by Lisa Unger
Keanu Reeves is smooth faced and svelte, caught in a web of digital deceit. Morpheus tells Neo how the Matrix is all around him. How it’s the world that’s been pulled over his eyes to blind him to the truth. How he is a slave born into bondage, in a prison he can’t touch.
When Emily’s hand finds mine, I turn to her.
Her lips are sweet, her skin silk under my hands. My need for her is sudden—urgent and real. Not a reaction formation. She sighs as I pull her to me. She yields, her arms wrapping around me, her passion a taste on my tongue. I am awake and alive, truly present for the first time since I watched my blood spill on the bathroom floor.
We tear at each other’s clothes, tumble from the couch. Skin on skin; I am alive for the first time since Anisa. I shiver with pleasure. Emily’s skin glows in the firelight, her eyes shining.
When she pulls at my shirt, I’m embarrassed, try to keep it on.
“Let me see all of you,” she whispers beneath me.
The keloid scars are dark on my arms, two long lines. I show them to her.
She puts her lips to them, and my whole body shudders with the relief of being seen, my whole truth, no matter how flawed and ugly.
We make love, ravenous for each other. It’s raw and desperate. I make sounds I don’t even recognize as we roam each other’s imperfect flesh. Emily cries, tears streaming down her face as she moans with pleasure. It’s nothing like it was with Anisa. Emily abandons herself to the moment. Anisa always seemed to observe it. I am lost and found.
By the time we’re drifting off, the television is emitting white noise and the sun is rising outside.
“Oh, Will,” she whispers. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”
“Me too,” I say. It’s true, and it’s not true.
We just stare at each other in wonder until we fall asleep in each other’s arms.
When I awake, I lie by the fire, which I guess Emily has kept going. The blanket from the couch covers my body.
For a moment, I think she’s left. Or that maybe she was never here. This was a dream. A hallucination. Chasing Anisa’s digital presence, I’ve walked right off the edge of reality.
But then I smell something. The unmistakable aroma of Campbell’s chicken soup—that chemical facsimile of food that is somehow so much more than the real thing. I get up and retrieve my clothes from the floor.
In the light of day, everything looks as shabby as it is—the carpet is stained, the couch pilled, the blanket frayed. In the kitchen, Emily is the only thing of beauty. The linoleum floor peels, the Formica countertop is rife with burns, scratches. The wallpaper is yellowed.
“I love it here,” Emily says. Her notebook is on the table. I can see that she’s been writing, the pen tucked into the pages.
I sit. The wine we drank last night, the heavy meal, makes my head ache, my stomach complain. I am not a morning person. I remember that we came up here looking for Anisa and didn’t find her. Emily seems to have forgotten that. But maybe, I’m realizing, that’s not why she wanted to come up here at all. She turns to me with a bright smile, but whatever she sees on my face causes it to fade.
Silent, she pours the soup into two bowls, carries them to the table. There’s tea too. With honey. We eat and drink. It’s good. The food helps my darkening mood. But I realize I’ve missed a dose of my medication. We should get back.
Emily has gone still, internal. She feels the shift of my energy.
“You’re never going to stop looking for her, are you?” she says finally.
The light of day has cast all of this differently.
I am slipping back into old behaviors. Paranoid. Delusional and compulsive. Maybe it’s more than one dose I’ve missed. Dr. Black would not approve of this errand.
“It’s really about Claire, right?” she says. “How you couldn’t hold on to either of them?”
I shake my head, not wanting to hear the truth of it.
That dark place, it starts to open in me. I try to breathe it away.
“And Anisa. Even when she was with you, in love with you, you were chasing her. You held on so tight that you strangled the love between you.”
When it starts, it’s a rumble, an engine gunning deep within. I hear it coming like a semi in the distance.
“You drove her away. When all you had to do was let her be.”
“Stop,” I say.
“Look,” Emily says, putting down her spoon. She looks up at the ceiling, then back at me. “She’s gone, okay? Here’s the truth, Will. That tiny house? It’s far from here—in Portland, Oregon. Anisa and Parker? It’s real. They’re happy.”
