“So I wanted to talk to you about something.”
I looked at Aaron sharply. “What’s that?”
“Um, I’m not sure how to say this.” Oh my God oh my God oh my God. “Kristen called me yesterday.”
Deep breath in, deep breath out. “What’d she say?”
“It’s— I dunno. It was bizarre. She said she’s worried about you.”
“Oh boy. Did she say why?”
“She used the word…unstable.” He blushed. “Sounded like she thinks you’re on the verge of a breakdown or something. She wasn’t sure you should be traveling.”
“Jesus Christ.” I glanced at him. “And you’re just telling me this now?”
“Well, I didn’t want to lead with it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “You know that everything she said is bullshit, right? I’m fine.”
He didn’t reply. Beyond him, the tangerine moonscape billowed past his window.
“Aaron.”
“That’s not all.”
I was going to explode. Something was detonating in me, about to erupt all over the dashboard.
“What’d she say?” I tried to make my tone blasé, eye-rolling.
“She said…” He cleared his throat. “She said the reason you’ve been kinda…stressed-out since you got back from Chile is that something happened there. Where you hurt someone or something? By accident. She didn’t go into details.”
My face went slack. No no no no no. By the time I noticed I wasn’t breathing, it was too late to act shocked or confused or scornful or anything, any emotional mask that might point to my innocence.
“In a quarter of a mile, turn right,” the GPS intoned.
“Aaron.” My voice sounded squeezed and I shoved it deeper into my chest. Breathe, Emily. “You know that I’m fine, and that Kristen and I haven’t been on the best terms. So this is just her trying to manipulate you. Okay?”
He eased around the corner. “So, I’m Team Emily, eleven times outta ten.” A car pulled out in front of us and he made an ope sound. “But you have seemed kinda out of sorts these past few weeks. Or am I way off base?”
My brain scrambled, a rat in the bottom of a pail. Should I flip the script, insist that Kristen had been the one to hurt someone? Deny the violence altogether? Make up another reason I’d been acting strangely? But I was so tired of lying—so sick of trying to act normal when it was all probably about to come crashing down around me.
I’d made up my mind, then. I’d tell him the truth.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been completely honest with you,” I said. “Something happened with Kristen, and it’s been weighing on me.”
He waited, listening.
“First of all, no, I did not hurt anyone in Chile. That’s a lie, I swear to God. Please believe me.”
He nodded at the windshield. “I believe you, yeah.”
“Something…happened back in Cambodia. A year ago? Something bad.” I swallowed hard. “I was, um, attacked. It was a…a sexual assault.” I stared down at my lap but could feel him tense up next to me. “It was really scary. Obviously. But Kristen walked in on us and that—that stopped it.” Still the truth. Just a redacted version of it.
“Oh my God, Emily. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” Tears gathered and I turned toward the window. My sunglasses bulged in the side-view mirror.
“Did you report it? Were you hurt?”
“No, we just—we just got out of there. We left town, went to Laos for a couple days. We were both pretty shook up.” Edit the feed to limit hysteria.
“Shit.” He placed his hand on mine. “I’m glad you told me. And I’m really, really sorry that happened to you. Ugh, it makes me so mad.” He shook his head again. “Who would do that?”
I sighed. This was the problem with good guys—they simply couldn’t fathom how awful so much of their cohort could be. “Thanks. So yeah, that was really tough. And I thought I was getting over it, but then you and I started dating. And I realized I hadn’t really processed the attack. You know how I kinda—clammed up with you a couple times.”
“Aw jeez, I hope I wasn’t pressuring you, or—”
“No, no, you were great. You are great.” I squeezed his hand. “You made me realize how much I wanted a real, adult relationship. But seeing Kristen in Chile…I told you how she tried to talk me into leaving Milwaukee and traveling with her.”
“Right. And you said the other day, she’s always weird about your boyfriends.”
“Exactly. She’s tried to, like, poison my brain with past relationships. I think she wants to keep me for herself. Like, I had this college boyfriend, Ben, and he did suck, but Kristen was the one who talked me into breaking up with him. And then there was this guy, Colin, a few years ago. It seemed like things were going really well, and then Kristen convinced me he wasn’t a good guy, even though in retrospect he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yikes.” He switched lanes and passed a station wagon with a shaggy dog gazing forlornly out the back.
“I think that’s why she sees Chile as the turning point,” I went on. “Before that, she always had me all to herself. Until now. Until you. And I knew she’d try to plant seeds of doubt.” I tipped my head back. “But she’s still doing it. Driving a wedge between you and me. She couldn’t get to me, so she’s trying to get to you.”
That last night in Chile, when I told her about Aaron—that was the catalyst, the beating butterfly wings that led all the way to this hurricane. That’s why she picked out Paolo, that’s why she orchestrated the whole gruesome night: She went balls to the wall to bind us forever, to create one shared experience that put us in our own snow globe, apart from the world. She acted shell-shocked and helpless as I hatched a plan to deep-six the body. She watched with glee as I plotted to bury her mess like a time capsule, a ticking bomb.
And then—come to think of it—once I’d signed on, once I couldn’t turn back, once it was clear her plan was working perfectly, she’d reclaimed her usual role as the foreman. She demanded I survey the area while she drove ahead; she presided over the handling of Paolo’s body. She knows it’s the one thing I can’t tell Aaron, the thing standing between us, and she loves that.
But then I threw a wrench in her plans: I pulled away.
I gazed at Aaron, his wrist hooked casually over the top of the steering wheel. My heart rate vroomed. How far would Kristen go to right the ship?
The hotel appeared and Aaron pulled into the lot. He put the engine in park and turned to me with his most earnest face. “I’m sorry, dude. That all sucks.”
“Thanks. I just needed some space from her. And Arizona is nothing if not space, right?”
“Oh, for sure. And hey, I’m stoked to be away from the ol’ grind and here on, you know. Mars.” He gestured out the window, where the clay-colored ridges resembled a sci-fi comic book. “But I’m glad you told me. I knew something was up.” He drummed his fingers against the parking brake. “You can always talk to me. We all have shit we don’t feel like talking about. And that’s fine! But…I’ve been down that road before, relationships where she—or I—wasn’t willing to let that guard down, you know? And just be real.”