Delilah
I set my alarm to go off inhumanly early on Saturday. As soon as I’d washed and dressed, I grabbed my wallet and coat and ran all the way to the bus stop, where I paced restlessly until the bus arrived. The rest of the week had been a continuous march of Logan shoving his way into my life. He’d wait outside of my classrooms whenever his classes happened to be nearby and walk me to the library for my shifts whenever he could. Lunches were always spent with him and his friends, whom I couldn’t help but like, while Aisha shot me death glares from our usual seat. And even though Lisa squeaked, “How sweet!” whenever she saw Logan, I could tell his presence made her nervous, which in turn made me even angrier. On top of everything else, I couldn’t afford to lose my job. On the bright side, at least Detective Mendez had stopped her surprise visits. One could only hope she’d moved on to bigger, more exciting cases.
I came up with half a dozen plans to deal with Logan, each one flimsier than the last. I spent all of my free time trying to look up information on Logan that I could use against him, but I always came up empty.
It surprised me how much I missed Aisha. Seeing her at school and not talking to her was killing me. I needed her now, more than ever.
By the time I got off at Draycott, all of my fingernails had been bitten into ragged stubs. I wrapped my arms around myself as I walked across campus. The atmosphere on a weekend was completely different. This early, the school was off-puttingly silent. When I got to the girls’ dorm, I hung around outside, pretending to text someone. I couldn’t ask Aisha to let me in since she’d been ignoring my messages. Luckily, a couple of girls wearing running gear came out, laughing over something, and I was able to slip inside before the doors closed.
The first time I visited Aisha’s dorm, I’d paused in the foyer, my mouth falling open at how grand the place was. An elaborate chandelier hung in the center of the wood-paneled room, giving the place a soft, rich glow. My footsteps were immediately muffled by a thick, green carpet. Paintings of important women throughout history smiled down at me. I’d never felt so much like an impostor as I did then.
Aisha had taken me to the common room, which was bright and sunny with high ceilings, picture windows, and overstuffed couches and beanbags. We’d hung out there for hours, stuffing ourselves with cookies and hot chocolate and talking about everything and nothing. The memory of that afternoon brought tears rushing into my eyes. I shook my head and hurried up to the second floor. Each room had a whiteboard next to the front door. Aisha’s board had a doodle of her licking an ice cream cone. I knocked on the door.
There was some muffled sound and then silence. I knocked again.
“Aisha, I know you’re there. Open up.”
A bump, then footsteps. The door was wrenched open, revealing a half-awake Aisha, grumpy with sleep, wearing her blanket like a cloak. She peered at me and scowled. “What’re you doing here?”
Tears rushed into my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her. “I need to talk to you. Please?”
I could see she wanted to snap at me, but she must have sensed my desperation, because she hesitated, started to say something again, hesitated again. Then she sighed, swung the door wide open, and cocked her head at me. “What’re you gawking at? Get in.”
And I burst into tears.
Later, forever later, or maybe minutes later, we both sat on the floor, leaning against Aisha’s bed. I had a mug of hot chocolate cradled in my hands and Aisha’s arm around my shoulders, and I had never felt so comforted.
“You know what you need right now?” Aisha said. “Breakfast.”
I lifted my mug of hot chocolate. “I already have this.”
Aisha sniffed. “Please, those instant cocoa mixes are basically corn starch and sugar. Gimme that.” She plucked the mug out of my hands. “Come on. We’re going to Liberica. My treat.”
I was about to protest when it hit me that breakfast actually sounded good. Now that I’d cried myself empty, I was too exhausted to even begin to tell Aisha what had happened. Liberica’s breakfasts—which featured stacks of pancakes so big, the edges flopped over the sides of the plates and breakfast burritos the size of my calves—were just the thing I needed to jump-start the conversation. The whole way there, Aisha linked arms with me, like old times, and filled me in on the latest gossip, as though she knew I wasn’t quite ready to share what had happened.
