by Nicole Deese
Sasha turned from Monica to me, her voice breaking. “It won’t matter. You get that, right? No matter what I say, no matter what story I tell, it will always come down to me against them.”
“And who do you think made it that way?” Monica blurted. “You! You’re the one who doesn’t know how to have more than one friend at a time.”
Sasha spun and glared at the two girls with such venom I felt the bite from where I stood by the door. “I would rather rot in a halfway house like your mother than be caught dead with a snitch like her.”
“Stop! No!” Wren screamed as Monica pushed her aside and threw Sasha to the floor, taking another two makeup palettes and a bowl of popcorn down in the process.
As Glo dropped her full weight onto Monica and twisted her arm behind her back like a secret service agent, I blocked Wren from getting sucked into the mosh pit and shouted for Clara, who’d just walked in through the back door. She ran over immediately, assisting Glo in removing a now completely hysterical Monica from an utterly stoic Sasha. Had the girl even blocked her face when Monica swung?
“I’ll go get Silas,” Clara said, heading for the door.
“No! Don’t,” I called out after her. “We can handle this.”
She whipped around. “But Silas is—”
“Dealing with his own crisis at the boys’ house tonight. Leave him. We got this.”
She studied me, wide-eyed, then looked to Glo as if for confirmation.
“I’ll text him in a minute,” I assured. “But for now, take Sasha to get ice for her cheek, and I’ll help Glo with Monica. We’ll separate them all for the night and work through the same conflict protocol Silas would if he were here.”
Glo’s face was awash with reluctance, but after a minute, she nodded her approval. “Text Silas, Molly. Let him know there’s been an altercation but that we have it covered.” She pointed at Monica. “Go sit in my room and wait for me there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The remorse in her voice tugged at my sympathy.
Wren’s made-up face had paled considerably, and everything in me wanted to wrap my arms around her, but since I’d been the one to call the shots, I had to finish them out.
“Jasmine?” I asked. “Would you oversee the clean-up here, please? We should probably call it a night.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, as she stole a glance at Wren.
“I can help, too,” Amy offered, followed by Liberty and two other girls.
“Molly. Clara.” Glo waved us both into the kitchen. “I agree that we need to separate these two tonight, but our policy is clear when it comes to pairing off. We can’t allow a mentor to be one-on-one with a single resident overnight, which means I’ll need you both to stay with Monica this evening. I can keep Sasha here at the cottage with me and the others.”
“Right, sure,” Clara said in confirmation. “We can do that.”
I felt much less certain about this plan than Clara appeared to. “Maybe I should be the one to stay back here—”
Glo zeroed her authority on me. “There’s a bunk room up at the manor, bottom floor, far right. You’ll find bedding in the linen closet next to the theater room. Clara knows where. Would you both agree to stay in there with Monica for the night?”
We both nodded.
“I’ll keep Sasha close to me tonight. I’ll pull her and Amy into my room with mattresses on the floor. That’s all I can do at this late hour.”
I nodded again and glanced back at Wren, who swiped at a silent tear. I didn’t know how far this feud between them went, but something told me I’d only seen the tip of the iceberg. Whatever secrets had gone on in this house, they clearly didn’t begin and end in the garden shed.
Glo must have read my thoughts because she put a hand on my arm and said, “I’ll talk to Wren once I get Sasha settled in for the night. You can follow up with her in the morning. For now, I need your help with Monica. Try to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.”
I nodded again. “I will.”
Molly
More Sasha and Monica drama at the house tonight. Separating the girls after a minor altercation in the living room. Glo has Sasha at the cottage and Clara and I will be in the bunk room with Monica in the main house. We’re all good now, everything is handled, and we’ve followed protocol. No need to worry. Good night.
Morning couldn’t come soon enough.
29
Molly
Something shrieked inside my head. No, not shrieked. Wailed. A shrill that dipped and circled and never once stopped to take a breath. It just kept going and going and going and—
“Molly! Molly! Wake up!”
