I sat on one of the Kensington Gardens park benches that lined the walkways. I’d taken a photo of the statue of Peter Pan and posted it to Instagram so Nicki would know where to find me. I didn’t bother with any kind of message. She was clever. She would know where I was and why I wanted to see her. Then I waited.
There weren’t many people out this early. A few joggers and moms pushing baby carriages. I clenched my hands into fists and released them, my fingernails leaving dark red crescent moons in my palms.
“There you are!” Nicki called out. She was already swinging her leg off her bike as she coasted up. The bike wheels crunched through the gravel like the sound of cereal in milk. She wore a flowery dress with a full skirt. She looked as if she belonged on the cover of a romance novel.
I hurled the tiny jar at her and it hit her chest with a thump before falling to the base of the statue and shattering in a firework burst of glass and powder.
Nicki dropped her bike and rubbed her breastbone. “Hey, that hurt—”
She didn’t finish because I’d flown through the distance between us and punched her in the face, my knuckles connecting with her jaw with a meaty whack. Her head jerked back.
She stumbled over her bike, going down on one knee before quickly popping up and scrambling three steps back.
“Hey, you girls, what are you up to?” an elderly man yelled over, his accent thick and almost unintelligible.
I backed up. I panted with rage. The bones in my fist felt as if they’d exploded on impact. I shook my hand, trying to get the stinging to stop. I’d never hit anyone before in my life. Adrenaline pumped through my body; it felt as though every muscle was throbbing with energy. I wanted to hit her again. If that guy hadn’t been around, I might have done it.
“We’re fine,” Nicki said. The man walked away but kept shooting glances at us over his shoulder, hitching up his baggy sweatpants, until he was out of sight. “Let me see your phone.”
I fished it out, showed her that the record function wasn’t on, and then dropped it into my bag. She pointed at my chest and I lifted my shirt so she could see I wasn’t wearing a wire. Nicki looked me up and down and then lightly touched the side of her mouth. She pulled her fingers back. They were smeared red. The tip of her pink tongue darted out and licked away the blood. Then she smiled.
“I didn’t think you had that in you.”
“You stay away from him,” I whispered. All the anger that had built up since finding that small jar on my bed was gone, burned up in the one punch. I clenched my fist and pain shot into my wrist and to my elbow and then to my shoulder. I might have broken a finger. I didn’t care. “He could have died.” My voice cracked on the last word.
Nicki bent down and righted her bike, nudging the kickstand into place so the bicycle was propped up at the side of the walkway. “You say it like I should be surprised. That was the entire point.” She brushed her skirt, ridding it of nonexistent dirt. “I had to make you understand that I mean business. I realized that all the time I’d been threatening to tell the police that you were the one who killed Connor, I’d been going about it the wrong way. You don’t much care what people think at this point. And clearly the concept that you might go to jail wasn’t enough.” She held up a finger as if making a point. “But ah, threaten the boy genius and that was a game changer.”
“His name is Alex.”
She stepped past me, brushing my shoulder. Her perfume smelled like oranges and baby powder. I wanted to rub the sweet smell out of my nose. Nicki sat on the park bench. “Is this some kind of thing where you try to personalize him so that I’ll feel bad? It’s like when vegans call a pig Wilbur. It’s supposed to make you turn to broccoli over bacon if the creature has a name.”
Is that how she sees all of us? Like livestock? “Leave him out of this.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. It had grown longer since we’d first met; it no longer popped right back out. “I wasn’t the one who dragged him into this—that was you. You’re the one playing Romeo and Juliet with the nerd king . . .” She smirked at my expression. “My apologies—you’re the one playing Romeo and Juliet with Alex, instead of doing what you need to do.”
“I’m going to the police.”
“And telling them what, exactly? First off, right now everyone thinks it was an accident. I mean really, what kind of food handling can you expect from a restaurant like that?”
“Shut up,” I snarled.
“I’m not trying to offend your merry band of Thai friends; I’m merely pointing out that right now it’s just one of those things that can happen. If you go to the police with a wild conspiracy theory, it opens up other options for them to consider.”
“Like what?”
“Like that maybe you did it.”
I wanted to rip my hair out in frustration. “Why would I do it?”
“You’re a troubled girl. Perhaps you made him sick because you wanted to save him. Then he’d be in love with you. There’s even some kind of name for that—I’ve read about it in those insipid women’s magazines my mother loves so much. The articles all have titles like ‘The Girl Who Loved Him to Death,’ with a lot of color photos and exclamation marks.” Nicki paused to smile at a young mom pushing a toddler in a stroller. She waved at the little girl, who waved back, her tiny pink starfish hand opening and closing.
