Not really. We’re seeing each other,but it’s not a long-term thing, you know?
Really?
Yeah, it’s just something girls do in college.
You two hook up though, right?
Yeah.
I’d love to watch that.
No response for the next hour, but Justin persisted.
Maybe join in?
It wasn’t until the next day that Claire texted back.
What would you want to do to us?
What followed was a detailed game plan that made me want to heave. Justin talked about how “thicker girls” like me tended to be more adventurous in the bedroom. Claire argued that I wasn’t really; that, for an artist especially, I was a little prudish. Then Justin asked to see photos of me, with her—
Claire said yes.
My whole body was shaking by the time I finished reading. How could this be real? Claire loved me. Shelovedme. We’d gone apartment hunting together, cosigned a lease, bought all our furniture—the bed we shared. You don’t do all that with someone who’s nothing more than a college experiment.
But whatever she felt for me would never be enough. I should’ve realized it during that dinner with her parents, her father picking apart every little thing she did, while she sat, silent and still, absorbing his criticism like blows. He would never approve of me, and she could never be satisfied with a partner who didn’t receive a blue ribbon from her father.
A knock on the bathroom door.
“Nic?” my dad called. “You in there?”
I tried to pull myself together, even though he must’ve heard me crying. “Yeah.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
I stared at the phone in my hand. What should I do? Go downstairs and confront her? There had to be another way. Maybe I could convince her to leave him—or maybe I could return the phone, pretend I’d never seen those messages. But what if she eventually asked me to spend the night with her and her (say it, youcoward) boyfriend? If I didn’t have the strength to end things now, would I be able to saynowhen the time came? Or would I go along with whatever she wanted, allow her to use me as a prop because it was better than being alone? It was pathetic.Iwas pathetic. I made myself sick.
“Nic?”
No, this couldn’t continue, but maybe—
“Just a minute.”
Maybe I didn’t have to be the one to end things. If my dad saw these messages, he would realize she’d deceived me. He would demand she pack her suitcase, drive her to the train station, leave her to find her own way back to the city. By the time I returned for junior year, she probably would’ve cleared her belongings out of our apartment, and I’d be free to start over again.
Free. It was supposed to be a liberating word, but at that moment, I hated it. There was nothing I wanted less than to be free.
I left the phone on the sink, where he couldn’t miss it; I even clicked on the most damaging text message—the one where Justin described what he wanted to do to us, to me. I tugged on the legs of my shorts, the neckline of my shirt, until they covered as much skin as they could, then, face swollen and eyes damp, I opened the door and fled down the stairs, aware he was watching me the entire time.
The next morning, Claire was gone.
When the police found her in the creek, doubts about my father started surfacing in my mind. It felt insane, insane and disloyal, but no matter how much I tried to push them out, they wouldn’t leave me alone. I started researching the case: pinning down a timeline of each murder, then trying to uncover his alibi because he must’ve had one—except he didn’t. I read true crime books, watched documentaries, listened to podcasts. I looked for him in descriptions of men like Michael Bernecke and Tom Woods, but he was nothing like them. Ibecame so obsessed, I almost failed out of college; it destroyed any chance I had of becoming a professional artist.
On the good days, I convinced myself that grief and guilt were driving me out of my mind; on the bad days, I rode the subway until the PA system announced an unfamiliar stop, Rego Park or Grand Concourse, then located the nearest pay phone. Slipped in a quarter, dialed the non-emergency line, and huddled as close as I could to the receiver while pedestrians passed by with their crinkly tinfoil shawarma wraps. I rehearsed my introduction under my breath: “Hello, my name is Nicola Fischer, and I think my dad might’ve… I think my dad…” But as soon as the dispatcher answered, I slammed the receiver back onto the latch. The moment those words left my mouth, they would become real. But they couldn’t be real. They simply couldn’t.
Because if they were, Claire’s death had been my fault.