My eyes snapped open in the dark room. Was it morning? Where was the sun? I blinked several times, trying to remember why I was in a cold room on a hard bottom bunk, when Monica’s face cleared into focus.
“Hey,” I said a bit groggily. “What time is it?”
“Wren’s hurt,” Monica said, rubbing her arms and shivering so hard her teeth chattered.
Her words sobered my groggy mind. “What? Where?”
And that’s when I noticed the tears glistening on Monica’s cheeks. “Clara ran out about ten minutes ago, and I followed her. The police are here, and Silas is—”
I didn’t wait for the rest. In socked feet, shorts, and a ribbed tank, I barreled out of the unfamiliar room and down the long hallway, slipping and sliding around every corner and curve. The wail of emergency sirens still hadn’t halted as I slid over the hardwood into the lobby.
But nothing on earth could have prepared me for what I saw.
Wren.
Only not my Wren with the auburn braid that fell over her shoulder and the quiet disposition that wouldn’t harm a blade of grass. No, this Wren was curled up on a stretcher, grasping her head in both hands and sobbing to the point of dry heaves. Because her hair, her stunning Irish hair that she’d grown long in honor of her mother, had been hacked off above her ears.
And the anguish that twisted her face was far more gruesome than the blood that trailed the cut on her cheek.
“Wren!” A cry squeezed from my lungs as I ran toward her. But before I could reach the gurney, arms were around me, encircling my waist and holding me back, pulling me away. I fought against them, desperate to get to her. Desperate to touch her, to know she would be okay.
“No, Molly,” a low voice said as I watched Clara go to Wren. “I need you to stay here. Clara will go with her.”
“What? No.” That wasn’t right. I should be the one with her. I was her person. Not Clara.
But it was Clara who rubbed Wren’s back, Clara who spoke comforting words into her ear, Clara who stroked her butchered hair as the medics covered her bloodied sleep clothes with thin white blankets. All while Wren sobbed herself sick.
What had happened? Who had done this to her?
I fought to break free once again, twisting against Silas and pleading for him to please just let me go with her. But his arms were as firm as his voice in my ear. “Molly, listen to me. I know you’re upset, but I need you to be calm. I need you to help us understand what happened at the cottage. To give your statement to the police. Glo said she saw you talking with Sasha last night, outside.”
“Sasha?” The shutter in my mind’s eye shot in reverse. The fight. The bargain. The discovery.
“They’ve opened an investigation on the house.”
My mind couldn’t quite make sense of his use of the word investigation. But even still, my muscles slacked beneath his hold as the last of my shallow breaths squeezed from my lungs. For the first time my eyes roved the lobby to where two officers stood at attention, reading the room. And at the moment, reading me.
With all the willpower I could muster, I nodded my head and straightened my spine in an attempt to stand on my own.
Slowly, Silas let me go as I tested out the strength of my legs, actively reminding myself to breathe. “You okay?”
Again, I nodded, though my body felt as detach
ed from my brain as the part of my heart being wheeled out of the lobby on a stretcher.
“Are you Molly McKenzie?” the larger of the two officers asked me.
“Yes.” Something heavy draped over my shoulders. A gray hoodie. Silas’s. Robotically, I slid each of my arms into the sleeves and zipped it to my chin. The thick hem fell to my mid thigh, blanketing my sleep shorts but failing to hide the involuntary shiver that had overtaken my body.
“Will you please come with us? We’d like to ask you a few questions. About last night.”
About last night. A phrase at war with another that had finally registered in my brain. They’ve opened an investigation on the house.
On numb legs, I followed the officers down the cold corridor, stopping only once to look back at Silas, searching for any ounce of strength or comfort he might offer me in his steady gaze. But Silas’s eyes weren’t tracking me this time. Instead, they were tracking the ambulance as it pulled away from the manor, carrying an innocent victim he’d done everything in his power to protect from the viciousness of this world.
