“Yes,” she says, her face brightening with relief. “That would be lovely.”
I move past her. Will, the doorman, already has the elevator held open for me.
“Thank you, Will.”
He looks at Tabitha, his eyes lingering on her a second too long, before shifting back to me with a protective look. “You’re very welcome, Ms. Veronica.”
The ride up is suffocatingly silent. As the doors open, my gaze instinctively drifts to Miles’s closed door across the hall. I wish he were here. She follows me into my apartment, her eyes darting around the space.
“Vee, this is beautiful.” Her compliment seems genuine.
I walk straight to the kitchen and grab a cold bottle of water. I offer her one, but she declines with a dismissive wave of her hand. I don’t sit down. I don’t offer for her to make herself comfortable.
“You can start talking now,” I say, cutting straight to the point.
Tabitha sighs, tilting her head in that way she used to. “Vee, I don’t know why you’re so upset.” She must see me losing my patience. “I came to apologize.”
“For what exactly. For ignoring your supposed best friend?” I don’t hold back. “I needed you so much.”
The words hit me like a familiar, nauseating wave. I remember her doing this, gaslighting me. The way she’d promise to pick me up from Tony’s if things got bad, only to vanish and leave me stranded, then act like I was the "dramatic" one for being angry. I’m not that girl anymore.
“Vee, I’m so sorry for so many things. After your brothers found out, I couldn’t bear to face you.” Her voice cracks, a staged sob breaking through. “I’ve been living with this guilt for so long. To know that those photographs were posted because of me…”
The floor doesn’t just fall away; it dissolves. My mouth is suddenly full of ash. I try to draw a breath, but I can’t.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Tabitha?”
Before the sentence even finishes, my body moves on a surge of pure, panicked adrenaline. I lunge forward, my fingers digging into her shoulders, lifting her off the seat, and I shake her. Her head snaps back, her expensive hair disheveled, but I don’t care. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
She looks at me with a wide-eyed stare. “They didn’t tell you?”
I shake her harder. “No. Now tell me what the fuck do you mean?!” I’m screaming, the sound raw and ugly, tearing through the quiet of the room.
“Remember a couple of years ago? The party at my house?” She avoids my eyes, her gaze drifting toward the window, not able to face me. “It was about a year after you and Tony broke up. Someone contacted me. They offered me money to take…compromising pictures of you.”
The air in my lungs escapes me.
“I set up a camera in the guest bathroom when you stayed over.” The words keep coming. “I took photographs of you changing and sent them to an email address I was given.”
I can't breathe. “Wh-why? Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know,” she says. It’s an obvious lie.
“Yes, you do.” The tears I expected don't come. Instead, a white-hot, absolute rage begins in my chest. I feel the adrenaline-fueled clarity of someone who has nothing left to lose. “How much was our friendship worth, Tabitha?”
“Veronica—”
“Howmuch, Tabitha?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
A hysterical laugh breaks from my throat. “That’s it? Your father is a fucking millionaire.”
“Vee, he was going to cut me off!” She’s making excuses where there aren’t any.
I don’t think. I just strike. I slap her. The impact vibrates up my arm, a dull, satisfying throb that centers me. I watch the red bloom across her cheek, the skin splitting just enough to draw blood. The result of my ring.
She wails, clutching her face, the sound high and pathetic. “You fucking hit me!”
