I look at myself in the mirror. My skin is flushed, ruby splotches spreading down my neck and across my chest. The felt crow on my shoulder glares ahead, mocking me. I rip it off and throw it across the room.
“Tippi?” It’s Ava calling from the other side of the door. She followed me upstairs. “Are you okay?”
“I just need a minute,” I say, still staring at my reflection in the mirror.
Part of me blames Ava for this predicament. If she hadn’t insisted on throwing this ridiculous party, everything would be different. No one would be questioning me about Oliver. I wouldn’t be receiving these mysterious messages. Marlowe would still be alive. Anger and resentment course through me. I swing open the bathroom door, hoping I won’t have to see Ava, that she’s already gone downstairs with the others.
When I exit the bathroom, Ava is standing at the foot of my bed, her back to me. Her head is bowed, and she’s holding something inher hands. When she hears me, she turns around. Tears glisten in her eyes.
“Tippi? What the hell is this?”
Her body shifts and I can see what she’s holding. A note.
My stomach is in knots. A third message. That same swirled handwriting on the envelope.
Tippi.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was on your bed.” She hands it over, a loose paper slipping from her trembling fingers, drifting to the patterned rug below. “What the fuck is going on?”
I open the card first. It’s another typed message. A threat.
I know what happened.
I bend down to pick up the fallen piece of paper, turning it over.
Blood roars in my ears. My heart thumps against my rib cage, a powerful surge of pain radiating throughout my whole body. I blink, blink, blink, begging the image before me to disappear.
It’s a photograph of Marmee’s mansion at night, the yellowish lamps affixed to the stone awning providing just enough illumination.
I’m standing in front of the crow fountain, the scene different from the pristine monument it is today. In the photo, the area is still a construction site of the most recent restoration, ribbons of caution tape and wooden sawhorses surrounding the perimeter.
A strange object rests at my feet disguised by a rumpled bedsheet, the fabric clinging to vague, misshapen mounds, streaked with reddish-brown stripes. At first glance, it’s a random picture taken when I wasn’t watching, but if you look closer, another narrative unfolds. The crumpled linen takes on a different shape, suggests the stiff symmetry of extended legs, the curve of a person’s shoulders, the spherical silhouette of a head.
This photograph is undeniable proof of the worst night of my life.
And now Ava has seen it, too.
“Tippi.” Her voice trembles with shock, or perhaps, fear. “What did you do?”
My tongue is a dry lump lodged in my throat. My eyes return to the photo, staring at my own unassuming image, the deconstructed fountain, what’s left of Oliver.
The wedding was never called off because of broken promises and lies.
It was called off because the groom is dead.
I killed him.
Tippi’s Takes Presents:
What Hitch Taught Me About Life
An exploration of life and cinema from the viral sensation
by Tippi Rathbone
Chapter Seven
