I TOOK IT ON MY PHONE. I don’t even know why. It was too dark that night to see much anyway, and you can barely make out that it’s Tabby and Mark. But maybe the only way to fight their fire is to come back with our own. Besides, I’m the reason this happened. I’m the one who started the tidal wave and sucked Tabby into every current.
I’m the source. I’m the one who sent that video to the Button. People can think what they want. I guess I should have known they’d jump to defend the blurry shadow they’re trying to say isn’t even Mark and could be any guy.
But I was there. I saw it. He pushed her on purpose. Yes, she was yelling, but so was he.
Maybe when they were on the Split, he tried to do the same thing. He pushed. And she pushed back.
If she did, can you really blame her? What would you have done?
No, honestly. Think about it. Think about being that high up. You’re probably already scared of heights, so there’s that. And the person you’re with takes up more space than you do. And he’s raging, and his arms are outstretched, and they make contact with you, just for a second. Do your arms go up to protect yourself? Is it fight, or literal flight?
Because the more I think about it, the more I believe somebody had to go over the edge that day. And if it hadn’t been Mark, it would have been Tabby.
The video is from the last party I had over the summer. I made a Facebook event and left it open so anyone could come. Everyone did, even Keegan. I thought maybe he wouldn’t, after what happened at Umbrage. Girls always have to carry the awkward aftermath. Girls carry everything. Boys are unburdened, uncomplicated, mouths slack-jawed and empty, all the promises and lies already dried up and used on someone else.
Almost eleven—I know because I checked my phone—I went upstairs, and I heard them in the backyard. My window was open and I looked down and there they were, skulking around each other, pacing like two lions. Tabby and Mark.
“You’re always controlling me,” Tabby yelled. “I’m not your puppet.”
“I wouldn’t have to control you if you would just tell me the truth,” Mark said, his voice calm and measured.
“I told you the truth already. He’s just a friend.”
I cupped my hand over my mouth. Mark knew. He knew about Beck. I remembered Tabby and I, drunk, when she and Mark first got together. He doesn’t need to know anything about my past, so don’t tell him, okay?
“You ruined my life,” Mark said, still eerily calm. Then he bent over her, hands on her shoulders, and shoved her backward, into the railing on the deck, the same one that wobbled whenever anyone touched it. I got out my phone and started recording—my body did it instinctively. He shoved her again, then kissed her, his hands quickening up to her face. She pulled away, then he had the back of her head in the palm of one hand—such a huge, meaty thing, capable of so little and so much. In that moment I pictured Tabby’s skull like something fragile, a robin’s egg, and Mark cracking it in his clenched fist.
That was the first time I considered that Mark could kill Tabby.
She would fight back, of course, just like she was fighting now, scrappy and emotional, words sputtering out between tears. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, and maybe neither could he. Then they were interrupted by someone Mark knew and suddenly both of their faces changed, and it was like they were never arguing at all. Mark’s arm went back to its regular post on Tabby’s shoulders and her smile formed, like her face knew exactly what to do.
They were both so good at pretending. Then again, it’s a survival skill, when you’re a girl, seventeen.