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Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve grabbed Ariel’s wrist, which is so wide that I can barely wrap my fingers halfway around it.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I’m shouting, inches from his face.
“Please,” Tamar says, taking a step forward, trying to position herself between me and Ariel, but I barely hear her.
“You knew it wasn’t safe here because you planned to kill Lucy. But why? Tell me why you—”
There’s a sharp pressure on my arm, and the next thing I hear is my tailbone striking the pavement with a sickening crack.
I expect the shove to have come from Ariel, but when I look up, Tamar is standing over me. “How dare you!” she spits.
Her eyes are no longer wide and scared; there’s a toughness to her now that I haven’t seen before.
“Why won’t you listen to me? My husband had nothing to do with this,” she says through gritted teeth. “I told you, he is sick. He has PTSD.”
I try to take in what she’s saying, but it doesn’t make sense.
“Ariel was in the IDF,” she says, her voice cold, and I vaguely remember a news article I read a few months ago about the conflict in the Middle East. IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. “Do you have any idea what it is like for him? When he hears loud noises or experiences shock, it is like he is right back there, in that war zone. It is torture for him.”
My attention jerks to Ariel, whose stare is fixed on the ground, as if he’s ashamed. I think back to the other day on the upper level of the Tiki Palms. The slam of the bathroom door right before Ariel grabbed me, his shaking hands. And I know immediately that Tamar is telling the truth. He wasn’t behind this; neither of them had anything to do with it.
“We came here to escape all that. To have a break. And this is how you treat us? You should be ashamed.”
Tamar grabs Ariel by the arm and hurries him down the path, back toward their room. Neither of them looks at me, sitting on the hard ground, tears pricking at my eyes.
I sit there for a while, ignoring the strange looks from the guests walking past. What is happening to me? It feels like everything isbeginning to slip through my fingers. The feeling is uncomfortably familiar, a reminder of the days and weeks following my time in that hotel room years ago.
Eventually, I force myself up and onto my motorbike, wincing as my tailbone touches the leather of the seat. I try to relish the sun on my face as I drive the familiar path home, but I barely register it.
My resolve from earlier has melted back into uncertainty. There’s no way I can confess everything to Logan in this state. I’ll fall to pieces as soon as I open my mouth. I need to get a grip on myself, and there’s one place I know where I can do that.
Thankful to be certain of at least one thing, I drive straight past the gym, failing to even brake. Minutes later, I’m on the winding hill leading up to our house.
I pass a motorbike parked on the side of the road that looks like Brooke’s, and for a moment, I have an almost unbearable craving to talk to her. She’s always so strong, even last night after she found Daniel. I don’t know what it is exactly that I want to say to her—whether I’m ready to admit what just happened with Ariel—but I need to hear her voice, to have some of her strength rub off on me. Once I’m parked in our driveway, I pull out my phone and call her. I hold my breath while it rings, anticipating Brooke’s voice answering.
But other than the incessant ringing, there’s nothing. The wind rustles the trees around me, and from somewhere far off, I hear a high-pitched trill. Birdsong, most likely.
When her message tone beeps, I hang up, because what am I going to say? Instead, I look up at our house, the home Logan and I have built together.
For a second, I think I see something dark blur the front window, but it’s gone almost as soon as my mind registers it. I squint, but thehalf-closed blinds make it impossible to see anything. I don’t want to risk going inside if there’s a chance Logan’s already home from the gym. I’m not ready to face him.
I spin, looking down the road. The feeling of eyes on me has returned, pricking up the hairs on the back of my neck. I look up and down the street before glancing again at the living-room window, which remains unmoving.
I don’t wait a second longer. I head out toward the road, turning left at the end of the driveway.
After a short walk uphill, the road ends, blocked by a wall of dense trees. I find the opening to the Khrum Yai trail, the one I’ve used for years, and squeeze through the gap between two trees, just slightly larger than the rest, unnoticeable to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re looking for. Once I’m inside, I look up. I’m surrounded by lush, dense greenery. The noise is different in here; everything is muted. The air is different too. Still.
As I walk up the steady incline of the trail, I force myself to think of something other than my confrontation with Ariel. Or that handwritten note. Or the seconds ticking down until the stranger makes good on their threat.Everyone is going to know the truth, soon.
But the only other thing my mind can settle on is Logan and Jacinta, his lips on hers, his hand resting on the back of her chestnut curls. I’d managed to force it out of my head after a while, to convince myself it was nothing, especially once Logan proposed. But now the image has come rushing back.
She was beautiful, Jacinta. Long tan limbs, her dark brown hair streaked with strands of red. Doug couldn’t resist himself, touching her arm any chance he could, making sure he was always occupying the seat next to her. Even Neil kept stealing glances at her. But itwas Logan’s gaze I couldn’t tear myself away from. The way his eyes stayed trained on Jacinta, as if I wasn’t even there.
The rest of that night at Frangipani is a bit of a blur. I had taken two—maybe three—Xanax that afternoon after seeing them together, enough that I could pretend to act normal.
And the next morning, Jacinta was dead.
I tried to raise the topic with Logan in the days that followed, to see whether he would admit to kissing her. To determine whether there was more to it than that. “It’s such a shame what happened with that poor girl,” I’d say as we were eating dinner or sitting on the couch, and a cloud would pass over his face.
