there was Benny, still a boy as he lay next to her, his eyes unclouded and the purple shadows of madness not yet bruising his skin. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him so happy, so free of anxiety, so clear.
Oh Jesus, had he been fixated on that horrible girl for all these years? I thought about his comment on my Instagram photo. It wasn’t Why are you hanging out with Nina Ross? but Why are you hanging out with Nina Ross without me?
My mind was firing so fast that I felt faint. Why is this woman here? Why is she lying to me about who she is? What does she want from me? What do I say to her? And also: Oh God, if Benny knows Nina Ross is here, what will it do to him? Will he have another episode?
“OK, I get what you’re seeing, there’s definitely a resemblance,” I said slowly. “But it’s not her, I swear. She said she’d never been here before. Why would she lie about that?”
“Because she didn’t think you’d be nice to her? Because our family was awful to hers?”
What I wanted to say: It was the other way around. They blackmailed us, Benny. Nina’s mother drove Maman to suicide and Nina got you hooked on drugs and together they destroyed our family. But how would that help him if he didn’t know this already? If anything, it might set him off. I never knew exactly what would trigger his episodes; but dredging up the horror of that time seemed like a pretty sure bet. “Look,” I said soothingly. “I am ninety-nine percent sure it’s not her. It makes no sense at all. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll ask her.”
“Will you?” His voice was pleadingly childlike. My heart was breaking for him; I wanted to wrap my baby brother in a bubble and protect him forever against the evils of an unpredictable world.
The sun was falling behind the mountains to the west, shadows creeping across the patchwork of water below. The wind blasted over the peak so hard that I felt like it might blow me backward over the edge. “Look I’ve got to run, Benny. I’ll call you later, OK?”
“I’ll be waiting.” I hung up to the echo of his hoarse, excited breath, and I knew he was not going to let this go.
* * *
—
I hiked back down the trail in a cloud of confusion, still trying to convince myself that it was all a mistake. Maybe Ashley was just a doppelg?nger, her presence here some sort of strange coincidence. Or she was Nina’s long-lost twin! (Ridiculous, I knew, but possible?) Or, if it was Nina, maybe there was a legitimate reason why she was pretending to be a stranger to Stonehaven.
But I knew. I moved blindly, seeing nothing but the smug face of the girl in the photo, ready to tear our world apart. What gall could possibly bring Nina fucking Ross back here? I stumbled over the rocks and tree roots that I had leapt over so neatly just an hour ago, my equilibrium lost. And then: I came around a stand of pines and saw Michael and Ashley in the clearing just ahead.
They hadn’t heard my approach, not at all. Instead, they were wrapped in a tight embrace, kissing each other hard, as if on the verge of tearing each other’s clothes off right there on the trail.
I stopped short, hidden behind the trees.
I watched as Michael ran his lips down the side of Ashley’s neck, bending to bite the exposed flesh of her clavicle. She gripped his neck and pulled him closer, her other hand clawing at his sweat-drenched shirt, and something churned inside me. Was it—envy? The ghost of Michael’s body, his finger testing my pulse, that left me feeling naked and needy? (Of course it was; but it was also so much more.)
Unexpectedly, Ashley opened her eyes and looked straight at me over Michael’s shoulder. And that was when I knew for sure. Because she didn’t blush with embarrassment, didn’t demurely pull away like the Ashley I knew would have. Instead, she coolly maintained eye contact