DEVERAUX’S QUESTIONS feel less like bullets and more like paper cuts. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that my skin is getting used to her form of shredding.
“You say Tabitha shared with you her fears about Mark. That he wasn’t the person he pretended to be.”
“Yeah,” I say. And it’s in this moment when I know there’s no way out of this that ends well for me, so I might as well start dropping bombs. “Mark started treating her like shit. He wasn’t the gentleman everyone thought he was.”
“He’s such an asshole,” Tabby had complained. “He blames me for everything. Just because his swimming isn’t going well. And I guess his grades suck. He’s getting all paranoid.”
“Yeah,” I said, even though I didn’t know that about his swimming, or his grades. I just assumed everything in Mark’s life was chugging along perfectly, like it always did. “You know, he asked me to keep tabs on you. When he first went back, at the end of the summer. Like he didn’t trust you.”
She touched my arm. “You didn’t do a very good job. You’re letting me get into all kinds of trouble.”
I explain it to Deveraux and quote Tabby, word for word. Of course Tabby doesn’t look at me. She knows it’s true, though.
“And you encouraged Tabitha to break things off. You were the driving force.”
“No. She was—it was all her idea. I was just there for moral support.”
“Moral support,” Deveraux echoes. “Did you insist repeatedly that Tabitha break up with Mark?”
I shake my head. I mean, yeah, I remember what I said, but if I were to tell her, she’d rip up my words like confetti.
Me and Tabby, having beers in my apartment. I liked that she didn’t complain that I only bought cheap shit. We watched a movie on my laptop and she was drifting off, her head on my shoulder. “You should just end things with him. Break up with him. He’ll get over it.”
“Why?” she said. “Is there a better guy for me?”
“Yeah,” I said. My lips touched her hair. “There is.”
“I told you,” she whispered. “I tried. If we want him out of the picture, we’ll have to do something else.”
She was so dark. Sometimes I had no idea if she was kidding or serious. But I glommed on to we. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her, but we both knew Mark had to be dealt with first.
A few minutes later, when I thought she’d fallen asleep, she said something else.
“He can’t know this is coming.”