Page 68

My body stiffens.
“She was a shit friend as much as she was a shit girlfriend. You’ve probably already guessed, but I don’t talk to her anymore. We got into a huge fight the day you guys broke up.”
I swallow the sudden dryness in my throat and scoot away so I can look at her, tilting her chin up to peer into her eyes. “I’m sorry she was that way to you too.”
“Zaiah, I’m the one who told you about her other boyfriend.” A tear runs down her cheek. “I, um, I was a coward and sent you that note. I should’ve done it differently. In person probably, but I wanted you to know above anything else, and I wasn’t strong enough to tell you in person.”
My lids flutter closed as I remember what it felt like to open that note. Trish’s infidelity had devastated me. She’d had me ina chokehold. She was exciting. Alluring. But looking back, I can see the manipulation. That took me weeks, though.
I let out a breath.
“Don’t hate me.”
I run a hand down my face, surprise upending me for a moment. Across from me, however, Len’s nearly shaking, a worried shell of a person. I reach out to grasp her hand. “I wouldn’t have believed it unless you sent the evidence the way you did. Trish was a manipulator, Len, and she would’ve been the same for you, too. You’re too…pure for her. You did me the biggest favor.”
“Yeah?”
“I always wondered who sent it. I have to say, I never thought about you. I figured you hadn’t spoken to her, but I thought you grew apart when she transferred schools.”
“No, it ended pretty badly. She found out I sent the note. You know how you look back on fights and wish you said something differently? I replay our argument in my head all the time, and I come up with the best things to say, but I just let her hurl insults at me until she was done. Then she left. I actually felt bad about it.”
“Well, don’t.”
“She was the only friend I had.”
Every word she says breaks my heart.
“Also, um…I don’t even know if I should bring this up, but…you saw me first.” Her voice cracks, and she looks away. I reach out to turn her face back toward me.
She wipes her eyes. “If you think about the night you first saw Trish, you might remember you saw her through a window—”
“Dancing on a table.”
“You asked to come up.”
I nod.
She smiles a little. “It was me on the table, Zaiah. Trish let me borrow one of her dresses, and when you saw me, I was on cloud nine. Then you asked to come up, and I was buzzing all over. I thought…Ugh, this is so damn embarrassing… I thought maybe I would actually get a college boyfriend.”
“But you didn’t answer the door,” I tell her.
“I was pulling on the dress and fidgeting, so Trish told me I should change because I looked like a middle schooler playing dress-up. By the time I got back to the room, she had you tied around her pinky.”
I clench my jaw so hard it gives me a headache. Manipulated since moment one. Trish knew what she was doing. She never mentioned it was Len on the table, and when people asked how we met, she told them how I was smitten from the beginning, watching her dance. She made it sound so romantic. “I guess I’m a big dick, too.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Oh, I know about Trish’s manipulations, but I wish it’d been you.”
“You…do? But I’m nothing like Trish.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“But, I mean, she was so bubbly and cool.”
“Cool is overrated.”
“Coming from someone who is cool.”