don’t even know if I can sleep,” Cass says. “I just need to be alone for a minute. Or a lot of minutes.”
“As many minutes as you need.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know. Watch TV?”
“You don’t want your room?”
I want you to have it, Lulu thinks, and doesn’t say. Just for right now.
“I’m okay, I promise,” she tells Cass.
* * *
It’s early evening by the time Cass comes downstairs. She sits down next to Lulu on the couch, where Lulu is knee-deep in a Benton and the Billions marathon. Lulu mutes the television.
“So I did fall asleep,” Cass says. “Whoops.”
“You probably needed it.”
Cass gives Lulu a side eye. “You sound like my mom.”
“You did!”
“Speaking of which, she’s home tonight, and I promised her I would be too.”
“Yeah, yeah. But before you go—I have to show you something.”
“I thought you said you weren’t trying to start anything.”
Lulu has to laugh at that. “Not like that, perv.” Then she sobers up. “I just wanted you to know I had it. I won’t do anything with it if you don’t want me to. And you don’t have to make a decision right now, but—”
“Jesus, Lulu, you’re making me nervous. Just show me already.”
“Whip it out?” Lulu suggests.
“Something like that.”
Lulu takes a deep breath as she hands her phone to Cass. “I recorded this at The Hotel earlier,” she says. “It’s probably not enough to go on, legally or anything. But if we wanted to put it out there, it might hurt Ryan’s reputation. Might keep him from thinking he could get away with something like this again.”
Cass hits PLAY on the recording. Lulu watches the television screen and listens to Ryan’s tiny voice saying “I was desperate to keep you, Cass” and “It wasn’t, like, ethical.”
Cass hands her back the phone.
“You can delete it,” Lulu says. “It’s. I mean. You’re in it.”
“Yeah. I am.” Cass sighs. She pulls her feet up onto the couch and rests her cheek against the tops of her knees. “Did you know you were going to do that?” she asks. “Is that why you wanted to come?”
Lulu shakes her head.
“You want to put it online?” Cass asks.
Lulu nods.
“Why?”
“Like I said. I don’t want him to try what he did to us with anyone else. Because he has, before.”
Cass lets out a shaky breath. “Emma,” she says.
“You knew?”
“He told me. He cried, Lulu. He cried when we talked about it, and he told me he would never do anything like it ever again.”
“That fucking—”
“You think that’s the worst part.” Cass’s hands are on her knees, and she’s staring at them intently. “The real worst part is, I still feel bad for him.”
Her voice is so soft Lulu can barely hear her.
“I know it’s fucked up, and I don’t want to forgive him or give him another chance, or—but I still feel bad for him, Lu.”
“I don’t.”
Cass looks away from her. Lulu feels bad for her fierceness. “I never loved him, though,” she says. “So it’s less complicated for me. I always thought he was kind of a monster. Turns out I was right.”
“He’s not a monster, though,” Cass points out. “It would be different if he were, because monsters can’t help being like that. There’s nothing they can do about it. Ryan is just a guy. I knew him—this person. He knew me. And he chose to hurt me. Us.” Cass closes her eyes. “I don’t want revenge, but I want him to stop.”
Lulu knows she’s holding her breath, and can’t make her lungs relax.
“You should,” Cass says. “You should post it.”
“Really?”
“This isn’t just about me,” Cass says. “You’re right that this is about Emma. And other girls, maybe. Whose names we don’t know. And then, maybe, whoever’s next.”
Lulu nods.
Cass nods back.
“Are you sure?” Lulu asks. “I don’t want to—”
“I’m giving you permission,” Cass says. “But then you have to actually do it, Lulu. I can’t do it for you. And you can’t just do it because you think it’ll be good for me.”
“Fuck,” Lulu says.
“Fuck,” Cass agrees.
Then she leans in and kisses Lulu so swiftly that Lulu finds herself chasing the ghost of Cass’s mouth, leaning forward as Cass stands up and straightens the hem of her shirt self-consciously.
“I really have to go,” she says.
“Okay,” Lulu says.
“Bye, Lulu.”
“Bye, Cass.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
LULU TAKES SOME time putting the whole thing together. She’s not going to post it to Flash—who knows what a Riggs-owned platform will do with this information.
Instead she stitches together a video of her own. She starts with