by L. E. Flynn
Alexander approaches us when we’re almost outside. My parents have already wandered ahead, holding hands, looking all disoriented, suburban zombies. They don’t know how to act around Tabby anymore. They haven’t for a while.
“Hey,” he says to Tabby. His eyes dart to me, but it’s more like a warning. You’re not part of this conversation. I pretend to be interested in the crucifix on the wall, the too-realistic Jesus nailed to it, blood surrounding the nails in his hands.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Alexander says to Tabby. “You’re not welcome. I don’t want to make a scene in front of my parents, but stay the hell away from us.”
“Come on,” Tabby says, all candy-sweet. “You don’t seriously believe—”
I don’t get to hear the last part, because Coach Taylor comes up to me and asks how I’m doing, as if I suffered some kind of loss.
As if this isn’t more of a win.
Don’t take that the wrong way—I’m not a psychopath. I didn’t fantasize about Mark falling off a cliff and ending up dead. But it’s really no secret that I imagined him just going away. He didn’t bring out the best in my sister. He brought out something else entirely, and I still don’t understand what it was. What exactly he woke up.
“Hey,” Tabby says, swinging her hip into mine. “Hi, Coach. Isn’t my sister such a superstar? I can’t wait to see her kick ass again this year.”
Coach smiles. “Bridget is very talented. We’re excited for cross-country season.”
“I’ll be at every race,” Tabby says. “Your own personal cheerleader.”
I bark out a laugh. I swear, Coach blushes. He’s probably not that much older than Mark was—early twenties, baby face. Tabby has a way of making people react, of making their hearts beat just a little bit faster. Maybe it’s how she says things. She meant she would be my personal cheerleader, but now Coach is probably picturing her as his.
“What did Mark’s brother say to you?” I ask when we’re walking across the parking lot toward Dad’s Toyota Camry.
“He just said thanks for coming,” Tabby says. “It meant a lot to his mom.”
But I know what I heard. She’s lying, and I don’t know what else she has lied about.
Mark is everywhere on our drive home. Someone erected a billboard with his face on it, a picture of him in the pool after one of his swim meets, those giant fists churning up the water. He looks practically feral. REMEMBER MARK FORRESTER it says. Gold wreaths ring the streetlamps that line Main Street, downtown. Gold, because that’s what he would have won at the Olympics one day. Gold, because he still holds a bunch of high school swim records and Colorado state championships, his name immortal. Gold because Mark was golden, and now he’ll never tarnish.
Tabby looks out the window and dabs at her eyes, even though I don’t think she has been crying at all.
THE COLDCLIFF TRIBUNE
September 3, 2019
New evidence in Princeton hiker’s death
By Julie Kerr
Following an autopsy, the cause of death for Mark Forrester, 20, has been named as drowning. Initial reports pointed to his fall from the Split, the lookout point on the Mayflower Trail, being the likely reason for his death, but the autopsy shows that Forrester was alive when he landed in the water, despite a severe head injury. His time of death has been recorded as approximately 9:36 p.m., several hours after he and his girlfriend, Tabitha Cousins, had been spotted by another hiker on the Mayflower Trail.
Police divers have also been spotted in Claymore Creek. At this point, the police will not verify whether foul play is suspected, although online chatter continues to swirl around Cousins and her behavior in the days leading up to the hike.
5
ELLE
I’M NOT THE GOOD FRIEND everyone thinks I am.
Tabby and I are at the Forest Glen Mall today, shopping for new school clothes, which is a normal thing we do together, except nothing is normal after Mark. She says she needs to get on with her life and not think about death. “It’s what he would have wanted,” she says.
My stomach is flat again. Tabby comments on it when I try on a crop top. “You’re so skinny. You should definitely buy that. You’re going to have the best body at school this year.”
“Yeah, right,” I say. “That’ll be you.” As usual. Tabby’s body is the stuff of locker room legend, somehow both tight and soft.
