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“I need you, and--”
“It can wait,” I cut her off, feeling my heart slam harder. Every time she says those words it does something to me. It rips me apart knowing how badly I want those words to be true and how wrong she is.
“But Tamra--”
“No one gives a fuck about Tamra.” My answer is brutal, and I bite it out quickly, defensively even. Enough that I notice the change in my tone, but she doesn’t.
“You don’t understand, I wrote this list.” She barely gets the words out before shoving half a sheet of paper against my chest. It’s ragged like it was ripped from a spiral notebook and crumpled up before being smoothed out. It looks old as fuck and takes me a moment to recognize what it is.
Seeing the column of names on that piece of paper sends ice through my blood.
“Each in order,” she says, and I hear her swallow before she looks back up at me. “It’s every name in order.”
Amber
Barry
Tamra
Mr. Adler
Dave
Andrea
“I didn’t putlast names, but look at them, look at the list.” She doesn’t have to explain it for me to know. “It’s happening right in order,” she continues and struggles to breathe as if every word is suffocating her.
All the recent deaths have taken place according to this list. First Amber, then Barry, and now Tamra. Everyone knows about Jeff Adler. He’d been with Chloe’s mother that night in the bar bathroom. He told the cops he’d heard her screaming but didn’t feel like dealing with her. He’s a piece of shit, always has been.
“Why would you even write this?” I can feel my anger and the tension in my body. The heat that’s running in my blood, but the sight of her changes it as her hands wrap around my hand holding the note.
“Tell me it’s a coincidence,” she begs me with a choked voice. The tears in her eyes linger and she only stares at the paper, rather than returning my gaze that I know she can feel. She struggles to breathe again and then covers her mouth.
When she lifts her eyes to mine, everything in her begs me to answer her with what she wants to hear. “Tell me this is all a coincidence, please. I keep dreaming about them. My mother and…” She trails off, but her regret and remorse are palpable. She shakes her head when I don’t answer, as I stand there stunned by the raw emotion and innocence.
“I’m just going crazy, aren’t I?” she asks me, and I let the tension between us wane. I give her a moment to calm down as she lets out a hard breath of air. “I’m just having these nightmares and--”
“Was there another name?” I ask her, cutting her off, and rub my thumb against where I can feel the indentations from a pencil. Where it’s obvious she put her own name down before erasing it. I know it was there, just beneath Andrea. I know it.
She chooses to go the route she always does with me, she lies, shaking her head and sending her hair swishing around her shoulders.
She grabs the piece of paper, trying to calm herself down and collect her composure.
“I wrote down the names of all the people who I thought deserved to die. I wanted them to die when they said they did nothing to help my mother when they admitted it with no remorse. I wrote it years ago, but just remembered it this morning when I turned on the TV. I was getting breakfast... and…. and suddenly I remembered. And when I saw it...”
The sound of a car backfiring in the distance makes her jump, but then her eyes close as she shakes her head as if admonishing herself. Her eyes open slowly and the pale blues stare at nothing.
“What if someone found this?” she asks although I don’t know if she actually wants me to answer.
“It’s in your hands,” I tell her with strained frustration.
The huff she lets out is short and full of bitterness. Shoving the paper into her purse, she keeps going, keeps letting her emotions get the better of her.
“I’ve literally gone crazy.” She wipes at her eyes although she doesn’t dare cry. “I just don’t understand. It’s three in a row, like a fucking checklist.” The anger comes out before she breathes in deep and says softly, “That’s not a coincidence.”
Spearing her fingers in her hair, she grips onto the roots at her temple. Her shoulders are hunched, and she looks worse now than she did years ago. “It’s not a coincidence,” she says quietly and her voice is shaky.
It looks bad. It looks really fucking bad. I can see why she’d be freaked out, but this isn’t the way she should have handled it.
