All Eyes on Her

by L. E. Flynn

  “He’s going to regret this,” Mark said. “But you never will.”

  Those words stuck. As embarrassed as I was that I had cried in front of him, I let his advice buoy me up, inflate my ego. I let myself believe him.

  I was about to hug him when the door burst open. It was a girl in a super-short skirt. I had never seen her before in my life.

  “What the fuck?” she said.

  “Tabby—” Mark said.

  “Just what I fucking expected,” she said, storming off. Mark got up, scrubbed a hand through his hair.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “She’s—it’s complicated.”

  Like I said already, I didn’t know Mark had a girlfriend. I thought his life was swimming and school, but of course he had the same needs as the rest of us. I figured maybe he was supposed to have a date with this girl and lost track of time consoling me. I had no idea she had come all the way from Colorado to surprise her boyfriend.

  She didn’t look like Mark’s type. I guess that sounds ridiculous, because how did I know Mark had a type? I guess if somebody asked, I would have pictured him with a more natural-looking girl. Someone who wore jeans with chunky knits, hair in a messy bun, Chapstick instead of the red slash over that girl’s mouth. I was even more surprised when I found out she was in high school.

  Maybe I didn’t know Mark quite as well as I thought. But I do know that girl—Tabby—looked wild when she opened the bedroom door. She didn’t even look surprised, really. It’s like she knew she would find Mark with someone. Maybe even with me.

  I can’t lie. There were a couple times I thought about me and Mark, how we would be together, after Jason. I never did go back to Jason. Every time I got one of his drunk text messages, trying to apologize, I remembered Mark’s words. He’s going to regret this. But you never will.

  Mark and I never hooked up, though. That’s the truth. That’s the story I’m most definitely not selling to some trashy online tabloid. The whole country is obsessed with this story. All I want is to know what happened to Mark, the nicest guy, who didn’t deserve any of this.

  You can believe me or not, but I’m the girl in those photos. I’m “the other woman.” And I don’t think it was an accident, what happened to Mark in the woods. I think revenge is a long game, and Tabby started planning hers the moment she found me and Mark in that bedroom.

  THE GOSSIP ARMORY

  October 19, 2019

  Tabby & Beck: The New Bonnie & Clyde?

  By Brad Hargrove

  At this point, it seems inevitable that Tabby Cousins didn’t act alone, but police remain tight-lipped on how exactly they know that. A couple weeks ago, they questioned one of Tabby’s ex-boyfriends, Thomas Becker Rutherford III, known to friends as “Beck.” Don’t be fooled by the roman numerals after his name. This guy is basically a career criminal in the making. He and Tabby had a passionate relationship in their sophomore year of high school, with many of my sources even saying she lost her virginity to him.

  This leaves us all with so many questions. If Tabby and Beck loved each other, why couldn’t they just be together without killing Mark?

  I think you guys know where I stand. I don’t think she killed him. I’m not sure Beck Rutherford did either, but after being in this job as long as I have, I can tell you the media portrays boys in two ways. Golden boy or bad boy. Guess who’s who in this case. Princeton student/star swimmer versus the guy who brawls at parties when he has too much to drink? Mark’s gone and can do no wrong.

  Somehow People got a photo of Tabby and Beck earlier this week, supposedly from when they were a couple. (You can see it here if you haven’t already, although I hate to give that site more traffic.) See where her hands are on him? One on his face and the other on his back, and he has a cigarette dangling from his fingers, and the other hand is on her ass. They’re basically eating each other’s faces. What struck me about the photo, besides two people who were obviously very into each other, was that hand placement. She calls the shots. This girl was in control. Now, if you look at photos of her and Mark (here and here in my previous posts), see his hand covering hers as they walk, or how far apart their bodies were, even when his arm was around her shoulders? It’s not like I’m a body-language expert, but I can’t help but wonder if this guy got controlling when he didn’t get what he wanted.

