Or maybe I was wrong. Apparently I didn’t know everything about Savvy.
“It’s okay. I don’t have trauma about it.” She shrugged in a way that was supposed to convey how casual she felt, but it seemed forced to me.
“Who was he? What did he do to you?”
“Troy. An asshole I met in a bar who thought he could put his hands on me. He was wrong.” She flashed me a dark grin.
“Jesus, Savvy—”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you go to the police? It was self-defense, right?”
“The police.” She snorted. “No. I think the self-defense argument would have looked a little thin, given how many times I stabbed him.”
“How—how many times did you stab him?” My voice was a whisper.
“Maybe a few more times than was strictly necessary. Plus a couple more for good luck.”
I didn’t know whether I was horrified or impressed.
“I thought the blood would bother me more, honestly.” Savvy shrugged. “It was a mess, which was annoying. This guy saw me coming out of the restroom with blood all over my hands, and I panicked for a minute, and then just went, ‘Oh my god, my period is so bad today!’ You should have seen the look on his face.”
I gaped at her.
“And then I put him in my car, drove him out to the swamp, and dumped him in there. I thought for sure they’d find the body eventually, but I never heard anything. Maybe the gators ate him.”
Impressed. I was impressed.
“You put him in your car? A dead body? How did you even get him in there?”
“Hey.” She flexed her biceps. “I’m strong.”
“Lifting-a-dead-body strong?”
“He wasn’t a big guy.”
I gave her a skeptical look.
“It took fucking forever,” she mumbled. “Thank god I had a hatchback. I could just sort of drag the body in there and cover him with a blanket.”
I barked out a laugh. I quickly clapped my hand over my mouth to cut it off. “I’m sorry. It’s not funny.”
“It’s hilarious.” She poured a shot of tequila into a glass and nudged it in my direction. She poured one for herself and immediately tossed it back.
I lifted mine as well, but hesitated as I watched her fill her glass again.
“That’s why you left college,” I said quietly. “Your mom keeps telling everyone that you missed home, but that wasn’t it.”
She rolled her eyes and threw back the second shot. “Who the fuck misses Plumpton? No. I didn’t like college. I’m supposed to take out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans just so I can sit in a lecture hall while a bored professor recites everything I just read in the wildly overpriced textbook? No thanks.”
I watched as she downed another shot. She lowered the glass to the bar, and I reached for her hand, lacing our fingers together.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
She shrugged.
“Seriously, Savvy,” I said softly. “You don’t have to pretend with me that it wasn’t a big deal.”
She nudged her glass with her finger, glancing up at me briefly. She lifted one shoulder, like no big deal, but her eyes told a different story. She squeezed my hand tightly.
“He deserved it,” she whispered. “And so does Matt.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
LUCY
Maya comes out of the office after five. There are only two other cars left in the lot, and I’m guessing hers is the purple hatchback. I lurk next to it.
She stops short when she sees me. Her car key is sticking out from between two fingers, like they always say to do to ward off would-be rapists.
“Lucy.” It comes out as a gasp, like she’s scared.
She probably is, come to think of it.
I raise both my hands in surrender. “I just want to talk.”
She squints at me. She was a teenager last time I saw her—eighteen, just graduating from high school and getting ready to leave for college.
“I shouldn’t have told her.” I can still see Savvy sitting on her bed in her tiny apartment with the sloped ceilings. “Fuck. She’s still a teenager, but…”
“You were a teenager when you killed him?” I’d guessed, and she’d nodded, clearly relieved I understood.
Maya stares at me. She and Savvy never looked much alike. Maya’s hair is lighter, the kind of blond that people usually have to buy from a bottle. Her features are sharper than Savvy’s were—the long nose and pointed chin are different from her sister. She’s wearing a full coral skirt and a button-up white blouse with a rounded collar. It’s a sweet outfit. Savvy didn’t do sweet.