A victim whose attacker I’d struck a deal with only hours ago.
I tossed my keys on the breakfast bar in my kitchen, flinching at the harsh sound of metal on granite.
My house felt quieter than usual. Emptier, too. I’d spent so little time at home over the last month, leaving at the break of dawn and coming home after the sun had set, that I’d nearly forgotten how this place looked in the daylight. Dust particles gathered in clumps on the textured hardwood, scattering with my every step as muscle memory carried me down the hall to the room responsible for helping me pay off my mortgage within three years of Makeup Matters.
The chill in the studio caused goosebumps to rise on my bare legs, the only skin Silas’s hoodie wasn’t long enough to shield. Pained by the smell of his aftershave near the collar each time I inhaled, I wondered if this piece of clothing would be it—all I’d have left of a man I’d actually started to believe could care for me.
But I couldn’t process that yet.
I couldn’t process any of it.
Silencing that heartbreak, I reached for my laptop on a desk I hadn’t worked from in weeks, then clicked onto the smiling image of a woman who looked so much like me and yet not like me at all anymore. Still, I needed this. I needed this escape into an old familiar routine that would welcome me back without question and ease today’s wounds and troubles with mindless quizzes, clickbait articles, and hot new trends. Anything to keep my thoughts off The Bridge.
Unbidden, the image of Wren burned through the barriers of my subconscious. Butchered. Bleeding. Broken. That ever-present internal shiver wracked my body once again. The same way it had when I’d given my statement to the police through chattering teeth. Twice.
And still, the facts I had weren’t enough.
Sasha had been taken into custody, led out in handcuffs, escorted by the same two officers who’d sat with me for hours in the fireside room. All of it felt so foolish now as I pictured Wren lying bloody on a stretcher. The evidence in the shed, the bargain I’d made with Sasha, the altercation at the cottage, the separation of the girls overnight . . . the hopes that somehow I could be the one to save the lost.
All of it replayed in my mind—in full color and full surround sound, like a bad movie I wished I could turn off. Because I knew how it ended. With Wren’s agonizing sobs. Butchered. Bleeding. Broken.
And Silas. That despondent expression on his face as he tracked the ambulance. A look I could have prevented if only I hadn’t tried to be the hero.
My notification bubble showed more than seven hundred new interactions since the last time I’d checked in: new followers, new likes, new commenters, new shares. An easy distraction to get lost in for hours. I scrolled through several dozen comments of people asking why I hadn’t posted many selfies, when my next livestream would be, and where my latest series was.
I scrolled farther down to where the trolls lived, their word daggers the same as usual: fat cow, not even that pretty, just another stupid blonde looking for attention. My finger hovered over the last one: “. . . only famous because of her fairy-tale hair.”
Her fairy-tale hair.
It was a trapdoor comment that led me right back to a memory I was trying to avoid. To Sasha saying, “Your life is like a freaking fairy tale, only worse. More pathetic.” And maybe she wasn’t all that wrong. Maybe she’d seen exactly what I’d wanted her to see. What I’d wanted the entire world to see. The lie.
A lie so masterfully created, so flawlessly engaging, that not even a daily ghost poster could break its momentum.
I squeezed my eyes closed, seeing Wren’s trembling hands as they clutched at her shorn head, mourning the loss of something so distinctively her. The sight was a pain I wouldn’t wish upon anybody. Not even the girl who’d done it to her.
Had Wren seen it yet? Had she seen her reflection? Bile inched up my throat at the remembered torment on her face, at the shock she’d feel at seeing herself for the first time.
I did that to her. A self-accusation I’d heard approximately five thousand times since leaving the manor. Not only hadn’t I protected her, I’d been the one to put her at risk. Each and every time I’d bent the rules on her behalf. Each and every time I’d encouraged her friendship with Monica. Each and every time I wanted to be liked more than I wanted to do the right thing.
I’d been the one to make her a target.
