“Okay,” Cole says, as we lie in bed together, sniffling. “He wasn’t joking. That was a fucking amazing best man speech. I cried buckets.”
“All the stories about their college years? Liam is such a good friend,” I say, wiping my nose on the sleeve of my pajamas. “Owen kept getting himself into such adorable pickles, and Liam was always there to help him out.”
It may be possible that we both had a little bit too much to drink during dinner. But it was an emotional night, and neither of us need to drive—it was just a short walk to the hotel room. We thought it was a good opportunity to relax together.
“Who will speak for us at our wedding?” Cole asks. “We don’t have any friends who can tell sweet and emotional stories about us, do we?”
“Kind of! There’s Roddy and Lucy…”
“I don’t know if Luciana counts. She’s more of a work friend,” Cole says. “You need someone from your childhood.”
I shrug. “Then I guess I don’t know. Unless you count the voices in my head.”
“I guess I also have Levi,” Cole says, thoughtfully. “He’s my oldest friend. You’ve known him for a long time, too.”
“Sure,” I say with a chuckle. “Levi can tell awkward stories about when I dated him for a hot minute, in college. When you were being a dick to me.”
“Okay, come on, Scar. It was like one date. I put a stop to that fairly quickly.”
“You were such an asshole back then.”
“I’m sorry.”
Growing quiet, I lift my hand, and study the ring that Cole bought for me.
“I did have a friend once,” I tell him. “Before I met you.”
“Oh yeah?”
I smile sadly. “The original Scarlett Smith. She was so beautiful, Cole. And she had a wicked sense of humor, she made me laugh all the time. She was also incredibly wise for her age. I wonder what kind of woman she would have become, if I hadn’t killed her before she could become one.”
“Didn’t you say she was a heavy user of heroin who would have probably overdosed anyway? Didn’t you just convince her to take a little more than usual?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. I made her overdose, Cole. I killed her. If I was a good friend, I would have tried to get her help. I would have flushed her drugs down a toilet.”
Cole moves closer to me and puts his arm around my middle. “You never told me much about her.”
“I know. I couldn’t bring myself to think about it. She was such a sweet girl, Cole, with a history even more tragic than ours. Her father sold her. She was kept in a tiny room on a mattress, and sold by the half hour, for extremely cheap to hundreds of men. She didn’t even get any of the money.”
“Jesus,” Cole whispers.
“They just got her hooked to heroin, and…” I sigh. “Maybe it wasn’t her fault, you know? I blamed her, for being weak. I couldn’t understand her continued drug use. I looked down on her, for it. She got away from those men, why would she keep doing it? You saw my arms after I escaped from Benjamin. I mean, I was already healing up by the time you found me. But did I go seeking out my next hit? No. I detoxed. I dealt with the withdrawal on my own, and didn’t put any more of that shit in my body.”
“Not everyone is as strong as you are,” Cole says, kissing my shoulder.
“I tried to help her,” I say. “But I was just a kid, and I didn’t know half of the things I know now. I just demanded that she quit. We lived on the streets together, and I wanted to get her off them. I didn’t want to leave her behind. But she just refused to make her life better. She continued selling herself to men for pennies, twenty bucks under a bridge, that sort of thing. Then she would spend it all on heroin.”
“It sounds like she was definitely heading in that direction, and you just gave her a little push.”
“I took her life. I took her wallet and her identification. I took her name. I even took her fucking style.” Tears gather in my eyes. “That’s why I don’t have any female friends, Cole. Because I killed the last girl I really cared about.”
“I’m so sorry you had to do that—but you were only trying to survive.”
“Serena really loved her,” I say miserably. “She had survived so much crap in her young life, and then she met me. And I killed her. I loved her, but I killed her. I didn’t want to be the victim anymore. I would have done anything for Serena back then—her life was so fragile. If we didn’t have that name, then Benjamin would have found us. But he found us anyway.”
“Snow?” he asks, for confirmation.
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry all of this happened to you. I’m so sorry you had to do so much. But I’m just glad I met you, and I’m glad you’re here.”
“Cole, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“You can tell me anything.”
“Not this.”
I place both of my hands over my eyes, with the palms sitting in my eye sockets. I breathe deeply a few times, trying to find the courage.
“I’m afraid, Cole.”
“You’re absolutely sure you’re not pregnant?” he asks again.
“No. I’m not.”
He sits up and looks down at me, squeezing my arm. “You’re making me worried, Snow. Anything you need to say, I can handle it.”
“Not this. I can’t even handle it. And I’m the one who’s supposed to be able to handle everything.”
“What are you saying?”
“I can’t marry you, Cole.”
Removing my hands from my eyes, a few tears slip out as I fumble to remove the ring from my finger. I give it back to him, and return my hands to my eyes.
“Why not?” he says in shock.
“She’s not here,” I tell him. “I’m an imposter. You proposed to the wrong girl. You have been with the wrong girl this whole time.”
“What do you mean, Snow?”
“I can’t find her,” I say hoarsely. “I’m sorry. At first I was just pretending to be her. It was kind of fun, being in control all the time. Waking up with you instead of only falling asleep with you. I just meant for it to be until she came back—but she never came back.”
“That’s why you were avoiding working on Luciana’s project. You can’t hack.”
I nod.
“I don’t know where she is, Cole. I can’t find her. I’ve searched.”
“What are you saying exactly, Snow?”
“I think Serena might be dead.”