survival mode, fight or flight. I pushed him away, blindly, desperately, and my hand caught his jaw—an accidental punch. Nostrils flaring, he shoved me against the wall by my throat—thwock, a clang against my skull—and my fingers flew to his knuckles, trying to peel his palm back from my neck. His other hand reached down and yanked my underwear to the top of my thighs. I felt an odd pulse of shame, like the moment in a dream when you realize you’re naked.