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TUESDAY
One benefit of not sleeping is that it destroys any chance of nightmares. I stare at the wooden blades of our ceiling fan, rotating steadily. I’ve been watching them for hours, waiting for one of them to go awry, to stray from their monotonous cycle and choose their own path. But they remain contained, responsible. Unlike me.
I’ve spent the night replaying my conversation with Logan and what it all could mean. Thinking back to his gentle tone sends a plunging shiver through me, the guilt and regret commingling.
Despite everything, I find myself craving a pill. I want to reach into my bedside table drawer, but I know it’s futile. Logan took them, removing the ring—myring—from the Xanax box where I’d stored it and hiding the pills from me like I’m some crazy addict. But I suppose it’s for the best. The Xanax is the reason why I can’t remember the Full Moon Party. It’s probably why I keep feelingas though I’m being watched, and it must be why I feel so out of control lately, as if I’m watching a movie of my life unfold in front of me that I can’t seem to pause or rewind.
Logan came home late last night, later than usual. I pretended to be asleep again when he got in, a habit that’s becoming all too familiar. But I couldn’t handle more lies.
I had planned to tell him everything yesterday, to confess it all. But things went sideways so quickly. And when he asked me about the Xanax, why I needed it, the truth stuck in my throat like a pill that wouldn’t go down. I couldn’t tell him then, not after everything else he’d found out—the pills, my ring. It would be too much. Too many lies to ever put us back together again.
I shared the few things I remembered from the Full Moon Party. But I didn’t tell him about the feeling of carrying something in my pocket or the other memory, the sound that keeps hitting my skull, jerking me back to that night whenever it hits.
That woman’s voice, desperate and loud, familiar yet unidentifiable. “No, no, no!”
How did this all happen?
As much as I rack my brain, I can’t make the pieces fit together. Unless…
You killed her.
The whisper comes from the back of my brain before I can shut it out. I squeeze my eyes shut, but the echo lingers.
I think of how angry I was when I saw Logan with Jacinta, how betrayed I felt. How much hate I had for her at that moment. And then how easily I lost control when confronting Ariel.
Could I have become so enraged that I killed Lucy?
The idea sounds ridiculous, and I try to push it away.
But you’ve done it before.The voice comes again, the truth smearing my mind, slick and sinister.
I force myself to ignore it and grab my phone from the bedside table, desperate for a distraction. The first thing I notice is a message from Doug, sent nineteen minutes ago.
The police figured out who killed Daniel.
I sit up in the bed, gripping my phone, and force myself to read the message again carefully. The text doesn’t change.
I type as quickly as I can. One word, but I have to correct myself several times, deleting errant letters that sneak into the message, courtesy of my shaking hands.
Who?
I stare at the phone, hoping for an immediate response, but it doesn’t come. Suddenly, I’m suffocating. I need to be out of here, away from this bed. I need to know who did this. I need Doug to tell me that it’s the same person who killed Lucy. I need him to say that person wasn’t me.
I open the door to the patio as quietly as I can, pressing the call button next to Doug’s name on my phone before I’m even fully outside. The phone rings endlessly, each trill hitting my eardrum with a bolt of anxiety.
As I wait for Doug to answer, I look out over the ocean. It’s early still but already light. The sun hangs heavy in the red sky above me. That can’t be good.
From the far recesses of my mind, I hear my mother’s voice.Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. She used the same singsong rhyme whenever the day began with a pink sky. And without fail, by the time nightfall had hit, our town would be blanketed in rain.
Looks like the island is in for a big storm today.
This is something I should know. It’s part of my job to track the weather and to adjust dives accordingly. But with everything else going on, I haven’t even bothered to check.
“How ya going, Cass?”
Doug’s voice startles me. I was so distracted that I had completely forgotten I’d called him. His tone is light, free of concern, completely disconnected from the hell I’m experiencing. I force myself to swallow, stale bile flooding my throat.
“Doug, what’s going on?” I aim for the words to sound as calm as possible, but the question comes out tight and wavering, like a vibrating string.
