THE SECOND FLOOR was dark and quiet, the only light and sound coming from the living room. Jenny inched up against a small patch of wall between the staircase and an open door to another room—staying in the hallway as instructed. She closed her eyes to focus her senses on hearing the conversation downstairs.
“What are you doing here?” Mr. Renkin asked whoever it was.
“Seriously? That’s how you’re going to greet me?”
Jenny recognized the voice immediately, and honestly, she should have known the houseguest was Ms. Willoughby. Not every person out in the night was a scary bad guy.
“Sorry,” Mr. Renkin said, the insincerity making it all the way up the stairs to Jenny. “We talked about this. You can’t just show up.”
“You know, that sounds really fucking shady. Is there someone here? Upstairs?” Ms. Willoughby asked, footsteps moving toward the stairs.
Jenny seized before slipping into the first open door. She stayed near the door, out of sight but close enough to listen.
“You can’t always jump to that,” Mr. Renkin scolded her. “Every time you don’t agree with me, you can’t accuse me of cheating. It’s immature.”
The footsteps halted. Ms. Willoughby scoffed, “I’m immature? I’m your girlfriend, and not only will you not let me move in, I have to schedule appointments to come over. You want to live this bachelor fantasy, but you’re old and it’s a really pathetic look.”
“Oh, now you’re really changing my mind.”
“Well, something is going to change, because I can’t. I can’t with this. Not again.”
“What are you saying?” he pressed.
“You’ll see,” she said.
Jenny braced herself for things to get really ugly. Mr. Renkin didn’t love being threatened. Would he yell? Would he hurt her?
“Hunter,” he whispered, doing a compete 180. “I don’t like when you get upset. You know you’re my everything.”
“It doesn’t fucking feel like it,” she shot back, but softer and already cracking.
“Come here,” he said. Jenny wished she could see them. Where was this going? She thought of the night in the courtyard at the dance. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Babe, I made one mistake. I know I hurt you, but it was over ten years ago. I regret it every day,” he insisted.
Ten years ago, Jenny thought. These people were freaking old. Jenny was barely out of diapers ten years ago. Ten years ago. Jenny was three years old ten years ago. When Jenny was three, Virginia still lived at home. Virginia was still in high school when she lived at home. Ten years ago Virginia was still in high school having sex with her math teacher. Even in her exhaustion, and with the horror of what had happened tonight still threatening to crush her, Jenny’s mind led her to the only possible conclusion: Virginia was the mistake, the mistake that had hurt Hunter.