“Margot,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to make sure you were okay.”
She was quiet, a subtle wetness in her eyes, and for a single, stupid second, I actually thought she might run over and hug me.
“You don’t have to protect me,” she said instead, crossing her arms tight across her chest. “I told you that.”
“Obviously I do,” I said, gesturing to the corner where she had just been. Dipping my voice an octave lower, trying to hide the judgment that was so clearly there. “Eliza, I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“Yeah, well, neither do I.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, taken aback.
She just scoffed, shook her head, and I took a few steps forward, the two of us suddenly close enough to touch. I could feel the wind whipping off the water in the distance, a welcome relief from the hot summer air, and I could tell she wanted to say something then. I could feel some big explanation for the way she’d been acting so close to barreling right out and I wanted to hug her, to slap her. To tell her I hated her and tell her I loved her—but at the same time, the wall we had built between us was too tall at that point. The stones too solid to tear back down.
I was exhausted, just so exhausted. I no longer felt that there was a point.
“Let’s go home,” I said at last. “You need to go home.”
“I’m staying,” she said, swaying some more.
“It’s late, you’re drunk. You need to go to bed.”
“No,” she said, her voice quivering a little. “I mean I’m staying.”
I looked at her, still not understanding until I felt a stab of something sharp in my chest: rejection, pain, a terrible comprehension settling over me as I stared at her in the dark.
“What?” I asked, taking a step closer. “What do you mean you’re staying?”
“I’m not going to Rutledge,” she said. “I’m staying here with Levi. He’ll graduate in a year and then maybe we’ll go together. His dad was a Kappa Nu there—”
“Eliza, this is crazy,” I interrupted. “You’re being crazy. What happened to you?”
I felt the claw of tears then, their sharp nails scraping their way up my throat. I tried to swallow them down, push them away, but they sprang to the surface faster than I could contain them, gliding their way down my cheeks.
“We were supposed to go together,” I said, my voice fragile and wet. “You can’t just leave me—”
“I love him,” she said with a finality that cut deeper than any lethal weapon, any sharpened blade. I could practically feel myself bleeding out then, the life leaking from my body as she watched it pool.
“I’m your best friend,” I said at last, my voice barely above a whisper. “You’re supposed to love me, too.”
I noticed a little tremble in her lip, maybe a flash of regret like that day in my room, but before she could say anything, before she could respond, I spun around fast, ready to walk away and leave her there. So tired of caring about her more than she cared about me.
“Margot, wait—” she started, reaching out to grab my arm. I remember feeling the clasp of her fingers, her touch sending a surge of rage through my chest. In that single second, our entire life flipped through my mind like a movie as I thought about everything she had done to me, everything she had said. Every time she had left me, abandoned me, made me feel like I wasn’t her equal, and before I could think twice, before I could relax, I whipped my arm away—violent, hard, way too fast—knocking her back with too much force. “Margot!”
I turned around just in time to see her stumble, eyes wet and wide as she reached out her hand like she was asking me to take it—but I didn’t. I didn’t take it. I don’t even know if I could have reached her in time. I don’t even know if it would have mattered, if I would have gone down with her, the two of us holding hands like we used to, fingers clasped together as we fell. But instead of trying, instead of helping, instead of swooping in to save her the way I always did, I simply stood right there, feet planted in place, watching in shock as her body tipped back.
The flutter of her dress and the wind in her hair making it seem, for a second, like she was flying.
CHAPTER 63
“I told you you had it in you.”
I whip around at the sound of her voice, the silhouette of Lucy between the open shed doors making my stomach turn. I hadn’t heard her follow me out here, hadn’t registered the slap of the back door above the roar of the rain. The rumble of thunder masking her steps as she approached me slowly, a predator slithering up silently behind their prey.