  More information is coming soon—thank you, my readers, for being willing to talk to me. Now, let’s solve this thing before the cops do, and get famous. (Kidding.)

  COMMENTS

  SkullGirl: Another trash article from a trash site, don’t call this a job, ur a hack in ur parents basement

  Marley: It’s always the angry ex-boyfriend! What a shame, he’s super hot. I’ll be his prison wife when he goes away for life for this.

  LittleWreck: What do you want to bet he gets life and she walks?

  DogLover101: Is it wrong that I find that kind of romantic? My bf can’t even kiss me in public …

  WhenDovesCry: There is so much wrong here. Everyone has it all wrong.

  8

  ELLE

  THIS IS SOMETHING I HAVE TO DO.

  Just like what I did That Day was something I had to do.

  He hasn’t been in school much. Maybe because he’s getting questioned by the police—I’m sure he’s not talking to anyone about that. He never went to class much before anyway. Why did I like him so much? Was it because of him, or because of Tabby?

  I can name the things I like about Dallas. His smile and the way my name turns into a precious dollop when he says it. The certainty of his hands on my back. Beck was just a boy—someone I had gone to school with for most of our lives. Just a boy, always the one getting into trouble, dirty hands from playing outside and a mouth that liked to shock. Beck was just a boy, until there was a girl who decided he was something more, and then I saw him differently, too.

  Maybe he’s like Tabby in a lot of ways. Smart. Calculating. Easily bored. She could have been sleeping with him the whole time she was with Mark. Today, I need to know, so I’m going to ask.

  I take Mom’s car and drive to the woods after school. He’s sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree right near the south entrance. The leaves crunching under my feet are loud, and Beck turns around. He’s not wearing his leather jacket but an oversized hoodie. “You following me?”

  “Hello to you, too. I’m not following you. This is a public place. Anyone can walk here.”

  “Doesn’t look like you’re dressed for walking.” He hunches forward and his eyes skirt up my body. My shorts and crop top, his snail-slow gaze a warm trail. Tabby isn’t here and I’m dressing like her, in little ways. A slice of skin. More makeup. I’m not even sure why I’m doing it. Maybe so Beck would look at me the way he is now. We’re alone—no Tabby. I could touch him, or even kiss him, and see how he reacts.

  I’m not sure if it’s the fear of rejection or the fear of betraying Tabby that stops me.

  “What are the police asking you?” I blurt out. “Do they think you’re involved?” Were you involved?

  “It’s just stupid shit.” He takes out a cigarette. “Same stuff they’re asking everyone. I’m not sure what they think, but I don’t really care. Besides, we’re all kind of involved, aren’t we?”

  He knows. He knows what I did, and that he’s this involved because of me. My mouth goes dry.

  “I guess we are. But they found your footprint. You were here that night.”

  He swivels the heel of his boot into the ground. “I wasn’t here. Lots of people have these boots. They just want it to be me because it’s easy. They don’t want to think she was capable of doing it on her own.”

  “You think she did it?” It’s something I haven’t even allowed myself to consider, because confronting that pitch-black place in Tabby would mean recognizing it in myself.

  “No,” he says. “I don’t. But if she did, she wouldn’t need anyone’s help. We both know Tabby. That girl isn’t in the habit of letting p
eople in.”

  We’re both quiet, maybe both considering how far we were let into her orbit, and how much of us lingers there. Tabby and I used to crave the same things, and maybe it was only when she had something that it became worth wanting.

  “Do you still love her?” I ask. “Was she cheating on Mark with you?”

  He lights the cigarette and takes a long drag. “Maybe I never loved her at all. Maybe we just used each other, same as everyone else.”

  He doesn’t answer the second question. I know he isn’t going to. And now I’m thinking about who I used, and who paid the ultimate price.

  SHARP EDGES CRIME—

  CUT TO THE TRUTH!

