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“And now that…” I trail off, swallowing the words I really want to say.Now that someone’s threatening to expose me for who—forwhat—I really am, he’s bound to find out.“Now that we’re getting married, I need to tell him everything. I can’t keep lying to him anymore.”
I wait for Greta to respond, an endless chasm of time that twists my stomach.
“Oh, Cass,” she says, and I feel my muscles loosen. She understands. When I finally open my eyes, her face is awash with sympathy. I expect her to ask questions—she has to be curious—but she doesn’t. Instead, she takes me back in her arms, murmuring nothings in my ear. “My sweet girl,” she says when we separate. “You need to tell him the truth. Start your marriage off on a clean slate. No lies.”
I knew she would say this because itiswhat I need to do.
“But how do I know that he won’t leave me?”
The question clenches my heart in a vise grip.
“That will never, ever happen,” Greta promises, her tone compassionate. “I’ve never seen Logan look at anyone the way he looks at you. He has so much love for you, unconditional love. That will never change.”
I cling to her words, desperately wanting to believe her, but she wasn’t there in that hotel room. She doesn’t know what I did. She doesn’t know the real me, just like Logan doesn’t. And she doesn’t know how difficult things were for us before the engagement.
There’s one more thing I need to tell her. Something that might change her mind completely.
“Logan cheated on me, Greta,” I blurt out. She draws back as if she’s been burned, but I continue, laying the flame into flesh. “Not so long ago. With that woman. Jacinta. The one who fell from Khrum Yai.”
The shock of my statement seems to fade from Greta’s face, and she remains still.
“You knew?” I ask her, accusation seeping into the question.
She nods ruefully. “He told me after. He said it only happened once, that it was a mistake. I didn’t think you knew.”
Neither does he. But I’d seen them.
Logan had told me he was going to the gym with Doug, just like he usually does each afternoon before opening Frangipani. I finished work early that day and figured I would surprise him, swing by the gym on my way home from work. But when I did, there was no Doug, no Logan. Only a handful of tourists there on guest passes. So I continued home on my bike, driving down the street filled with overpriced tourist-driven restaurants that no self-respecting local would ever enter.
I had turned my head to check for cars at the intersection, and that’s when I saw them. Logan, his curls pulled back in his typical bun, his shoulder inches away fromher—Jacinta—as they left one of the restaurants. And then, as they reached the corner of the street, he turned to her, pulled her head close to his, and kissed her. I watched until I heard a tentative honk from behind me.
Instead of going home, I drove straight to the Kumvit pharmacy. And for the first time in three years, I purchased Xanax. I needed the pills to drown out the image I had seen of Logan’s betrayal. I needed it to force myself to believe it was a onetime thing, that it wouldn’t evolve into more.
I didn’t have to worry about that for long. Because the next morning, Jacinta was dead.
“The kiss didn’t mean anything,” Greta assures me. “Just preengagement jitters. And it never went further than that. He wanted tocommit to you, but he was scared. Typical man. But it will never, ever happen again. He’s promised me. He loves you, more than anything. In all the time I’ve known him, I never saw him truly happy until you arrived here.”
I nod, trying to believe her.
“I know Logan,” Greta continues. “He was the first person who came to live in Koh Sang after Alice and I got here. We’ve been friends now for years. That kiss was a fluke. That’s not the type of man he is. Tell him the truth. He loves you, and nothing about your past will change that.”
I nod, but her words are hollow by the time they reach my ear. Because she can’t know everything I’ve done. She can’t even begin to imagine.
19
BROOKE
Back in my room, I collapse on the firm hotel mattress, the touch of Neil’s lips still fresh on mine. A giddiness flutters in my stomach that I haven’t experienced since those few short-lived days of excitement in college.
His comments from earlier come back to me, and the memory deepens the smile that’s been plastered on my face since I left the Monkey Bungalow. But my mind flicks to what else he said, the warning wrapped in affection.You need to stop looking into this… If you got hurt—or, God forbid, worse—I’m not sure what I would do.
Can I do that?
For the first time since I’ve arrived, I’m questioning my reason for being here. For once, the anger I’ve been holding in my stomach is faint, drowned out by this new wave of excitement. Could I move on? Let it all go? Drop the story and make a life here with Neil? After everything that I’ve been through, don’t I deserve to be happy?
Before I can deliberate any further, I feel my phone vibrate inmy back pocket. I’ve been so distracted that I haven’t even bothered to check Instagram since yesterday. I can only imagine how many messages and comments await my response. With a sigh, I flick on the fan by my bed, pull out my phone, and roll over onto my stomach.
I’m met with thirty-seven new direct message requests and fifteen hundred notifications about various likes and comments on my posts. I hover my finger over the message icon, reluctant to see what awaits me. The chill of Lucy’s unbearably innocent message yesterday—Hi. Can you help me? Please?—hasn’t yet worn off, that last, desperate “please” sitting hauntingly in my chest. And on top of that, I’m certain that the usual onslaught of overtly sexual advances and cruel attacks that fill my inbox will dull the thrill of this morning.
