Page 59

Cass

Fourteen Hours Earlier

The hotel room already smells like death.

I know realistically it’s too soon for that, that the body isn’t anywhere near decomposing.

But still the stench filters into my nostrils, cloying and visceral.

A thick, wet substance smears through the cracks in my toes, and time seems to stand still as I see the blood seeping into the carpet fibers.

Each droplet holds little pieces of me that will stay long after I’m physically gone.

Suddenly, his body looms large in front of me. And then I feel the weight in my hand, the sturdiness of the knife. My eyes flick to it, the lamplight illuminating a rust-colored substance that lines its sharp edge. Blood. My blood.

I try to pause, to take stock of what’s happening, to piece it all together. But before I can, my arm plunges forward as if of its own volition, angry and desperate. And then it comes. The connection of the blade to the flesh. That satisfying feeling of contact.

I hear the scream erupt from my lungs as if it comes from someone else.

“Shh, shh.”

I clamp my hand over my mouth, and my eyelids snap open. And then I’m staring into Logan’s eyes, at the ocean waves he carries in his irises.

“Cass, I’m here. You’re home. You’re okay,” he soothes.

Slowly, I register Logan’s palms on each side of my face, the sight of his concerned gaze, the sound of his deep Scottish brogue. I inhale a deep breath through my nose, the familiar scent of salt-tipped air flooding my nostrils. In for two, out for two.

“A nightmare?”

I can feel a headache forming at the back of my skull, and it takes me a moment to understand what Logan’s asking.

“Yeah, I guess,” I answer noncommittally.

He doesn’t know about the terrors that haunted my dreams every single night for the first year after that day in the hotel room.

My unconscious mind replaying the memory on an endless loop, every viewing becoming darker, more frightening.

They’d stopped for a while, when I first moved to Koh Sang, but recently, as the third-year anniversary approaches, I feel my mind constantly returning to that hotel room, and the nightmares have returned, darker and more real than ever.

“What was it about?” he asks.

My heart is still beating erratically, and I swipe away a bead of sweat from my forehead. I force myself to breathe slowly, using the trick I teach my students. In, two, out, two. “I can’t remember,” I lie.

I realize with a start that my fingertips are tracing the line above my heart where my jagged skin has turned soft and stretched.

Logan thinks it’s from an accident. A car crash when I was in college.

A piece of glass from the windshield piercing my chest. The accident I managed to survive but that left me an orphan, my two remaining family members torn away in one fast movement of destruction.

He thinks that because I’ve made him think that.

I pull my hand away from my chest, not wanting to draw more attention to the scar than necessary.

Logan’s face slowly morphs from concern into his signature lopsided smile: his lips opened slightly, one side pulled up just a touch more than the other, a glitter reaching his dark blue eyes.

A stray strand of curls has broken loose from his messy ponytail to graze his chin, and the sight of it sends a flutter to my abdomen.

He leans his face closer to mine. “Well, whatever that dream was, it wasn’t real. But you know what is?” he asks teasingly.

He lifts my left hand up to his mouth, his lips grazing my knuckles, giving me a clear view of the gold band that, as of last night, has taken up permanent residence on my ring finger.

The thought still sends a ripple up my spine. He’s mine. I’m his. We’re all we need. No one else matters.

My eyes travel downward from his face to the identical ring hanging from the chain around his neck, perched on his tattooed chest.

I think back to last night, letting the good memories replace the residual panic from the nightmare.

Logan had gently pulled out that ring from where it lay tucked under his T-shirt moments after he’d held out a matching ring in a small red box in my direction.

Time seemed to freeze, my brain temporarily glitching, nothing making sense until I watched him lower himself onto the vinyl flooring of our patio, taking position on one knee.

He timed it perfectly as the sun descended into the sea, a fiery ball drowning in the water that left the sky smoldering in pinks and shimmering blues.

I held the ring in my hand a moment before slipping it on my finger.

“Look on the inside,” Logan had instructed, and I did. There, engraved in delicate cursive, lay our words. The phrase we say to each other before bed every night or whenever we separate. Our version of I love you .

“Forever us two,” I managed through the emotion growing thick in my throat.

“Forever us two,” Logan echoed. “It’s official now.”

It was the moment I had been waiting for since the night I first met Logan, two years ago. Since the first time I saw him, I knew. He would be the one to save me.

Tears filled my eyes as Logan continued. “You are everything to me, Cass Morris. When I was a young lad growing up, I dreamed I would find someone as loving and understanding as you, someone I could always turn to and trust. I can’t believe I found you. I must be the luckiest guy in the world.”

All I could do was nod as I listened, the tears breaching the levees of my eyelids.

I swallowed hard and tried to enjoy that moment completely, tried to pretend I was really the sweet, shy, loyal woman he fell in love with and not the girl from the hotel room three years ago who would turn on anyone she could to survive.

I lean forward to him now in our bed, craving the feeling of his lips on mine. But just as they touch, a sound crashes into our bedroom.

Thud, thud, thud .

I feel my body go rigid, my muscles clench.

“It’s only the door,” he says, frowning, his statement carrying a question.

“Of course,” I say in a rush, hoping he doesn’t notice my embarrassment. “That dream just felt so real.”