  October 20, 2019

  Tell me about the girls

  By Oberon Halton

  Everyone seems to think Tabby’s ex, Beck Rutherford, had something to do with Mark Forrester’s murder. Yes, they have a boot print, and yes, the guy seems a little bit dark. But what I’m wondering is, what about the girls closest to Tabby?

  Sources at Coldcliff Heights High School reveal that Tabby didn’t have many friends—she mostly spent time with Elle Ross, whose summer party was the setting for the mysterious Beck-Mark altercation before Mark’s death. Where does Elle fit in all of this? Because you’re naive if you don’t think she fits somewhere. Best friends tell each other everything—what has Tabby told Elle?

  Then there’s Tabby’s sister, Bridget. I’ve heard sibling loyalty runs deep. And Bridget runs, too. She broke out in her freshman year to get a silver medal in the Colorado State cross-country championship, and is predicted to win the event this year. Rumor has it she knows Queen Anne’s Woods better than anyone. So why is everyone focused on Beck Rutherford when there are two totally more plausible suspects right in front of their faces?

  9

  LOU

  I’M GLAD SHARP EDGES posted that. I’m glad somebody pointed it out. Oh look, here are two girls who know Tabby better than anyone, and if she didn’t work alone, she probably worked with one of them. Right?

  I see both of them at school, and I watch them. Elle kind of slinks around like a shadow, like she’s guilty of something. Not how she was last year, her and Tabitha always loud and over the top, like they were trying to one-up each other. Maybe they were, and Tabitha won, because Hey bitches, I killed my boyfriend, what did you do last weekend?

  And Bridget—well, she has always been a wallpaper girl. You know, the kind you don’t really notice until somebody points her out, and you realize she has been there the whole time. I don’t have any siblings—pretty sure my parents didn’t even want me and I’m here because of some divine condom mishap that I seriously don’t want to think about. I never would have thought Bridget was capable of anything, but when she came up to me that day at my car, I saw another side of her. A side that looked a lot like Tabby.

  Anyway, whatever. Beck is on his way over here, and my mom isn’t home, so we can be alone together. I’m dying to talk to him about all this, but I also want to not talk, you know? I can hear his motorcycle, which means he’s actually on time, which almost never happens. He must want to see me as badly as I want to see him.

  I swing the door open before he can even knock on it.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he says, but it’s short and clipped, not his usual long drawl. I throw my arms around his neck—he’s wearing this sweatshirt that smells like cigarettes, gross—but he kind of stiffens and pulls back.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “You’re not gonna like this,” he says, crossing his arms. “But I think we should cool down for a while.”

  He’s still on the porch. I’m in the foyer, leaning against the door, dragging my sock across the tile floor. I’m not actually hearing what he’s saying because, seriously, he didn’t even make it to the welcome mat before trying to break up with me.

  “Cool down,” I repeat. “We’ve barely seen each other lately. You never respond to my texts.”

  “I know,” he says, his boot tapping on the ground—I can’t tell if he’s nervous or just wants to get this over with. “Look, I’m sorry. But there’s a lot of shit going on in my head right now. I don’t think we should hang out until I figure it all out.”

  Hang out. Like we aren’t anything more than that.

  “Seriously? You’re being such an asshole. Is this because of Tabby?”

  He stares at the ground, and his hair swings over his cheek, and I want to cut it off and cut him off and stop always caring about the wrong people.

  “I just wanted to tell you to your face,” he says. “I’m sorry, okay? You deserve to be with someone who can be all in.”

  “Wow. Fuck you,” I say. I wish I had a better comeback. I’ll think of one later, when my head is on my pillow and all my thoughts are swirling above, a mishmash of everything I said and didn’t say.

  “I know,” he says. “I’m an asshole. But there’s so much going on right now.” I shit you not—for a hot second, it looks like he’s about to cry. Like, something scared Beck Rutherford. “I might actually go to jail.”

  And as much as I want to punch him in the face, I also want to hug him and tell him everything will be okay. Even though it might not.

  “You’re not going to jail,” I say. “You had nothing to do with it.”