“We’ll see,” she says. “So, have you talked to him yet?”
“Who?”
“Elle,” she says, putting her thumb against my chin like my mom does. “You know who I’m talking about. Have you honestly not talked to him?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Okay,” she says, drawing the word out. “But you pretending it never happened won’t make it go away.”
She’s wrong. I look the same as I did before—better now, actually. I’m fitter and tanned from the past couple weeks, from the time since Mark died, when Tabby and I have been going to Crest Beach almost every day. She claims that’s the only place she feels normal, staring at the water.
Tabby thinks she knows my whole story. And she knows most of it. But her version is missing a giant chapter, and I’ll make sure she never gets to read that chapter. Because it would destroy us.
When we’re in the food court having lunch—salad for me, no dressing—I can tell people are staring at us. No, not at us. At Tabby. That part isn’t unusual. She gets a lot of second looks—it’s her eyes, I think, how ridiculously blue they are. People stop and comment and ask if they’re real.
“Of course they’re real,” she always says. “They’re in my face, aren’t they?”
But this is different. Nobody comes up to us. They’re keeping their distance, whispering behind their hands. Judgmental, disapproving. I know that look well. I’ve been looked at like that myself very recently.
“Why is everyone staring?” I ask. “Is it because you’re the dead guy’s widow?”
You probably think that’s rude. Insensitive. Or maybe you just think I’m a bitch—that’s okay. People have thought worse about me. But I have nothing to hide. I wasn’t sad to see Mark go. I didn’t cry at his funeral. I went to his funeral only because Mom dragged me, and Mom dragged me only because she loves Tabby, thinks of her as a second daughter. Mom wanted us to be there for Tabby.
(I lied—I do have things to hide. But not about my feelings toward Mark. Everyone is mourning a guy who didn’t exist. I didn’t like the real version, and I’m really not sorry he’s gone.)
“Must be,” Tabby says between bites of her sandwich. Ever since Mark died, her appetite is back. When they were together, he was always on her about what she ate. Mark wants me to cut out junk food. Mark said I would tone up fast if I stopped eating sugar. Mark said hiking would be a great workout for my legs and ass.
Mark wanted. Mark said.
People keep staring the rest of the day. When Tabby drives us home, I give a gaggle of middle-aged women in cardigans the finger out the car window. They look familiar. They’ve judged me. Let them talk.
It’s when I log on to Facebook after dinner that I see it. A link to a Coldcliff Tribune article about Mark’s cause of death. Lou Chamberlain posted it. She hates Tabby.
Drowning. My chest constricts, like my skin is too small. Everyone assumed he was dead when he hit the rocks. There’s a horrible, twisted irony to it. Mark the Shark, felled by a shallow, muddy creek.
But it’s not the article that plucks at my skin, making goose bumps rise up. It’s the comments under it, the ones about Tabby.
Something isn’t adding up here—why wouldn’t she check if he was OK? That’s what Lou wrote.
They were fighting at Elle’s party—everyone saw it.
I bet she knew he was going to break up with her and she lost it. You know she has a temper right? She flipped off Mr. Mancini once.
They were arguing about their baby!!!
I stop reading. I don’t need to see a
ny more. Maybe it was inevitable, and I knew this was going to happen. The world is choosing sides. Tabby was never just going to be Mark’s widow.
She would also be his executioner.
Excerpt from Tabby’s Diary
July 23, 2018
I met a boy, and I already love him. How is that even possible? I’m not even sure why I’m writing this down. I guess because I should be writing everything down if I want to become a writer someday. Most people don’t even know that about me—that I want to become a writer. It’s the kind of dream that’s too big to share.
Anyway, Mark Forrester. I know he loves me too. He might be the one. Elle told me it’s too soon to know, but she has never been in love, so she wouldn’t understand. Mark is everything the other boys weren’t. He’s not afraid to show me how much he cares. He actually brought me flowers on a date—these red roses. I’m going to dry one to show our kids one day.
