“That’s enough of that,” Sloane says as the screen goes dark.
I turn to look at her, the remote still clutched in her grip before she tosses it onto the couch again, but when I glance back at the dead TV, Lucy’s face is still there, temporarily burned into the screen like she’s right here with us. Smiling at all the things we’ve accomplished, this stunt we’ve pulled because she taught us how.
Lingering, the way she always does, like she isn’t quite ready to leave.
CHAPTER 57
BEFORE
This picture of my past, this snapshot in time.
I remember it being a happy memory—comfortable, at the very least, the two of us in our element like this—but I’ve never actually noticed before how this photo of Eliza and me so blatantly displays our differences: me, self-consciously covered by my towel, eyes looking warily away from the lens. Eliza, all brazen in her little blue bikini. Reveling in the attention of the camera the way she reveled in the attention of everything.
My heart thumps hard in my chest as I stare at it, dissect it, try to wrap my mind around why it’s here, in Lucy’s bedroom, tucked away like a secret. My fingers resting on the glossy paper, Eliza’s face. Blond hair bleached even brighter by the sun and the freckles cascading across her nose like stars, her very own constellation.
I think about the envelope of money I found deep in her dresser; the Fairfield address scrawled across the back. I pull my phone out of my pocket now, opening my pictures, and tap on the most recent image, the one I just took: Lucy’s ID. Then I flip back to the picture of the envelope from Christmas, then back to the ID.
The addresses are the same.
I drop my arm, my head feeling like it’s swimming in a sea of something thick and heavy as I try to process it all. Try to think about what it all means.
Did they know each other, somehow? Lucy and Eliza?
Is this why Lucy chose me? Is Eliza the reason why I’m even here?
Maybe it was blackmail. Maybe Eliza got tangled up in something bad, something she shouldn’t have. Something somehow involving Levi. This seemed to start when they met, after all, all those sullen moods and bad habits she seemed to pick up out of nowhere. All those times she flipped her phone over when I walked by, hiding her screen, or opening her mouth to tell me something before changing her mind and closing it again. Those times when the two of them fell into a whisper as I approached, their conversation cut short by my presence alone. It still feels like Lucy and Levi somehow knew each other, too, long before he got here. The way he clearly recognized her that night at Penny Lanes; the way she was always so drawn to him, so curious, every little detail filling her up like she couldn’t get enough.
I faintly register a noise in the distance—a muted thumping, my own heart in my ears—but my mind still feels like it’s wrapped in gauze, a padded room dulling everything. I feel too detached to react so instead, I stay floating, like I’ve simply left my body behind and I’m watching myself from a distance with cool indifference.
“Margot!”
The sound of my name pulls me back slowly and I wonder where it came from. Sloane upstairs, maybe. Nicole calling down from her room.
“Margot, open up!”
I twist around, toward Lucy’s open door, simultaneously recognizing the voice and realizing the noise is coming from outside. And it isn’t just thumping, either. It’s knocking.
Lucy is knocking at the front door.
“I forgot my wallet!” she yells, banging harder. “Why is the door locked?”
I look down at the picture again, shaking in my grip, before pushing it back in her desk and locking the drawers, terror surging through my chest. I step back, a faint tingling crawling up my neck as I look around, frantic, trying to find something for my hands to grab. Because if Lucy is standing on the porch right now, peering through the windows and into the living room, she’s going to see me walking out of her bedroom. She’s going to be rightfully curious why I locked her out of the house and walked into her room the second she stepped outside.
My eyes dart around, keys still in hand, wildly searching for some excuse to be in here. Some plausible reason that she might buy—and that’s when I spot it. A stack of books in the corner, piled high against the wall.
“One second!” I yell, a cold sweat erupting on my palms. I grab the familiar title on top and walk out of her bedroom, trying to act casual as I register her face through the window, her expression twisted into grim annoyance. I shoot her a smile as I walk to the front door and unlatch the bolt, letting her inside, but she storms straight past me, hands on her hips.