on a photo of Sadie, wedged into the corner of the mirror. Her finger hovered just over her daughter’s smile. “She saved you, you know. Told Grant that stealing the money was her idea, that she was the only one responsible. But I know better.” Her hand moved to the necklace, the delicate S, enclosing it in her palm.
I set my jaw. Bianca was wrong. She believed I had stolen from their company, taken Sadie’s job, let her take the fall for it, but it wasn’t true.
In mid-July, over a month before Sadie’s death, I’d been reconciling the rental property finances when I realized the numbers didn’t line up. That money had gone missing, systematically and quietly, and had never been flagged.
For a brief moment, I considered asking Sadie about it first. But I worried I was being set up—all summer I’d felt she’d been holding me at a distance. It was the reminder that everything in my life was so fleeting, so fragile. That nothing so good could last.
I summarized the details, passed them along to Grant, didn’t say what I knew to be true: If it wasn’t me, it was Sadie—who was technically the person in charge. I was many things, but I wasn’t a thief. I would not lose everything I’d worked for because of her misplaced rebellion.
The fallout was handled behind closed doors, and I never asked Sadie about it. She shut me out when I tried to mention it. Back then I thought it was just her recklessness. Like her fixation on death—something to grab attention. She was always striving for an edge, seeing what she could get away with, never stopping to consider the collateral damage.
For a month afterward, she’d avoided me, not responding to my texts or my calls. Latched herself firmly on to a friendship with Luce. With Parker, they became an impenetrable group of three. One month and I’d been cast out of everything I’d known, as I had been once before. But I was older this time. I could see things three steps forward and back, and I knew exactly what Sadie would do when presented with each move.
I left her a note, an apology, beside a box of her favorite fudge. Positioned in the center of her desk, so I was sure she’d see them.
I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.
So she would know I wasn’t upset and didn’t think any worse of her. I understood her, of course I did. Any apology would need to come from me. I wasn’t even sure she knew how to apologize, how to feel it. But that was the thing about loving someone—it only counted when you knew their flaws and did it anyway.
The very next night, she sent me a text—Avie, we’re going out, come!—never mentioning what had happened, and I was back; everything was fine.
She’d knocked on my living room window—her face pressed up to the glass, her cheek and one hazel eye, crinkled from laughter. She reminded me of Sadie at eighteen, and maybe that was the point. I could hear Luce and Parker in the driveway.
Sadie had a bottle of vodka in her hand when I opened the door, and she pulled down a few glasses from my cabinet herself, poured at least two shots’ worth into each. “I thought we were going out,” Parker said, standing in the open doorway.
“We are. In a minute. Don’t just stand there,” she said, rolling her eyes so only I could see. Luce crossed the room, following orders, glass raised to her lips.
“Wait!” Sadie said, hand out, and Luce froze. “Wait for everyone.” We each picked up a glass. “Hear, hear,” Sadie said. She clinked her glass against mine. Her eyes were large and unblinking, and I believed I could see everything reflected inside, everything she never said.
“To us,” Luce said, and Parker repeated in echo. I could feel my heartbeat in my toes, my fingers, my head. Sadie stared back at me, waiting. The silence stretched, the moment intoxicating.
“There, there,” I said, and her smile cracked open.
* * *
THE NIGHT SHE DIED, she traipsed into my room without a thought, or so it seemed at the time. We’d been back to normal for two weeks, and I didn’t want to shake the foundation. If something was off, I’d been too focused on my work to notice.
But to Bianca, I had set everything in motion. I’d gotten Sadie fired. I had ruined her. Taken her job. Revealed