I guess this is why I’m writing this down. Because it’s another dream that’s too big to share, and I need it to be real. I can’t describe it to anyone out loud. Nobody likes anyone this happy.
6
ELLE
IT’S IMPORTANT FOR ME to give you some context about Tabby. You need to know how she met Mark. It was because of me, so this is all partially my fault. I forced her to go mini-golfing last summer since my dad had a Groupon he didn’t want to waste.
“I hate mini golf,” Tabby said. “You have to wear those ugly shoes that a thousand people’s feet have been in.”
“That’s bowling. I promise that if you go with me, I’ll get you ice cream after.”
We never did get the ice cream, though. We took so long mini-golfing that the group behind us—a bunch of boys who looked a few years older—caught up. Tabby had grown frustrated at that point and went to kick the ball in with her foot.
One of the boys laughed. Tabby spun around. “Is something funny?”
“Your, uh, technique. It’s interesting.” He leaned on his golf club.
“And you can do better?”
He shrugged. “Well, I don’t need to use my foot.”
“What can I say? When there’s a problem, I fix it. I don’t need some guy to mansplain something to me.”
“Mansplain?” He was laughing, but she wasn’t.
“Yeah. When some asshole guy tells a girl how to do something better.”
And that was the start of them. Tabby was always obsessed with the idea of having someone to argue with. Her parents were still together, but they were more like placeholders than actual people. They didn’t bicker or disagree, because neither of them had any fight left.
Tabby loved Mark. He wasn’t a perfect boyfriend, and she wasn’t a perfect girlfriend. They hurt each other by accident. They hurt each other on purpose. Sometimes there’s such a fine line between the two that you barely notice it until you’re jamming the proverbial knife in deep enough to graze bone.
Now, here’s something about me and Tabby. We’ve been friends since the first week of eighth grade, and it was blood that brought us together. Specifically, I was bleeding, and she was there. Me, staring at my underwear in a school bathroom stall, frantically pinching the ruined pink of my skirt between a wad of toilet paper, willing the stain to disappear. I had waited until it was totally quiet before leaving the stall, where I tried pulling the skirt away from my ass and sticking it under the sink tap. That was how Tabby found me. She was the new girl, and stories had already circulated about her. How she came from New York, how her dad was a musician who had a big hit in the nineties, how she was a child model, how she wasn’t a virgin. How that big black cross necklace she sometimes wore was really filled with cocaine.
I knew I would cry when she laughed at me, standing there with my bloody underwear and wet skirt. I braced myself for the impact. But she just reached into her purse and pulled out a tampon.
“Here,” she said. “I always carry extra.”
I didn’t want to tell her that it was my first time bleeding, a moment I knew Mom would want to celebrate with me when I got home from school. I had no idea how to use a tampon, but it was too embarrassing to admit that to Tabby. I somehow didn’t have to.
“The first time I got mine, I was at a pool party. Wearing a white bikini. That was when I knew there was no God.” She laughed, which was more like a bark. “These ones have plastic applicators. As far as I’m concerned, there is no other kind. Just kind of squat and push it in. I’m here if you need help.”
I really fucking hoped I didn’t, and luckily, it only took me a couple minutes of trying in the stall before it went in without much resistance. By the time I came out and washed my hands, Tabby had shrugged out of her oversized plaid shirt, which she proceeded to tie around my waist.
“There. Now nobody will ever know what happened. Plus, your outfit looks cooler now.”
I laughed, and so did she. I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t. I spent the entire night totally paranoid that she had told everyone about me and my period, about the mess she covered up. The next day, I figured it would be awkward to see her in the halls, but it wasn’t. She came over to my locker and started talking to me, and after that, we never really stopped talking. She meant it when she said nobody would ever know what had happened.
