TABBY YANKS A BRUSH through my hair. “I didn’t do anything wrong. This is so fucking typical. Everyone always believes the guy. I hate living in this world.”
As if there was another option.
I’m going to school today—it’s the second week back, and the first day of cross-country practice—so Tabby got up early to put my hair in two French braids, the same way she did it last year, when I was a freshman. I’m superstitious like that, especially since last year was my big moment. She has so much potential, Coach Taylor told Dad at my first meet—I won a silver medal I barely had to work for. She could go far. I wasn’t used to the attention, but I liked it.
She liked the attention. Some anonymous classmate said that about my sister. The video ripped through the internet like wildfire. Reporters have been calling our landline—I have no idea how they got the phone number, but they want to talk to Tabby. At least, they say they want to talk to Tabby, but really they just want to talk about her. About her temper, suddenly legendary.
“I’m sorry,” I say as her fingers work methodically in my hair. “This isn’t fair.”
“Life’s never fair for us.” She yanks just hard enough to hurt. “You’ll tell me what they say, right?”
Tabby got a three-day suspension for pushing Lance Peterson in the hall, then my parents decided it would be best if she didn’t go back to school until things settle down. Detectives have been poking around, stealing Tabby away to talk, leaving cold half cups of coffee on our granite countertop. Mom and Dad seem sure that things will settle down, that life will go back to normal. I’m not so sure.
I have this feeling it will only get worse.
“I’ll tell you what they say, but don’t listen. They’re losers.”
I don’t even know why she wants to hear it, why she’s desperate for every word, like it’s her new sustenance. I guess she’s bored, sitting at home. I don’t know what she does all day.
Now she loops her arms around my neck and hugs me from behind. In the bathroom mirror, I look at our faces pressed together, similar but so different. Tabby’s electric eyes, the freckles summer brought out on her nose. Her hair is naturally reddish like mine, but she has been dyeing it black since we came to Coldcliff. Raven, the color is called. It comes from a box.
“What are you going to do today?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes, her cheek still adhered to mine. “I don’t know. Elle’s bringing my homework over later. I guess I’ll find some way to entertain myself.”
For some reason, I don’t like the thought of Tabby at home alone.
I’m not denying that she has a temper. I’m her sister—I’ve probably seen it more than anyone. When we were kids, she once cut the hair off all our Barbies because I had the one she wanted and wouldn’t trade. After she and Beck broke up she went into the backyard and screamed at the top of her lungs. Just screamed at the sky, like it made any difference, being loud. Maybe it did. I mean, if you’re a girl, too, you know what it’s like to basically be told on a daily basis to be quiet.
“Go out there and kill it today,” she says. “Show them exactly who you are.”
Kill it. Not exactly a great choice of words. But that’s something I love about my sister—she doesn’t sift her thoughts, trying to find the perfect words for any given situation. She says what’s on her mind and thinks about the consequences later. It’s an honest quality, and one that most people don’t have anymore.
When I get home from practice, French braids still intact—I did kill it, I didn’t spend the summer running every day not to—Tabby is at the kitchen table, cross-legged on a chair. She’s not alone.
There’s a cop with her.
Obviously the cops already questioned Tabby. And like I said—they’ve been around, the cops and detectives. She told them everything about that night. What else could they possibly have to ask her?
“Hey, Bridge,” she says, turning around. “This is Stewart.” She sounds almost bored.
I fiddle with the zipper on my shirt. I imagine zipping myself up. Stuffing away all the things I thought about Mark. The things I said to him.
The thing I did.
“It’s Detective Stewart,” he says. He’s pissed off. He doesn’t like my sister. She told me that when she got home from being questioned the first time, her eyes red and bleary. That cop hates me, Bridge.
“What’s he doing here?” As soon as I say it, I realize how wrong it sounds. I’m talking about him like he isn’t in the same room. “I just—I thought he already talked to you a bunch of times.”
“I did,” Stewart—Detective Stewart—says. “I’m here to talk to you, Bridget.”
DAILY CAMERA LENS
September 12, 2019
Hiker’s girlfriend suspected in murder after backpack found
By Bryce Jules
Nearly four weeks after Princeton student Mark Forrester, 20, was found dead in Coldcliff’s Claymore Creek, police divers have retrieved a backpack from the creek, filled with rocks, which they believe Forrester had on his back when he plunged into the water from the Split, nearly forty feet above him.
Records from the Boulder REI store show that Forrester’s girlfriend, Tabitha Cousins, 17, purchased the backpack for him as a birthday gift in late July. Cousins has been under scrutiny since Forrester’s death, with a video of her assaulting a male classmate going viral last week.
Cousins did not return our request for comments.