DEVERAUX HAS MOVED on to a new subject. Kyla. Who is apparently one of her witnesses, as if this couldn’t get any more fucked up.
“Explain to the court how you met Kyla Dove,” she says.
“Tabby set us up,” I say. “She told me to go talk to her.”
“If Tabitha was secretly in love with you, as you’ve indicated, why would she encourage you to talk to another woman?”
“It’s complicated,” I say. They’re grinding me down—I don’t have the energy to explain anymore. But here’s the thing. Tabby practically picked Kyla out.
“The blond girl,” Tabby said when we were both drinking from Solo cups at a summer party. “The one with the slutty top and too much eyeliner. She’s your type, right?”
I wanted to tell her she was my type, but instead, I just shrugged, and pretty soon I was practically being shoved into Kyla.
Deveraux clasps her hands together. “Tabitha knew you were lonely. She knew you were often the third wheel in her outings with Mark. Is it not believable that as your friend, she would want to help you find a girlfriend so you’d have that constant in your life?”
“No—it wasn’t like that. Tabby didn’t mean it. Kyla was—” She’s here in this courtroom, watching me squirm, hearing me confess the worst. “I never felt that way about her.”
“And did Tabitha seem jealous of your new relationship?”
Tabby’s smiles, the ones she reserved for me. The ones that stripped me down to nothing. She saw under my skin and what she saw there didn’t make her look away.
“Yeah. She did.”
I’m not sure if it’s true. Tabby wasn’t jealous like she was of Mark’s Instagram girls. Maybe because she knew Kyla would serve a greater purpose. She told me it would be good for me to date someone. She practically insisted on it.
Around the time of Kyla, Tabby stopped coming over at all. When I finally got her alone, I asked her if Mark was pissed about us hanging out.
“Why would he be?” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it briefly before letting go. “We’re his two favorite people.”
But I could tell by the way she said it that he didn’t know about us. And she kept it that way for a reason.