I’M GLAD SHARP EDGES posted that. I’m glad somebody pointed it out. Oh look, here are two girls who know Tabby better than anyone, and if she didn’t work alone, she probably worked with one of them. Right?
I see both of them at school, and I watch them. Elle kind of slinks around like a shadow, like she’s guilty of something. Not how she was last year, her and Tabitha always loud and over the top, like they were trying to one-up each other. Maybe they were, and Tabitha won, because Hey bitches, I killed my boyfriend, what did you do last weekend?
And Bridget—well, she has always been a wallpaper girl. You know, the kind you don’t really notice until somebody points her out, and you realize she has been there the whole time. I don’t have any siblings—pretty sure my parents didn’t even want me and I’m here because of some divine condom mishap that I seriously don’t want to think about. I never would have thought Bridget was capable of anything, but when she came up to me that day at my car, I saw another side of her. A side that looked a lot like Tabby.
Anyway, whatever. Beck is on his way over here, and my mom isn’t home, so we can be alone together. I’m dying to talk to him about all this, but I also want to not talk, you know? I can hear his motorcycle, which means he’s actually on time, which almost never happens. He must want to see me as badly as I want to see him.
I swing the door open before he can even knock on it.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, but it’s short and clipped, not his usual long drawl. I throw my arms around his neck—he’s wearing this sweatshirt that smells like cigarettes, gross—but he kind of stiffens and pulls back.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“You’re not gonna like this,” he says, crossing his arms. “But I think we should cool down for a while.”
He’s still on the porch. I’m in the foyer, leaning against the door, dragging my sock across the tile floor. I’m not actually hearing what he’s saying because, seriously, he didn’t even make it to the welcome mat before trying to break up with me.
“Cool down,” I repeat. “We’ve barely seen each other lately. You never respond to my texts.”
“I know,” he says, his boot tapping on the ground—I can’t tell if he’s nervous or just wants to get this over with. “Look, I’m sorry. But there’s a lot of shit going on in my head right now. I don’t think we should hang out until I figure it all out.”
Hang out. Like we aren’t anything more than that.
“Seriously? You’re being such an asshole. Is this because of Tabby?”
He stares at the ground, and his hair swings over his cheek, and I want to cut it off and cut him off and stop always caring about the wrong people.
“I just wanted to tell you to your face,” he says. “I’m sorry, okay? You deserve to be with someone who can be all in.”
“Wow. Fuck you,” I say. I wish I had a better comeback. I’ll think of one later, when my head is on my pillow and all my thoughts are swirling above, a mishmash of everything I said and didn’t say.
“I know,” he says. “I’m an asshole. But there’s so much going on right now.” I shit you not—for a hot second, it looks like he’s about to cry. Like, something scared Beck Rutherford. “I might actually go to jail.”
And as much as I want to punch him in the face, I also want to hug him and tell him everything will be okay. Even though it might not.
“You’re not going to jail,” I say. “You had nothing to do with it.”
“I didn’t kill Mark,” he says. “But it’s like they’re trying to prove I did.”
Now, I’m severely annoyed. Beck doesn’t believe in himself at all, and he needs somebody who does. He needs somebody to believe him. To prove Tabby did it alone and that he wasn’t involved.
And maybe I’m the only one who knows them both well enough to figure it out.
THE NATIONAL NEWS RING
October 23, 2019
“This isn’t her first time”: Former classmates speak up about Blue-Eyed Boyfriend Killer
By Darla Burns
Several former students of Chester Prep School in Rochester, New York, have come forward to reveal exclusively to the Ring that Tabitha Cousins, the Blue-Eyed Boyfriend Killer, had a history of getting what she wanted—at any cost.
“Everyone knows what she did to Jordan Bosch,” said a source, who used to date Jordan in high school. “She ruined his life, then her family mysteriously moves away and she starts at a new school. It’s really not a surprise that a few years later, she ruins some other guy’s life, too.”
According to two other former classmates, Cousins was at a party with Bosch and had previously told a friend that she wanted to lose her virginity to him.
“She was really serious about it,” said Kennedy Baker, Cousins’s former best friend. “She was willing to do whatever it took to make it happen.”
Baker lost track of Cousins at the party, but Cousins left with Bosch, who consequently crashed his car, ending his promising football career. Reports showed Bosch’s blood alcohol level was over the legal limit. Cousins was uninjured in the crash, but faced vicious rumors at school, which sources speculate was a reason why her parents uprooted the family to Coldcliff.
“She said it was because of her dad’s job,” Baker said. “But we all knew the truth. She was done in Rochester. It was time to move on to somewhere else. And someone else.”
Attempts to reach Bosch for an interview were not returned, but his father, who separated from his mother last year, says his son has moved on and made something of his life.
“Whatever happened with that girl, he moved past it,” said Jack Bosch. “He doesn’t want to be dragged back into it.”
Cousins is being held at a juvenile detention center until her upcoming trial.
COMMENTS: (57 previous)
AlleyCat: Okay she looks like a baby prostitute in that pic. I wouldn’t let my kid out of the house wearing that.
SkullNBonesXX: I heard about that story way back when. Jordan went to my HS. What do you wanna bet he wasn’t even driving the car?
TakeMeAway: The friend just wants her 15 min of fame. All these people do. This trash website just eats it right up.
BethWanderer: WTF is with this reporter painting the boys as golden all the time? I knew Jordan in college. Guess what, he’s totally capable of being a drunk driver and crashing his car, and I bet he led the girl on. What was she, 13? Just saying.