Numbly, I clicked on the opened tab to my email inbox, scanning over the sender names with absolutely no interest in reading a single one. Most of them were daily reminder emails from Rosalyn, but three of them were recent communications from Ethan. All marked urgent with subject lines like Where are your live videos? Where have you been? MANDATORY video call at 9:00 a.m. Monday.
With a frustrated groan, I pushed my chair back and slammed my laptop closed. This is ridiculous! I didn’t care about any of that! I cared about Wren! That’s where I wanted to be—at the hospital, with her. Only I couldn’t be. Because Wren needed Clara. No, Wren deserved Clara. Even-tempered, considerate, thoughtful, empathetic, selfless-to-a-fault Clara.
The antithesis of Molly McKenzie.
I reached for a glass in my kitchen cabinet, flicking on the tap water and filling it to the brim before dumping it all back down the drain.
I left the glass on the counter and forced my feet down the hallway to the bathroom on the right, to the vanity with the special cosmetic lighting for all the live videos I’d recorded right here in this spot.
In the mirror, I stared at a naked face I no longer recognized as my own. I studied the pair of sapphire eyes to which I’d applied countless colors of eyeshadow, dozens of magnetic lashes, and brand after brand of anti-smudge liquid liner. I stared past the dark pupils into an even darker soul, asking the only question I knew how to voice: Who are you?
Because I was no longer the practiced smile and perfectly made-up face I was two months ago. Nor was I the selfless leader I’d tried and failed to become. I was a woman lost to the in-between, an identity divided between two versions of herself she could no longer accept. Because neither was complete.
Unlike Wren, my identity hadn’t been compromised while I’d slept unaware. It hadn’t been taken from me without consent or cut off my body without my knowledge.
No, I’d given mine away—one click, one like, one sponsored post and livestream at a time. For everything temporary and nothing eternal.
I unzipped Silas’s sweatshirt from my body and hung it on the towel rack behind the door. Then I tugged off the elastic tie at the top of my head. My hair tumbled down my neck and around my shoulders, swinging to the center of my back. The same hair that had started it all once upon a time—just a simple updo that had sparked the match that lit a roaring fire.
With measured calm, I slid the second drawer in my bathroom vanity open and reached for my heavy-duty scissors. They weren’t the cutting shears I’d left behind at the girls’ cottage aft
er layering Amy’s bangs last Friday, the same shears Sasha had used on Wren as a weapon last night. No, those were now in the custody of the Washington State Police.
These scissors were the ones I used most often on plastic packaging sent by sponsors around the globe. They were nicked and dulled and completely unworthy for the job at hand. Which made them perfect.
The first cut brought a surge of power, an addicting rush that hummed through my arms to the tips of my fingers. I repositioned my hair for another snip and sliced through the thick lock without resistance, watching it slip to the floor and fall listless at my feet. A death I embraced with each and every cut.
The scissors continued to weave under my jaw and around my neck, until only a small section of beach-waved hair remained, dangling over my right shoulder. The last of the picture-perfect woman I’d spent my lifetime trying to create. For the final time, I raised the scissors and closed the blades.
A new, uncharted freedom coursed through me as the last blond ribbon spiraled to the ground. I may not know who I was . . . but at least I was starting to understand who I wasn’t.
30
Silas
I didn’t know what state I’d find her in when I arrived at her house.
But I did know that for the last seven hours, while I’d been held up in meetings, placed on hold with board members, dealing with Alex’s confession to sneaking into the garden shed with Sasha for the past month, and processing the subsequent discharge paperwork, my concern over Molly’s distress had increased tenfold. Her pleas to stay with Wren had haunted me, as had the feel of her tensed muscles against my hold as she’d tried to break free from me this morning.
But what concerned me most was her disappearing act sometime after her interview with the police.
Had she really believed she could just slip out of the house without question or care? That her absence would go unnoticed? That if she silenced her phone I’d forget all about her and just move on with my duties at the manor?
