Page 105 of I Will Ruin You

“That you do,” Marta said, taking a bite out of the chocolate end of the biscotti. “You tried to set me up with his older brother, Fletcher. He was, if I recall correctly, even better-looking than Roy. And I wasn’t the slightest bit interested. I think you must have seen him as a kind of test. That if Fletcher didn’t get my motor running, no boy could.”

“Busted.”

“I hadn’t come out. I couldn’t. Mom and Dad, I was sure they’d never be able to handle it. Anyway, while Mom and Dad were off in Boston, you were going out with Roy, and I’d told you I was going to the movies with some friends or something, so you figured the house was empty and you came home. You and Roy were going to get it on.”

“But the house wasn’t empty,” Bonnie said. “I heard noises in the TV room.”

“Where you found me and Sandra Jane Wiler. Kind of making out.”

“Kinda?”

“Okay, maybe even more than that. Gettin’ into it.”

“Why are you telling me this story?” Bonnie asked.

“Just wait. So we pulled ourselves together, and it was all pretty awkward, and I took you aside and tried to explain. That we weren’t really making out, but Sandra Jane’s brother had this VHS porn tape with two women fucking around with each other and it was just the dumbest thing she’d ever seen and we were just reenacting it and killing ourselves laughing because it was so ridiculous, that we weren’t really doing anything, and that what you’d seen wasn’t what you thought you’d seen. And do you remember what you said?”

Bonnie slowly shook her head.

“You said, ‘Bullshit. You think I’m an idiot?’ That was what you said.”

Bonnie said nothing.

“And so I told you what you pretty much already knew, but confirmed it for you. That I was gay, that I didn’t know how long I could keep it from Mom and Dad, and you put your arms around me and said you loved me and that you would support me in whatever way I wanted to handle it. And I felt this great weight lift off my shoulders, that whatever happened, you had my back. I’ve never forgotten that, to this very day.”

A tear welled up in Bonnie’s eye.

“So now, after all these years, it’s my turn,” Marta said. “This is what I have to say after talking to you and Richard. Bullshit. You think I’m an idiot?”

Bonnie’s mouth moved, as though she were trying to say something, but the words would not come out. Marta put her hand atop Bonnie’s and said, “Something’s going on, and you’re going to tell me what it is. Because I’m your sister, and I love you, and if you don’t, I’m gonna yank your hair out by the roots.”

Forty-Eight

Richard

“I have a question,” another woman in the library said, “about this whole trigger warning thing people have been talking about. Like, you’re supposed to warn people ahead of time if there’s something in what they’re about to read or see that they might find upsetting, but how are you supposed to know what might upset a person? I mean, everybody’s bothered by something. I don’t like to read anything where animals are hurt, but I’m not expecting something on the title page that says, oh, watch out, this is coming. What do you think?”

I said, “What?”

I was ever so slightly distracted.

Billy Finster was standing at the back of the room. Except it couldn’t be Billy Finster, because Billy Finster was dead. So either Marta was investigating the death of someone she thought to be Billy Finster, or this guy grinning at me was not, and never had been, Billy Finster.

He made a small come-hither gesture with his index finger. Like, Hey, buddy, we need to talk.

“Mr. Boyle? Do you want me to repeat the question?”

I looked at the woman who’d been talking.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go.”

I walked slowly toward the back of the library, catching curious reactions from the crowd as I passed. Like, I was just going to walk out on them? Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to do.

As I walked past Herb, he said under his breath, “I want to talk to you.”

I ignored him and went face-to-face with my blackmailer and whispered heatedly, “Who the fuck are you?”

He reared back slightly. Quietly, he said, “We should take this outside. Betting you have questions.”