Half an hour later, we were seated at a table loaded with a ridiculous amount of food. How do you reveal to your BFF that you crushed your mother’s boyfriend with his car and you were now being coerced into dating some creepy stalker who’d caught the whole thing on camera? Being made to date Logan sounded so absurd when I went over it in my head. Yeah, I’m being forced into dating one of the hottest guys in school. Part of me was convinced if anyone knew, they’d roll their eyes and go, “Oh, poor you. You have to go out with Hot Logan, a guy you were lusting over, who has promised not to touch you unless you want him to. Let me play you a sad song on the world’s smallest violin.”
“Oh, man, I needed this,” Aisha said, stuffing a heaping forkful of pumpkin and candied pecan pancake into her mouth before chasing it down with a gulp of red velvet Oreo milkshake. “The food at school is bullshit. Know what we were served for dinner last night?” She didn’t wait for me to guess. “Organic microgreens with a side of free-range chicken breast. Sans hormones, sans chemicals, sans flavor. I don’t even know what their deal is with microgreens. Does being micro somehow make it better for you or something?”
“The food at lunch isn’t that bad,” I said, laughing.
“That’s ’cause the boarders pay a lot more than day students do, so the school thinks it should save up all the pretentious food for dinner. You got lucky, my friend.” She attacked the burrito and crammed what looked like a fistful of it into her mouth.
As the carbs and sugar hit us, the conversation flowed faster, easier. We complained about our classes, bitched and laughed about our classmates, and chatted about the latest celebrity scandals. I felt almost like my old self again, pre-Logan, pre-Brandon, even pre-Pa.
Aisha dropped her fork on the plate and leaned back, groaning. “Ugh. I ate too much again. Why didn’t you stop me?” She pushed the plate toward me. “Argh, get this away from me. I can’t even look at food right now.”
“Want me to get them to clear the table?”
“No! I might want some more.”
I laughed.
“You love me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes, but I was still grinning.
“So.” Aisha leaned forward, her face suddenly turning serious. “Tell me, what happened with Hot Logan?”
The syrupy pancake turned to mealy cement in my mouth. I put my fork down and pushed the plate off to one side. I glanced around the room. The diner was filled with people—townies, tourists, but no one from Draycott, thank god. I guessed it was still too early for students, even with the lure of giant pancakes. Nobody was paying any attention to us. It was time. I had to tell her. I needed somebody on my side. I swallowed, clenched my hands together. “Um, something happened. Something…bad.”
Aisha’s eyes widened and she straightened up in her seat. “Shit,” she muttered. “I didn’t think Logan would—shit.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Dee, I’ll be by your side a hundred percent, I swear, no matter how bad it gets. These things… There will always be assholes who blame the victim.”
I stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
Aisha scanned the room before whispering, “Did he force you to do something you didn’t want to do? I should’ve known. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize it sooner—”
“What? No! No, it’s nothing like that,” I cried.
“Oh, thank god.” Aisha sighed. “Then what is it? You’re acting so weird.”
“It’s really hard to explain. But, um, Logan has something on me.”
“Something on you. A…crush? He has a crush on you?”
“No, something bad. I did something”—my voice cracked, and I had to take a deep breath before continuing—“something really, really bad.” The last bit came out in a strangled whisper, my eyes rushing with tears.
For the first time, Aisha didn’t make any smart-ass remarks. She only squeezed my hand and nodded, encouraging me to keep going.
“It’s really bad, Aisha,” I whispered.
“What is it?” she pressed.
“Promise me you’ll never tell anyone?”
Aisha nodded furiously, her eyes wide and trusting.
I took a deep breath. “It’s a video of me, uh…cheating on the chem test.”
Aisha’s mouth dropped open. “Whoa. Jesus.” She blinked a few times, as though she’d just gotten punched. “Seriously? You cheated on a test? But Dee, you’re—” She flapped her arms wildly, gesturing at me. “You’re you! You’d never do something like that.”
Good grief. If this was how badly she reacted over something like cheating, I couldn’t even fathom how she’d react if she ever found out the truth. “I was desperate,” I cried. “You know what Brandon was doing to me, and I couldn’t focus on anything, I was living in fear. And I couldn’t afford to flunk it. If I did, Brandon would get so angry.”