Logan rolls over, shifting his legs off the side of the bed as if making to get up.

“No, you stay,” I command. “You don’t work until the afternoon, and my alarm is about to go off anyway. It’s probably just Greta with an engagement present. You know how she is.”

I can already picture her at the door, ready to wrap me in a huge hug and shout about how difficult it was for her to keep this a secret for so long.

I feel a brief tinge of pity, thinking of Greta’s recent breakup.

The way Alice just up and left her and the entire life they built on this island without notice or apparent explanation.

But I push it away. This morning is for celebrating. I deserve to be happy for once.

“Look at you. Already the best fiancée I could ever ask for,” Logan says.

His comment sends a warm flush to my stomach, and I gently kiss his smiling lips before grabbing clothes that lie crumpled at the side of the bed—casualties from last night.

As I slip Logan’s T-shirt over my head, I pause briefly to look through the floor-to-ceiling windows that line our bedroom, giving us unbridled views of the sparkling, mountain-studded ocean.

Just like it always does, the beauty takes my breath away.

We moved into this house a year ago, each of us fed up with our respective living situations—Logan crashing in an apartment in Kumvit with Neil and Doug, and me in one of the hotel rooms that Frederic rents out to resort staff at decent rates.

As soon as we saw the house come on the market, we agreed we didn’t have a choice but to put in an offer.

It’s one of the only buildings this far up the hill, situated right next to the Khrum Yai trailhead.

But the view sealed the deal, the beauty of the island on display, as if it’s ours for the taking.

And in a way, it is. Koh Sang is our home, nestled in the Gulf of Thailand, far enough away from all the other backpacking islands that it hasn’t yet been tarnished by an overflow of tourists, like neighboring Koh Phangan or Koh Samui.

Today, the sea looks placid. Good news, given that we’re still very much in the rainy season. Every day is a gamble with the weather. But the sun is already well above the water, steadily ascending in the cloudless sky.

I walk through our living room and past the adjoining kitchen. With each step, I expect the knocking at the door to come again, but Greta seems to have given up for the time being. Either that or she’s heard me moving around.

I pause when I reach the front door, smoothing my hair down, hoping it doesn’t look like I’ve just rolled out of bed—which I have. No need to rub the engaged bliss in Greta’s face more than necessary. As I open the door, I’m smiling, ready to feign mock surprise at Greta’s presence.

But there’s no one there.

I step out, the humidity instantly sticking to my skin. Could Greta have gone already, thinking that Logan and I were out? I look down the sharp hill that leads back to the rest of the island. If she’d left, I would at least spot her motorbike speeding down the hill, but the road is empty.

My forehead scrunches in confusion. I think about texting Greta as I step back into the doorway, but my foot brushes against something.

It’s small enough that I managed to step over it without noticing.

A plain white envelope with my name—CASS—written across it in small capital letters in a handwriting I don’t instantly recognize as Greta’s. But it must be hers.

That explains it. She must have dropped it here as she knocked on the door, eager to make a quick getaway so as not to bother us. I find myself smiling again.

I pick up the envelope and take it inside, stopping at the kitchen table to open it. It’s light enough to be a card, but knowing Greta, it’s likely something more. Maybe tickets to some new destination? She can be a bit over the top when it comes to gifts.

I rip the envelope greedily, not bothering to wait for Logan. I’m excited to surprise him with whatever this might be.

Once opened, I realize it’s nothing more than a folded sheet of computer paper. I unfold it, curious.

Immediately, I drop it on the table, my fingers buzzing as if it’s burned me. I instinctively step back, away from the unfolded paper, my heart rate accelerating, my thoughts racing. I stumble a few steps and grab at a chair.

The whole time, I keep my eyes trained on the paper, at the black-and-white photo of a girl staring up at me, wide-eyed and crazed, guilt splayed across her face. Reporters and cameramen rush at her from all sides, buffeting her in a media circus.

The photo sits in a sea of dense, black text, the sole image on the printed news page.

At the top sits a note, scrawled in red marker.

I know who you are.

Then, beneath the article and the photograph lies more handwriting.

And soon everyone else will too.

I feel bile rise in my throat as the meaning of those words settles heavily around me. Everything I’ve accomplished in these last two years—this new identity, this new fiancé, this new life—comes crashing down.

“Was it Greta?” I hear Logan call from the bedroom.

It takes me several tries to answer. Each time I open my mouth, the sound sits trapped in my airway. My vision goes black, and I’m back in that hotel room. The knife in my hand, my blood on the blade.

“No—no one there,” I finally manage, praying that Logan can’t hear the strain in my voice. “Greta must have given up waiting.”

“Good,” he says. “Then come back to bed. We’re not done celebrating.”

I walk as if in a trance, stopping in the kitchen to fold up the paper and shove it in our junk drawer beneath a pile of takeout menus, somewhere I know Logan won’t find it. I should destroy it, but part of me needs to see it again, with a clearer head. To make sense of how this could happen.

Even when it’s out of sight, those words remain emblazoned on my mind. I know who you are . And the photo of that girl is everywhere I turn.

A girl I haven’t seen in years, who I made sure no longer exists.

The version of myself I left behind a long time ago.