that she was known.
She reached out a hand. I took it, told her I could really use some help if she had time. Carrie agreed to tutor me, for a fee. We met twice. There, in some little tea shop just off campus where we drank herbal tea, I learned that she was from the suburbs of Boston. She described it for me, this place where she grew up: the narrow streets, the ocean views, the charming buildings. She told me about her family, her older brothers, both collegiate swimmers for some top-ranked college, though she, oddly enough, couldn’t swim. But there were many things she could do, all of which she listed for me. She was a runner, a mountain climber, a downhill skier. She spoke three languages and had an uncanny ability to touch her tongue to her nose. She showed me.
She spoke with a classic Boston accent. People loved to hear it. Just the sound of her voice drew people to her. It lured them in. It didn’t matter what she had to say. It was the accent they liked.
She let that go to her head, as she let many things go to her head.
Carrie’s favorite color was red. She knit the beanie herself. She painted landscapes, wrote poetry. Wished her name was something like Wren or Meadow or Clover. She was your quintessential right-brain type, an idealist, a wishful thinker.
I saw Will and her together many times after that. The odds of running into someone on a campus that size are small. Which is how I knew that she sought him out, that she knew where he’d be and when. She put herself there, made him think it was kismet that made them keep running into each other instead of what it really was. A trap.
I’m not insecure. I don’t have an inferiority complex. She was no prettier than me, no better. This was plain and simple jealousy.
Everyone gets jealous. Babies get jealous, dogs do, too. Dogs are territorial, the way they stand guard on their toys, their beds, their owners. They don’t let anyone touch what’s theirs. They get angry and aggressive when you do. They snarl, they bite. They maul people in their sleep. Anything to protect their belongings.
I didn’t have a choice about what happened next. I had to protect what was mine.
SADIE
Later that night, I awaken from a dream. I come slowly to, and find Will sitting in the slipcovered chair in the corner of the room, hiding among the shadows. I just barely make out the outline of him, the blackened curve of his silhouette and the faint glow off the whites of his eyes as he sits there, watching me. I lie in bed awhile, too drowsy and disoriented to ask him what he’s doing, to suggest that he come back to bed with me.
I stretch in bed. I roll over, onto my other side, dragging the blanket with me, turning my back toward Will in the chair. He’ll come to bed when he’s ready.
I fold myself into the fetal position. I pull my knees into me, press them into my abdomen. I brush against something in the bed. Will’s dense memory foam pillow, I assume, but soon feel the swell of a vertebrae, the convexity of a shoulder blade instead. Beside me, Will is shirtless, his skin clammy and warm to the touch. His hair falls sideways, down his neck, pooling on the mattress.
Will is in bed with me. Will is not in the chair in the corner of the room.
Someone else is here.
Someone else is watching us sleep.
I bolt upright in bed. My eyes fight to adjust to the blackness of the room. My heart is in my throat. I can hardly speak. “Who’s there?” I ask, but there’s a bulge in my throat and all that comes out is a gasp.
I reach a hand to the bedside table, make an effort to turn the knob on the lamp. But before I can, her voice comes to me, quietly and measured, the words chosen carefully.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
Imogen rises from the chair. She comes to me, sets herself gingerly on the edge of my bed.
“What are you doing here? Do you need something?” I ask, trying not to let on to my own state of alarm. But it can’t so easily be disguised. My panic is transparent. There should be relief in seeing that it’s Imogen—not an intruder, but one of our own—but there’s