The expression on Aisha’s face melted from shock into sympathy. “Oh, Dee, of course. Yeah, I get it. That was an impossible situation for you.” She grabbed my hand. “Okay, what can I do to help?”
Relief rushed through me. I wanted to hug her so tight right now. Instead, I wiped at my eyes, taking a couple deep breaths.
“Anyway, Logan knows about it, and he’s kind of—well, not kind of, he is blackmailing me into going out with him.”
Aisha gave a bark of laughter, then she saw my expression and stopped abruptly. “Oh. Oh! You’re not kidding. Holy shit.” She sat back and gazed out the window for a while, tapping on her teeth with a meticulously manicured fingernail. “Wait, but you said he didn’t touch you.”
“He didn’t.”
“But he’s using this…whatever he has on you, to get you to sleep with him. That’s rape.”
“No, he’s not. He’s only using it to be my boyfriend.”
“Without sex?” Aisha said, her tone incredulous.
“Yeah. He said all the physical stuff can go at my own pace.” Even as I said it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. My cheeks reddened.
“Huh. That’s weird. So he just wants to be your boyfriend, but without benefits. Why? He’s hot and rich. He could get any girl he wanted. I mean, no offense, you know I love you and I think you look great, but…”
“I know! He says he’s in love with me, but we barely know each other!”
“Aww,” Aisha said, twirling a lock of hair.
“Aisha!” I wailed.
“Okay, okay, not ‘aww’. Okay. Seriously, that is some weird shit.” Aisha went still for a second and then suddenly gasped. “Oh my god! That explains the weird-ass conversation I had with him!”
“What conversation?” I asked, my skin prickling.
“The other day I ran into Logan and he was like, ‘Yo, Aisha, how’s it going?’ and we started chatting, and then he asked which colleges you and I are planning to apply to, and I thought it was really sweet that he was so interested and—” Aisha took a sharp inhale and bit her lip. “I told him all of your college choices.” Her face was twisted now. “Shit, I’m so sorry, Dee, I—”
“It’s okay, you couldn’t have known,” I said. All the food I’d just eaten sat heavily in my stomach. I wanted to throw up. The past few days, I’d been surviving, consoling myself with the thought that I could simply go to some other college. I didn’t have to go to NUS. I liked Berkeley, I loved the greenery, the way it was tucked in between the hills in an off-beat city full of vegan restaurants and graffitied walls. Push came to shove, I could give NUS up. But now, as it turned out, not only did Logan know about NUS, he knew all of the schools I’d listed as my backups. “I think he has this condition called delusional disorder.” I gave Aisha a quick rundown on the symptoms.
“Okay…” Aisha said. “That means you can report him, right?”
“No! He has something on me, remember?”
“What if I made the report? Like, say I noticed something off about his behavior and went to the school counselor ’cause I’m a good citizen… Would that work?”
Would it? I toyed with the idea for about a second before I immediately shut it down. Too risky. Who knew how Logan would react? What if he somehow linked it back to me? I shuddered at the thought.
“If it makes you feel any better, it’s not you. It’s him,” Aisha said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not the first time Logan’s become obsessed over a girl. When we were freshmen, he was totally in love with this junior. He followed her around like a little dog. She thought it was funny. We all thought it was harmless.”
Ice prickled down the length of my body. “Was it Sophie?”
“Yeah,” Aisha said, straightening up. “You know about her?”
“Sort of. I’m fuzzy on the details.”
“Nobody really knows what happened. All I know is she was expelled and then she died.”
For a second, my mind crystallized into something solid and jagged. “She—died?” I choked out. “Did someone—”
Aisha shook her head. “No! Sorry, I should’ve been clearer. She killed herself. I guess she couldn’t handle getting expelled. She got all messed up on drugs and then overdosed.”
