I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES Tabby now. I mean, me and my parents. She’s here, but she’s not here. There are news vans camped outside. I wonder about the people inside them, if they have anything better to do. Tabby stands at the window and watches them.
“They’re making this my fault,” she says tonight, when we’re watching Tabby’s beloved Housewives in our pajamas. “They were always going to make it my fault. I have too many demons.”
“Everyone has a past,” I say. “They can’t hold it against you.”
She runs a finger over her eyebrow. “Not only can they hold it against me, but they’ll make it into a weapon and impale me with it.”
I don’t laugh, until she does, and she feels like regular Tabby again, not the girl I see online. Not the Blue-Eyed Boyfriend Killer, the face that launched a thousand comments. She’s makeup-free, hair in a neat bun, and she doesn’t look capable of hurting anyone.
“It’s about time something about this was funny.” Tabby gets up and grabs our empty popcorn bowl. “This house is like a tomb. Mom and Dad don’t even know how to act human in front of me anymore.”
She’s right. Mom and Dad are more like apparitions than people lately. Their heads are constantly down and they speak in hushed tones about everything that happened. They vacillate between ignoring Tabby and overcompensating by sucking up to her—Mom takes her Starbucks order pretty much daily, and today she came home with a new pair of fleece slippers. You’re stuck in the house, but at least you’re properly caffeinated with warm feet! Sometimes I catch Dad staring at Tabby like he has no idea who she is. I guess he hasn’t for a long time.
There were flowers on our porch today. I read the card. Can we talk?? I don’t know who sent them, or who needs to talk to her. I suffocated the bouquet in a big black garbage bag and stuffed it in the garage before anyone could see.
They reminded me of the flowers that showed up for Tabby last fall. They were orchids, blue and purple ones that weren’t found in nature, that had to be dyed to look that way. Tabby’s favorite. I saw them lined up on her dresser, the orchids, like little soldiers. They were cheap, the kind that came from a grocery store, and they were already wilting, even the newer ones. There was a note on her desk that must have gone with one of the bouquets. Because u know why.
I rolled my eyes. Mark was prelaw at Princeton and couldn’t even bother to spell out the word you.
Then I went back into my own room and started a list that I would continue adding to for months to come: How to get rid of Mark, which I tore up when the police first came to our house. In confetti form in my wicker garbage basket, it didn’t seem so threatening anymore.
“I meant to ask,” Tabby says now, shuffling into the kitchen to open the fridge. “What did he want to talk to you about? Stewart. What did he ask?”
I stare at my feet, my socks dingy against the light hardwood of the living room floor. “I already told you. Just like, the sequence of events. Basic stuff. I didn’t tell them anything.”
She shuts the door hard, clutching a Saran Wrap–covered bowl of the macaroni and cheese Mom made for dinner last night. “There’s something I have to talk to you about.”
She makes me promise it’ll stay between us. And I’m good at keeping promises.
Excerpt from Tabby’s Diary
October 24, 2018
I’m pretty sure I’m not just paranoid. There are other girls. Keegan basically admitted it. I’m sure that’s why homecoming weekend was so awkward. Part of me is kind of relieved that it’s not just in my head, but the rest of me is devastated. I guess I was his summer fun. I don’t know why he doesn’t just break up with me.
UPPER HAND CRIME
September 30, 2019
New evidence rocks case of fallen hiker
By Angie Watts
Police have uncovered new evidence in the death of Mark Forrester, 20, who was killed last month when he fell from a lookout point in Coldcliff, Colorado’s Queen Anne’s Woods. Strands of hair were found on the creek bed of Claymore Creek, where Forrester drowned. DNA testing of the hair is expected to definitively link Forrester’s death to his former girlfriend, Tabitha Cousins, 17.
Police are currently investigating footprints near the creek bed and on the surrounding trails, a task that will likely be fraught with challenges given the popularity of the Mayflower Trail circuit. The trails draw hikers to Coldcliff, a town thirty miles south of Boulder, especially in the spring and fall seasons.