Page 99 of The Tenant

“I know, but…”

She’s right. Even if I could remember the right ratio of breaths to compression, I don’t have it in me. I can’t breathe for another person when I can barely breathe for myself.

Krista is going to die. The life is draining out of her before my very eyes.

And the truth is it’s exactly what she deserves.

67

KRISTA

I knewI should have stabbed Amanda one more time to make sure she was dead.

I knew I should have added more tetrodotoxin to those cookies.

I knew I should never have trusted Blake.

I knew I’d never live happily ever after. My mother was right.

I knew it.

I…

68

BLAKE

I’m still alive.

It’s been one week since…well, since everything. One week since Krista tried to kill me. One week since she died on the floor of our living room, with me crouching over her bloody body in tears. One week since I was carried away to the emergency room, where I had to be sedated and intubated. (I don’t remember much of that last part.) Apparently, there’s no antidote to tetrodotoxin, but if you live through the first twenty-four hours, you have a good chance of not dying.

And now I have been pronounced (mostly) recovered, which means I get to go home from the hospital.

My father closed the hardware store and flew out to the city to be with me, but he went back home yesterday when it was obvious that I was out of the woods. I told him to go—I know he’s short on help at the store, and I didn’t want him to lose his business because of me. But it meant that I didn’t have anyone to pick me up today, when I’m being discharged.

So I asked Amanda.

It still feels strange to call her that. For the whole time she was living with us, she was always Whitney. But actually, she seems more like an Amanda.

She told me why she changed her identity—about how she needed the money to pay for her mother’s chemo and that she got it from the wrong people. The story broke my heart a little bit, especially because my own mother died of cancer, and I also know what it’s like to be desperate for cash. But what astonishes me most is that Krista heard that story and still wanted Amanda dead. Krista was right—I really didn’t know her.

I get dressed on my own in anticipation of going home. Even though I’m able to do all the motions of dressing myself, my body feels like it went through a battle, and when I’m done dressing, I feel like I need a nap to recover. I’m beyond exhausted.

Ingesting a lethal toxin? Not recommended.

The nurse who went through my discharge paperwork with me today comes by with a wheelchair. “I don’t need that,” I tell her, which isn’t entirely true, because I’m still pretty shaky on my feet. Still, I can make it out of the building.

“Hospital rules,” she says. “We don’t want anything to happen to you—at least not until you leave!”

I don’t want to make trouble, so I obediently climb into the chair. She pushes me down the hallway to the elevator. After an interminably long elevator ride, we arrive at the lobby. As promised, Amanda is sitting in the lobby waiting for me. She rises to her feet when she sees me.

“Is that your girlfriend?” the nurse asks me.

A split second after the question leaves her lips, her face turns pink. Because she knows—of course she does. Everyone knows I’m in the hospital because my girlfriend tried to kill me. And if that weren’t enough, it’s all over the news. The wholecityknows.

Krista is famous now.The New York Timeshad a big splashy article about all the dead bodies left in her wake. It’s more than I even knew about—more than just Stacie and Mr. Zimmerly. My ex-fiancée had a bad habit of dealing with her problems with murder.

“Hi, Blake,” Amanda says as she gets closer to me. “You look like shit.”