MY MOM’S COMPUTER is password protected now, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to guess the password every time she’s in the shower or at the gym or getting coffee with a girlfriend. I’m not even sure why I care so much about hacking into her computer. It’s not like I’m expecting to find something about Tabby. I guess I’m just bored, and bored girls usually have very interesting appetites.
You can’t really blame me. I mean, yes, Keegan did it, and I have no idea why I didn’t see that he was a psycho sooner. (I was alone in the woods with him! Honestly, I’m never doing that again.) He knew where he was going, and he had that map, and he lied to me about when he printed it. Plus, there was the Gatorade bottle with some of his DNA on it, buried by the creek, and all that stuff on his internet search history. I thought he was kind of a sad loser, but he’s so much creepier than I ever thought. He keeps saying he didn’t do it.
It’s not like I believe him. It’s just, something he said in his last interview kind of got to me. It feels like he was trying to talk directly to me. I had nothing to do with Mark Forrester’s death. I know somebody out there must believe me. Yeah, I made mistakes, but Tabby was the mastermind. She pulled it off. There has to be proof somewhere.
There has to be proof somewhere. And I’m maybe the only one who can find it. I don’t owe it to Keegan, or Beck (God, I have no idea what I ever saw in him—we are so over!), or even my readers at Sharp Edges. I owe it to myself, because the truth is what really keeps me warm at night in a way no boy ever will.
There are a few holes in Keegan’s story, but I keep coming back to the Gatorade. Why not take the bottle with him? Why leave it there? People are saying it was some kind of trophy, but Keegan seems smarter than that. Pretty much it’s assumed that he panicked and had nowhere to put it—there aren’t many garbage cans in the woods, and he was meeting Kyla and didn’t want to take any evidence with him.
He claims he didn’t even drink Gatorade that day. He says Tabby must have taken an empty bottle from his apartment and had Mark drink out of it, too, because that explains how both their DNA ended up on it. I’m not sure what I believe, but, like, he’s pretty fucked, excuse my language. The odds are most definitely not in his favor.
I got coffee with Tabby once during the summer, at the Starbucks downtown. It was like having a celebrity friend—well, what I imagined it would be like. People stopped to talk to her, to tell her they always knew she was innocent. A couple girls wanted her autograph and asked about her book. She was so patient with everyone, the smile never leaving her face. I wondered how she did it.
“Everyone is so nice,” she said when it was just the two of us, iced coffees sweating on the table between us. “When you’re not a threat anymore.”
It was a weird thing to say. But who am I to judge? I mean, I’ve never been in juvie. I’m sure it messes you up. There were a lot of things I wanted to say to Tabby, about being sorry for being a bitch and stuff, but I never said a single one. Maybe because I wasn’t, and I’m not. Maybe because she hasn’t apologized for taking Blanche and messing with my head about the scout.
That night was when I thought of a place that Keegan’s somewhere might be. My mom’s computer. I have no idea if my mom still sees Tabby or not, but she got to meet one-on-one with her. She must have some kind of opinion.
I’ve tried every combination of password. My mom’s middle name, her maiden name, her favorite wine, all the place names she talks about wanting to visit. Today, I’m just about ready to give up when I try a name I haven’t yet. Mine. Louisa.
And just like that, I’m in. Kind of embarrassing that it took me that long, right? Don’t tell my Sharp Edges readers.
My mom is out for a run, which means I probably don’t have much time left. Luckily, she has file folders for each patient labeled with their last name. I click on Cousins and see the same document I saw before—same format—but totally different content. This doesn’t even sound like the same girl.
Speaks about her paranoia and has nightmares. Trouble sleeping, feelings of isolation and guilt. Afraid to admit to anyone that she thinks her sister played a role in Mark Forrester’s death. Scared her sister isn’t who she says she is.
I pause on the last line, then scroll back up to the top. The file isn’t about Tabby at all. It’s about B. Cousins. Bridget. I don’t see the other file at all and now I’m wondering if I misread the name, or if my mom sees both Cousins girls.
That doesn’t matter. What does is that Tabby’s own sister thinks she did it.
I’m dizzy, slumping against the back of my mom’s chair. The sun shines in hard from the street, slanting into her office window and making yellow pools on her desk. A familiar laugh makes me jerk up—she’s back from her run, chatting with our neighbor. I click out of Bridget’s folder and watch my mother, in her spandex tights, put a hand on Mr. Roth’s shoulder. Maybe he’s the one from the bar. Or maybe he’s the one now, and there will always be a one.
I close her laptop and slink out of her office, leaving everything exactly where she left it. I think about visiting Bridget Cousins, about somehow finding a way to ask her everything. But Tabby lives there, too, under the same roof, guarding her sister like a dragon. Maybe Bridget is just troubled, just confused. Or maybe she’s the only one close enough to understand what we all missed.