Overdosed? My stomach turned. Lisa had told me about an old assistant of hers who’d started sampling the product and gotten addicted. She’d fired the girl immediately. “Never, ever sample the product,” Lisa had said, her eyes drilling into mine, and I’d nodded. Now I wondered if Sophie was that girl.
“How did Logan react?”
“How do you think he reacted? He was super in love with her. He had to go on antidepressants or something, but people didn’t really pay much attention to him ’cause that year was like, bonkers.”
I nodded. “I heard about the mess with the teacher and the cops. Brandon mentioned it before—um, before, you know. He said there was a lot going on at school, like really shady stuff.”
“Right, so when Sophie died, no one really noticed Logan or anything, and he went off the deep end. He was so broken.”
Despite myself, a tiny part of me ached at the thought of Logan, mourning the death of the girl he loved all alone, while all around him, his peers chattered excitedly about the latest scandal. If Sophie hadn’t died, would he have won her heart in the end? Or maybe she would’ve gone to college, leaving him to get over her gently. And then maybe he wouldn’t be in my life at all, and my biggest worry at this moment would be normal school stuff instead of how to get rid of my blackmailer.
“And he hasn’t gone out with any other girl since Sophie?” I said.
“Not that I know of. That’s why I was so excited when he asked you out.”
“But why me? I don’t get it!” I wailed.
“Okay, Whiney McWhinerson,” Aisha said. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “I never thought of this before, I mean, I was never close to her or anything, but you sort of look like her. I think you do, anyway. I don’t know, I’ve forgotten how she looked, exactly. She was two years my senior.”
“He likes me because I remind him of a dead girl,” I said flatly.
“How creeptastic,” Aisha said, grinning.
“So what do I do? Be as different from her as I can be? I don’t even know what she was like.”
Aisha took her cell phone out. “Let’s do a preliminary check.” She scooted over to sit next to me and paused, her lips pursed. “Is it sick that I’m kind of excited about this?”
“Yes.” Although to be perfectly honest, I was also somewhat excited about it. No, excited wasn’t the right word. I was filled with a sick sort of anticipation, the way it feels to be at the very top of the roller coaster, right before that stomach-lurching plunge. And when Aisha typed in Sophie’s name and called up pictures she’d been tagged in, the fall was so much worse than I’d been expecting.
“Dang, girl,” Aisha said.
Yeah, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t speak.
Sophie…Sophie was…me.
I’d been prepared to identify Logan’s obsession as a fetish, like maybe he thought all Asians looked the same, but holy shit, the resemblance.
Sophie was me, but on my best day, after I’d spent ages applying makeup like a total pro. Her skin poreless and porcelain smooth, her eyes lined in a very wicked, mischievous way, her lips painted into a startling red heart, her hair silky and tousled. Like Aisha so kindly pointed out before, I was nice to look at, but I wasn’t what you’d call stunning. Sophie was. Hauntingly so. There was something about her that shone even through the pictures, that made you want to reach out and cling to her. There was an aura, something almost otherworldly about her.
I didn’t want to blink as Aisha scrolled through the pictures. I didn’t want to miss a single shot, she was so heart-stoppingly beautiful. She’d been popular; most of the pictures were of her with other people, most of them laughing. A few were selfies—Sophie pouting or smiling, posing with some of her favorite makeup, her favorite perfume. Some of them were candids—not the posed sort of “candid” that featured a carefully angled face looking away from the camera, but actually caught without Sophie knowing about it. In one she was laughing unabashed, her mouth full of half-chewed food. In another, she was calling out to someone in the distance, her hand raised in a wave. She was so full of life.
I realized part of me had expected something that showed death looming over her. Muted pictures with a vintage filter of Sophie looking depressed. But these images showed that, if anything, death had come as a surprise for her.
And, sick as it may sound, looking at these pictures of Sophie was giving me an idea. That maybe what happened to her could be a way out for me.
I shuddered. No. I couldn’t possibly do that, not even to someone who was blackmailing me. Not even when he was threatening to ruin my life. Could I?