Tabby and I have things in common. We were both named after our grandmothers—Tabitha and Eleanor—and we both hate our names, so when high school started, we ditched them for the nicknames they had the decency to lend themselves to. She became Tabby and I became Elle, and we became different with the loss of those extra letters, girls who wanted to lose more.
We both like to be the center of attention. Sometimes it’s like we’re fighting for a spotlight that doesn’t even exist. I’m not content to orbit her sun, nor she mine. Usually with girls there’s one friend who is okay with being behind the scenes, propping the other one up, always the sidekick, loyal and a bit shy. We’re unbalanced that way, both outspoken, clamoring to get everyone else to notice us. Sometimes they notice too much.
We both like Real Housewives and karaoke and jalapeños. We love Halloween because it means we can dress up without being judged for wanting to show skin (at least, not as much). We spend too much time on Snapchat, filtering the shit out of our faces. We want to travel somewhere together after high school is over, even though we never did agree where. Tabby says Australia, and I say Thailand. Somewhere we can work as waitresses and live in hostels and chew through boys like candy.
And then there’s the other thing we have in common: Beck Rutherford. But I’ll tell you more about him later. I don’t want you to hate me right away.
Text message from Tabitha Cousins to Mark Forrester,
July 23, 2018 10:18pm
7
BRIDGET
I CHANGED MY MORNING ROUTE. Not to avoid Mark’s parents’ house, but to purposely run past it. I know his brother is still in town, and there’s a shrine on the porch with all sorts of candles and flowers. The flowers are browning with each passing day. I know this because I’m here, the house a blur in my vision as I run by. It’s my own vigil, although I’m not sure why.
Maybe I’m afraid of what they’ll find out, if they know where to look.
My friends keep asking me about Tabby. Do you think she was involved? Honestly, I’m tired of talking about my sister. I’ve been talking about her my entire life. Literally. Mom loves to tell people that my first word was Tabby. Not Mama or Dada like other babies. I wasn’t attached to either of the parental units, but I was attached to my sister, grabbing on to one of her chubby legs, pulling on the back of her T-shirt, tugging on her braids.
If you’ve heard about me before now and didn’t think of me as Tabby Cousins’s little sister (you’d be in the minority), you know me as the runner. The Silent Knife. When we lived in Rochester, my parents tried to shove me into the same group sports they made Tabby do: soccer and baseball and basketball. Being involved in sports is good for young girls was adopted as their mantra. It
gives you self-confidence. They made confidence sound like something that just appeared, a gift sent in the mail from a relative you saw once a year.
Anyway, I sucked at sports. I couldn’t kick a ball into a net. I couldn’t hit a ball or sink one into a basket. But I was fast and I didn’t seem to get tired, so it was decided that I would become a distance runner. This was around the same time Tabby started behaving badly, so I glommed on to my newfound calling, grateful to it for setting me apart, giving me something my sister didn’t have. Suddenly my parents took an interest in me. Dad came to all my cross-country meets with his stopwatch. He’d be there at the start of the course, then halfway through, then again at the end, red-faced and screaming. I’m pretty sure he ran as many miles as I did.
You’re wondering what all this has to do with Tabby, and specifically with Tabby and Mark. I’m getting there.
Tabby and I have turned on each other so many times that we’ve spent the equivalent of years back-to-back with our arms crossed. We’ve had big fights and little fights and fights about nothing and fights about something. The same eleven-year-old sister who once chopped my hair off while I was sleeping also punched Teresa Morgan, who had bullied me about my newly shorn hair, in the stomach at recess and got suspended. Tabby was allowed to do bad things to me, but nobody else was. It was some kind of sister code.
Nothing can stop Tabby when she wants something. I think that’s part of her problem. She doesn’t know how to not want too much.
Tabby has a work ethic. “Bridge, my best advice is to make it look like you’re not trying,” she once said when she put my hair in French braids before one of my meets. “Because it’s when you try that people can break into you.” She made it sound like we were some kind of bank that could be robbed, a vault with weak defenses.
