Page 75 of We Were Liars

I brING MY laptop to the bed and create a document. I take down my graph-paper notes and begin typing those and all my new memories, fast and with a thousand errors. I fill in gaps with guesses where I don’t have actual recall.

The Sinclair Center for Socialization and Snacks.

You won’t see that boyfriend of yours again.

He wants me to stay the hell away from you.

We adore Windemere, don’t we, Cady?

Aunt Carrie, crying in Johnny’s Windbreaker.

Gat throwing balls for the dogs on the tennis court.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

The dogs.

The fucking dogs.

Fatima and Prince Philip.

The goldens died in that fire.

I know it now, and it is my fault. They were such naughty dogs, not like Bosh, Grendel, and Poppy, whom Mummy trained.

Fatima and Prince Philip ate starfish on the shore, then vomited them up in the living room.

They shook water from their shaggy fur, snarfled people’s picnic lunches, chewed Frisbees into hunks of unusable plastic.

They loved tennis balls and would go down to the court and slime any that had been left around.

They would not sit when told. They begged at the table.

When the fire caught, the dogs were in one of the guest bedrooms. Granddad often closed them in upstairs while Clairmont was empty, or at night. That way they wouldn’t eat people’s boots or howl at the screen door.

Granddad had shut them up before he left the island.

And we hadn’t thought of them.

I had killed those dogs. It was I who lived with dogs, I who knew where Prince Philip and Fatima slept. The rest of the Liars didn’t think about the goldens—not very much, anyway. Not like I did.

They had burned to death. How could I have forgotten them like that? How could I have been so wrapped up in my own stupid criminal exercise, the thrill of it, my own anger at the aunties and Granddad—

Fatima and Prince Philip, burning. Sniffing at the hot door, breathing in smoke, wagging their tails hopefully, waiting for someone to come and get them, barking.

What a horrible death for those poor, dear, naughty dogs.