* * *
When I came home, I trudged to the kitchen, where last night’s dirty dishes were piled up in the sink. Our countertop was filled with trash collected throughout the week—empty wrappers, paper cups, wilted leftovers. Mom was working on a big project, and I hadn’t seen her for a while now; by the time she came home, I’d already be in bed.
I still couldn’t let go of the idea that had started to form earlier today. An idea that had to do with drugs, and my easy access to them. But the very thought filled me with revulsion. I paced about for a while then decided to at least spend my anxious energy doing something useful.
I grabbed a trash bag and went around the house, picking up all of our crap. Soon, the bag was full, and I lugged it over my shoulder and headed outside.
“Howdy, neighbor!” someone called out from across the street.
Mr. Chan was the only person I knew who actually said the word howdy. He was a fifty-year-old man who’d immigrated here from China thirty years ago. He prided himself on watching a ton of old Westerns and southern cooking shows to make himself sound more American. He was always saying stuff like y’all and fixin’ to. It was sweet and heartbreaking at the same time, because all that effort he put into sounding less Asian reminded me of Pa. I had a soft spot for Mr. Chan, and right now, he was the only person who wasn’t involved in any way with the train wreck that was my life, which made him a welcome sight for sore eyes.
“Hi, Mr. Chan,” I said, walking over to him.
“It’s been a while, Dee!” He patted my shoulder affectionately. “How you doing, you okay? You shore do look tired.”
I bit back my smile at the Southern pronunciation of sure. “I’m okay, I’m coping.”
“You’re a brave lil’ dumpling, you are.” Mr. Chan shook his head and sighed. “It’s terrible, what happened to Brandon. He was a good guy.”
I gave him a polite nod and a noncommittal smile. “Yeah.”
“Bad way to go, that. Gruesome.” He shuddered. “I don’t know why his pardner’s so keen on watching it.”
The non-smile froze on my face. “Sorry?”
“Yeah, you know, the tall one? Latina, I think? Or maybe Hawaiian. She could be Hawaiian…”
I wanted to scream at him to focus. “Detective Mendez?” I said.
“Yeah, that’s the one. She came by yesterday, real nice, she was, and asked if she could get the footage from my security camera,” he said and pointed up at his garage.
The world crumbled under my feet. Mr. Chan had a fancy-looking security camera mounted on top of his garage door, pointing in the direction of my house.
“I got a few of these babies after the Underwoods’ shed got broken into last year,” he said proudly. “You like it? It’s state-of-the-art, very high-tech, can zoom in real close. The cop lady was very impressed by it, you know.”
“That’s—it’s very—big,” I croaked. “So you can look right into my garage with that?” Did my voice sound as panicked and close to tears as I felt?
Mr. Chan shrugged. “Who knows? I’ve never bothered to watch the feed. But the cop lady thought it was worth checking out. What a beauty, eh? I got it fifty percent off because my brother-in-law owns the store—well, he doesn’t actually own it, but he’s the senior manager—”
I barely heard anything he said. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the camera. It seemed to jeer at me with its all-seeing eye.
“Are you okay, hon? You’re looking a bit pale,” Mr. Chan said. “Wanna come inside? Priya is making chai.”
I recovered enough of my senses to shake my head. I blinked at Mr. Chan, my lovely neighbor who’d unwittingly set up my downfall, and it took everything to stop myself from bursting into tears. “I have to go,” I managed to say, and then I ran across the street.
Back in the privacy of my own room, I paced about, biting my fingernails ferociously, shitshitshit, what’s going to happen, what do I do, what do I do? I picked up my phone, scrolled through my contacts—nothing useful. I hurled it at the wall with an animalistic scream. While I spent the past few days worrying about Logan, Mendez had been working on this case, gnawing, digging at every angle. Did she know I was Brandon’s killer? Did she suspect that there was a link to the drugs business? Had she put two and two together? Did she realize I was a two-for-one deal—Draycott’s dealer and Brandon’s murderer? This was something else, something on an entirely different level. Logan was bad; Mendez getting hold of potential footage of me killing Brandon was catastrophic.
Calm down. Calm. Down!
