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THERE IS NOT A FEELING like the hollow ache, deep in my stomach, over facing one of the hardest decisions of my life. Jessie has been the best friend that I’ve ever had, without question. I never doubted her moral compass for a minute, not until the night I found the smoking gun. The simple pad of paper that instantaneously turned my closest confidant into someone I didn’t even know.
Every step of the process is painful. The silent drive to the police station, using my free hand to fold and unfold the sheet of stationary I tore from that pad. The minutes that feel like hours spent in the lobby of the station, wondering if I’m doing the right thing. Admitting to the officer on duty that I’d got it all wrong. I lived through the summer of 1999 at Camp Shady Oaks, researched the events for years, wrote a book about it, and still, I got it wrong. It was my best friend the entire time. Right under my nose. The woman I spend more time with each week than anyone else has been hiding this horrible secret from me and I’m the idiot that never suspected a thing.
Watching Jessie get led away in handcuffs, knowing I’m the only family she’s got, and I just gave her up. I’ll never again see her without plexiglass between us.
I hear the phone ring and I’m snapped out of my daydream, the one that has become all too common. Overanalyzing all the things I’m going to experience if I do turn Jessie in.
I’ve been carrying a haphazardly torn sheet of paper from the stationary with me for months. The stationary that changed everything. The 8.5 by 11-inch pastel piece of paper that turned my sweet, kind-hearted best friend into someone capable of murder and framing an innocent person for it, who isn’t alive to defend herself. This is the kind of scenario I write about in my novels. I’m trying to think of a solution that wouldn’t have me screaming at the absurdity of the story’s main character if this were a book. If the story is being told from the main character’s point of view, how would I even explain that she had no idea her best friend in the world was capable of this? None of her memories from that night make sense anymore. Talk about an unreliable narrator.
The paper is currently folded up in my back pocket and my thumb continues to glide over its edges as I casually hang my hands in my jeans while leaning in the doorway to Jessie’s office. I’ve tried to bring it up so many times; I just can’t find the words. I haven’t even told Aiden. It's this enormous secret that I’ve kept from my best friend and my husband and it’s eating me alive. I haven’t slept a full night since discovering the pad of paper in her office. I wake every morning with the kind of nausea deep in my stomach that comes after a sleepless night. Normally, Jessie is the first person I tell all my secrets to.
“I can’t help but notice that Bruce is a little relaxed about the security monitoring since he and Christy started dating. He let a DoorDash driver through the gates today without asking me if I ordered anything first.”
“Well, did you?” I ask.
“I mean, it was lunchtime, and I was starving,” Jessie responds.
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Jessie’s just mad because Bruce and Christy are in love and she can’t find anyone desperate enough to date her,” Aiden says, startling me as he flies by me in the doorway and throws a bright orange slice of cheese at Jessie, which lands with a slapping noise on her desk.
“Piss off, Brooks!” she says with an eye roll, before peeling cheese off the wood in front of her and tossing it in her wastebasket. “Also, you’re a millionaire, quit walking around with slices of Kraft cheese. It’s fucking weird.”
“I’m rich, so it’s not weird; it’s eccentric,” he says with a wink, before giving me a quick kiss on the temple on his way out the door. I fight back a smile.
“I’ll keep an eye on Bruce,” I tell Jessie. What I don’t tell her is that, since the threats ceased, I barely feel the need to even have security. The worst kinds of harassment I receive these days is from self-righteous Goodreads reviewers who say I’m overrated and write like a middle school student who got held back three grades. I keep Bruce on the payroll as a favor, and frankly because I like having him around. Since he and Christy began their little love affair, they’ve both been in a fog of new relationship bliss every day and it’s nice being around that kind of positivity. Now that my anxiety is under control, I’m not entirely sure I need Christy, either, but I have no plans to let either of them go.
Neither Bruce nor Christy had taken a real vacation in years, so I strong-armed them into taking a week off this summer. They did a waterfall tour of the Upper Peninsula and had the time of their lives. I couldn’t believe how quiet and lonely the house felt without them; even though Aiden lives here now, and Jessie is around most days. I guess I missed the routine.
“Hey, could I talk to you for a minute?” Jessie asks. Her eyes are darting around and she’s fidgeting with her hands. This is it.
I mentally rehearse the speech I’ve practiced a thousand times since finding the stationary. I know these conversations never go as planned and I’ll probably forget half of my talking points. I realize our relationship will probably be cut into two different distinct chapters: before I hear her confession and after. I’m ready. After this, our lives will never be the same. I close the door behind me, before taking a seat in the leather chair directly in front of her desk.
“Of course, we can talk about anything. You should know that.”
I cross my arms over my chest by habit, before registering that this probably makes me seem unapproachable. I want her to feel like she can tell me everything. Every last detail. I uncross my arms and rest my hands on my lap. I try my best not to fidget. I make fierce, compassionate eye contact.
“What’s up, Jess?”
“Quinn, you’re my best friend. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I’d never do anything to hurt you, but I’ve been keeping a secret from you and it’s eating me alive.”
Deep breath.
“Okay, I’m sure we can work it out. What did you do?”
She gives a nervous laugh.
“Why do you assume I did something?”
I sit a little straighter.
“Sorry.”
“I need you to please just give me a chance to explain myself before you get mad.”
“Jess, when is the last time I’ve gotten mad at anyone around here? C’mon. Spit it out.”
She stops picking at her cuticles and places both hands on the desk in front of her before sharply inhaling.
“Quinn, I’ve been dating your brother. We’re in love.”