  “I didn’t kill Mark,” he says. “But it’s like they’re trying to prove I did.”

  Now, I’m severely annoyed. Beck doesn’t believe in himself at all, and he needs somebody who does. He needs somebody to believe him. To prove Tabby did it alone and that he wasn’t involved.

  And maybe I’m the only one who knows them both well enough to figure it out.

  THE NATIONAL NEWS RING

  October 23, 2019

  “This isn’t her first time”: Former classmates speak up about Blue-Eyed Boyfriend Killer

  By Darla Burns

  Several former students of Chester Prep School in Rochester, New York, have come forward to reveal exclusively to the Ring that Tabitha Cousins, the Blue-Eyed Boyfriend Killer, had a history of getting what she wanted—at any cost.

  “Everyone knows what she did to Jordan Bosch,” said a source, who used to date Jordan in high school. “She ruined his life, then her family mysteriously moves away and she starts at a new school. It’s really not a surprise that a few years later, she ruins some other guy’s life, too.”

  According to two other former classmates, Cousins was at a party with Bosch and had previously told a friend that she wanted to lose her virginity to him.

  “She was really serious about it,” said Kennedy Baker, Cousins’s former best friend. “She was willing to do whatever it took to make it happen.”

  Baker lost track of Cousins at the party, but Cousins left with Bosch, who consequently crashed his car, ending his promising football career. Reports showed Bosch’s blood alcohol level was over the legal limit. Cousins was uninjured in the crash, but faced vicious rumors at school, which sources speculate was a reason why her parents uprooted the family to Coldcliff.

  “She said it was because of her dad’s job,” Baker said. “But we all knew the truth. She was done in Rochester. It was time to move on to somewhere else. And someone else.”

  Attempts to reach Bosch for an interview were not returned, but his father, who separated from his mother last year, says his son has moved on and made something of his life.

  “Whatever happened with that girl, he moved past it,” said Jack Bosch. “He doesn’t want to be dragged back into it.”

  Cousins is being held at a juvenile detention center until her upcoming trial.

  COMMENTS: (57 previous)

  AlleyCat: Okay she looks like a baby prostitute in that pic. I wouldn’t let my kid out of the house wearing that.

  SkullNBonesXX: I heard about that story way back when. Jordan went to my HS. What do you wanna bet he wasn’t even driving the car?

  TakeMeAway: The friend just wants her 15 min of fame. All these people do. This trash websit
e just eats it right up.

  BethWanderer: WTF is with this reporter painting the boys as golden all the time? I knew Jordan in college. Guess what, he’s totally capable of being a drunk driver and crashing his car, and I bet he led the girl on. What was she, 13? Just saying.

  10

  KENNEDY BAKER

  I’M THE ONE WHO TOLD the Ring about Tabby’s secret past. Some of my friends have told me it’s low, that I went to a tabloid because I want fame and a payoff, but really I just want the truth to be out. I guess it didn’t follow her to Coldcliff, but here I am to tell you the story of the first boy Tabby ruined.

  We were in seventh grade, but dressed like we were high school seniors. Tabby already had boobs and a butt and she knew exactly how to work them, even though she complained to me about how she wasn’t sexy, wasn’t pretty. She just wanted a compliment. So I dished them out, because she gave them right back.

  Here’s the thing to know about Tabby Cousins. She’d hitch a ride with anything promising. She had a pattern. Star athletes were her thing. I had a feeling that in twenty years she’d be one of those wives on Real Housewives, which my mom watched religiously. On husband number two or three and boob job number ten, spending twenty grand on a kid’s birthday party.

  The star athlete at our school was Jordan Bosch. He was four years older but this really talented football player. People were always talking about him being scouted for the NFL before he finished high school. Tabby had close proximity to him because we were on the dance squad.

  So Tabby, she got really cozy with Jordan. Always waiting for him with a water bottle after his games, offering to rub his shoulders. It was bad because Jordan had a girlfriend, this girl Bella, who was the valedictorian.