The Swap - Robyn Harding Page 0,37

harmless. She was unusual, awkward, even aloof. But she was just a kid. It couldn’t have been easy growing up feeling different, being ostracized by her peers.

“Could there be another explanation?” I asked. “Maybe something’s going on at home?”

“An explanation for squatting on my property? For staring into my windows in the middle of the fucking night?”

Freya was angry. She felt violated, and I would have, too. Of course, if Low had been staring into my windows in the wee hours, she’d have nodded off from boredom. Brian and I went to bed religiously at eleven. We made love on Sunday mornings. The most exciting thing a Peeping Tom would see at our house would be a late-night trip to the toilet.

“And I have no idea how long she’s been spying on us.” Freya paused then, just for a breath. “Who knows what she’s seen. . . .”

It twigged on me then. Low could have been there the night we took the magic mushrooms. She could have seen Max and me having sex in the guest room with its massive, uncovered windows. I glanced at Freya, but her eyes remained on the trail ahead of us. I’d tried to let that night go, convinced myself that it couldn’t hurt me. But my heart palpitated with dread.

“I’m not telling you to fire her,” Freya continued. “I’m just saying be careful. Don’t trust her.”

“I can’t fire her without cause,” I replied. “Besides, she’s only working weekends right now.”

“It’s your call,” Freya said, feigning indifference, but she was clearly annoyed.

We’d reached the parking lot by this time, Freya’s gleaming white SUV waiting with my shabby Mazda. There were two cars parked between us, their passengers nowhere in sight. Freya escorted me to my vehicle.

“Low might tell you things,” she said. “About me. About Max. Don’t believe her. She’s obsessed with us. She’ll say anything to hurt us.”

“Do you really think she’s that sick?” My voice was tight with concern—for Freya, for myself, even for Low. She might need psychological help, which would be hard to find in our small community.

“She’s fucking crazy.” Freya was adamant. “I just hope she doesn’t hurt anyone.”

With those ominous words, she kissed my cheek and moved to her car.

25

low

No word could have hurt me more . . . stalker. It was the same term thrown in my face when Topaz had ditched me in ninth grade. I had wanted to speak to the girl alone, to see if we could salvage our friendship, but she was constantly surrounded by a gaggle of popular assholes. Tapping on her bedroom window in the middle of the night had seemed a good strategy. I’d done a couple of practice runs, hiding in the shrubbery, working up my nerve. And then, I finally made my approach. How was I to know that Lara Wittman and Kyra Ma were sleeping over? That my looming presence in the night would send them into frightened hysterics? That I would theretofore be labeled a stalker—or more precisely a lesbo stalker—even though I had never been attracted to Topaz in that way.

It was like Freya had known the best way to wound me. While I’d never shared the exact details of my ninth-grade friendship gone wrong, Freya knew I was sensitive about my loner status. She knew I was afraid to put myself out there socially and have my desperation thrown back in my face. She had carefully chosen her words to cut me. She was cruel and heartless. Why didn’t that make me stop loving her?

All I wanted was to talk to her, but I couldn’t, not without perpetuating the myth of my obsession. I couldn’t risk driving down her street, walking past her yoga studio, eating at her favorite restaurant. I had to observe her from a safe distance. In fact, I had to borrow a pair of binoculars from Vik. If Freya spotted me, it would make everything a million times worse.

My life had become empty and meaningless. I considered Virginia Woolf–ing myself—filling my pockets with rocks and walking into the freezing ocean. I would have done it, if I thought anyone would care. My family would be upset, of course, until they realized that Eckhart could have his own room, then they’d be secretly grateful for the space. Freya would be flattered. She’d tell people that I was so obsessed with her, that I’d offed myself when she’d sent me away. I’d become notorious in death, the tall friendless stalker whose ghost haunts