I dashed down the stairs to the garage. I turned on the lights and paused. This was the first time I’d been in there since the accident. Mom had gotten the floor professionally cleaned, thank god, so there were no stains on it. She’d also gotten rid of the Camaro. In fact, aside from a few of Brandon’s old work tools, there were very few signs of Brandon having been in the garage. Still, a wave of nausea rolled over me, and I had to take a few deep breaths before going in. I retraced my steps on the day of the accident and looked out the window. From where I stood, I couldn’t see Mr. Chan’s camera; it was blocked by a tree. Did that mean his camera wouldn’t see me, either?
My heart beat out a desperate, hopeful rhythm as I made my way out of the garage and back across the street. I knocked on Mr. Chan’s door and plastered on a neighborly smile when he opened it.
“What’s up, Dee?” he asked, his expression mildly bemused.
“Hi, Mr. Chan. Um, I was thinking about your security camera and like, I was thinking of asking Mom to buy a few for our house. I mean, it’s just the two of us ever since Brandon died, and I’d feel a lot safer with cameras around. Can I take a look at the video feed? I just wanna check the resolution.”
Mr. Chan beamed with pride. You could tell he’d been dying to share the stuff with anyone who would listen. “Of course! Come on in.”
Moments later, I was seated in Mr. Chan’s study while he powered up his computer. He’d been talking nonstop about camera specs for the past few minutes. “I can probably get your mom a discount, too. Maybe not as much as the one I got, but you never know!”
“Wow, that’s great,” I said, doing my best to sound halfway enthused.
“Okay, here we go…” He waved me over and pushed the monitor toward me. “Look at that image quality. Crystal.”
“It’s very good,” I mumbled, my stomach sinking. His camera really was excellent. Everything was shown in high definition, down to the paw prints of some cat that had walked across the pavement before it had completely set. My garage was partly hidden by the tree in front of Mr. Chan’s house, but through the gaps between the leaves I could see inside the top garage window.
“Um, could you rewind to like, a few minutes ago?” I said.
Blood roared in my ears as Mr. Chan clicked open a menu. This was it. It would either reveal me as Brandon’s killer, or…
The video played. My breath hitched, my eyes glued, unblinking to the screen.
And there I was, on the screen. Or rather, there was the very top of my head.
“Could you zoom in?” I said.
I leaned close as the image enlarged. My face wasn’t visible from the vantage point, especially since it was obscured by a tree, but it was clear there was somebody moving around inside the garage. The knot inside my stomach tightened. Mendez would know someone was inside the garage. But maybe this checked out with my story? After all, I’d told them I’d gone down to see if Brandon wanted anything from the store, and then tried to lift the jack…so maybe not all was lost. Except I hadn’t run around all panicked like an innocent person probably would. I’d walked slowly toward Brandon, talking to him, and then bent over…
Dimly, I heard myself thanking Mr. Chan for his time. My mind churned nonstop as I walked home, twisting all sorts of different scenarios into shape. So many possibilities, ranging from Mendez completely missing the top of my head (unlikely) to Mendez zooming in endlessly, using some fancy image-enhancing software until she had irrefutable evidence that the person walking around in the garage right before Brandon died was me (more likely).
I was a bone caught between two dogs. If Mendez got her way, I’d be locked up for good. If Logan got his way, I’d be at his beck and call for the rest of my life or at least until he got bored and discarded me for his next obsession. I was nothing more than the passive object of their interests. All that time when Brandon was around, I’d cowered and tiptoed and tried to make myself as tiny as possible so he wouldn’t notice me. And I’d hated myself for being so weak, so docile, so powerless. But hadn’t I proven I wasn’t entirely helpless? Hadn’t I shown I had the strength and cunning to take charge? My life was diverging into two of the worst possible outcomes—Mendez or Logan, prison or blackmail. But maybe it was time I forged a change. Maybe it was time I carved out a new path for myself. Mendez was itching for a suspect. Logan was pining for a dead girl. Maybe, if I played it right, I could give them both what they wanted.