I waited until the mother was out of view. “I would never hurt Alex. I’m in love with him.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized they were true. That was another thing Nicki had ruined. The first time I acknowledged that feeling should have been to Alex, not to her.
“I know that, and you know that, but given everything else, plus the evidence . . .”
I clenched my jaw. The wind rustled through the trees. “What evidence,” I got out.
She motioned to my tote bag. I pulled it open. Lying on top was an EpiPen.
I dropped the bag to the ground as if it were on fire. When she’d brushed past me, touching my shoulder, she must have slipped it in.
“Now, that’s not actually his. It’s a spare I picked up. But it could be his, and think how that would look?” She tsked.
“How?” I asked. “How did you get the shrimp powder into his food?”
Nicki rocked back and forth on the bench as if excited. “How do you think?”
“Did you bribe the kitchen staff?”
She looked disappointed. “Of course not. Never involve other people—it just causes trouble. Look at all the headaches you’ve caused me, for example. Makes me wish I could handle my mother on my own. It would be far easier.”
“Did you slip into the kitchen somehow? But that meant you knew we would be there. And you knew about his allergy.”
“He told me that eons ago.” She looked down at her nails. “Or I should say, he told Erin. It’s remarkable what people will tell you if you pretend to be interested in them. And you never know how the information will be useful. It almost makes listening to people blather worthwhile.”
Nicki patted the seat next to her. “C’mon, sit with me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No.”
She sighed as if I were being difficult. “I know what you’re doing, by the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re avoiding the problem. You’re hoping it will all go away, that you can get on a plane in another two days, fly home, and all of this will be some kind of horrid bad dream.” She waved her hands in front of her face. “Like you’re some kind of magician that can make all of this disappear by simply stalling.”
“You can’t make me do anything. You can’t make me be like you.”
She stood up. “Oh, please. You’re already like me. That’s why I picked you. You’ve never fit in with other people. They’ve never made sense to you. You told me that yourself. You’ve always been manipulating things to try to blend in with all of them . . .” Her hand gestured to include the people walking in the distance. “What I’m trying to make you understand is that there’s no point in blending in. Those people are pointless. You’re the one who’s worth something. The only reason you don’t act is because you’ve been afraid.”
Nicki stepped closer to me. We were just inches apart, close enough that I could smell the mint on her breath from her toothpaste and see the red mark by her mouth where I’d hit her. She reached up and tenderly brushed the hair off my face. “You’re smarter than them. They’re the ones who will need you at some point, not the other way around, so why not use them to get what you want?”
“This is about what you want,” I spat back, but I didn’t move away. If I moved, she would likely strike, like a snake.
“Perhaps. But I got you what you wanted first, so this is just a payback. I believe in keeping the ledger even. When I do something for someone, I expect them to return the favor. And when someone crosses me, then I’m sure to make them pay. You’re right, though—I can’t make you do it.”
“But?”
“But I can make you wish you had.”
I stepped back as if pulling away from a spell she was weaving. “What does that even mean?”
Nicki walked over to her bike and kicked up the stand. “It means you owe me. You can go to the police, but you have no evidence. You can run home, back to Vancouver if you want, but you’ll eventually pay. It will almost be worse if you insist on putting this off, because you never know when I’ll come to collect. Maybe something else happens to Alex. He can’t avoid food forever. And your dad, doesn’t he cycle to work? I think I saw that on your mom’s blog. How very environmentally responsible. People have accidents on bikes all the time.”
All the blood in my body slid down toward my feet, leaving me pale and ice cold as she talked.
“Or I still have the list you wrote about Connor. Maybe I save it up for later to send to the police. When you’re about to graduate, for example. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. But you know what you can be one hundred percent certain of?”
I opened my mouth but at first nothing came out and I had to swallow. “No—what?”
“I won’t forget the debt. And I will collect it. In fact, it would be more fun to wait, letting you fret and wonder when everything in your life finally will blow up. I can be very patient.” She climbed onto the bike, one foot still on the ground, the other on a pedal. “Or you take this final opportunity and kill my mother tonight. It’s your last chance. You do that and I promise you I go away.”
“How do I know that you will?”
“You have to trust me,” she said.
I snorted. “That’s just perfect.”
She scrunched up her face. “Now, that’s not fair. I’ve kept every one of my promises to you. You do this and we’re done. Consider it my gift to you.”
“A gift?”
“Then you’ll know what you’re really capable of. After that, nothing will hold you back.” Nicki pushed off and started to cycle away. “Just imagine what you might accomplish!”