I grapple with her words. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve helped them with social media,” she says, hanging her head. “I did some work for both of them, in the beginning. Still do occasionally.”
“No,” I say. But the look on her face—pale, mouth turned down. Shame.
“She doesn’t want anyone to know where she is. Especially you, Will. You hurt her, frightened her. That night you got arrested—you pushed her against the wall. You tried to strangle her. If it wasn’t for her neighbor breaking down the door, she said you might have killed her.”
I hear Anisa’s voice: Stop it, Will. You’re hurting me. I see the fear on her face. I was only the chaos of my rage; I couldn’t stop.
“Will,” Emily goes on. “She says it’s hard enough to be stable herself without your instability.”
The room, the world, is spinning.
“Why?” I manage. “Why would you do this? Make me think you had the same suspicions that I did. Make me think—”
“I don’t know,” she says quickly. “It was wrong. I’m sorry. I mean—I haven’t talked to her. Just text and email, direct messages, for a long time now. But I just thought—if I could get you away from it all, get you alone, out here where it’s quiet, maybe—maybe you’d see.”
She reaches for me, but I draw back. “See what?”
“See me,” she says, eyes shining. “Will, I’m right here. Flesh and bone. What happened between us last night—that was real.”
“Emily.”
She’s right. It was real. Her flesh. Her lips, our breath, my pleasure, the closeness. Even now, her delicate beauty, her soft voice.
But the lies.
Why do they always have to lie, leaving me to play the fool, the one waiting for a return that never comes?
Despair, anger, they wrestle within me. I hear Dr. Black’s voice, urging me to acknowledge and release my anger. But it’s too late. The world is fading.
Don’t tell on me, you little asshole, Claire said as she slipped out that night. Go back to sleep. If you say a word, I’ll tell Mom and Dad that you got a boner when you watched me sunbathe on the dock.
So when I heard them come home, I didn’t tell them that Claire was not in her room. I let my parents go to sleep, wake up in the morning, make breakfast. I let my dad go for his run and my mom do the laundry. And it wasn’t until just before lunch that my father said, “Are we going to just let her sleep all day?”
That was when they discovered that her bed hadn’t been slept in. She was out there all night, alone in the cold, dark water.
The guilt of that, it split me in two.
Why do they always lie?
“I’m the one who came when you called,” Emily says now. “I’m the one who is still here answering your calls, helping you with your career.”
She starts to cry.
“I love you.” It’s a whisper into her palms. “I always have.”
I can see that it’s true. Really true.
Through the fog of my anger, I can see how that truth motivated her to lie, to create this clever errand, to get closer to me. What a tangle. What a mess we all are. So many layers of truth and lies that no one knows what’s real anymore.
She takes something from her pocket.
“That photo from the Happy Cow. It was an old one, from the day we were all up here. I sent it to her
from my photos a while ago. I fell in love with this place then. And it was here that I acknowledged for the first time—to myself—that I was in love with you.”
I can tell Emily is still hoping for a happy ending to this conversation.
“But she wasn’t wearing the necklace in the photo, and she was wearing it that day.” I barely recognize my own voice; it’s raw with desperation.
“She must have photoshopped it out,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
She opens her palm. There it is. Anisa’s silver infinity necklace.
“She gave it to me just before she left town. She wanted me to return it to you. But I couldn’t. How could I hurt you like that? When you were working so hard to get well.”
I look at it. It sits small and dull in her palm. I wanted to give Anisa diamonds—a huge glittering ring. But I couldn’t. I gave her all I had to offer, and it wasn’t enough.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I’m shaking. That thing, that dark, dark thing inside me. It’s raging. I really need to call Dr. Black.
“Because,” she says, “after last night, the raw reality of that connection, I don’t want anything false between us. Just the truth from now on.”
With Anisa, things used to get fuzzy. That’s happening now. A kind of siren in my head blocks out all other sound, makes it hard to think. Her face. Her eyes go wide.
“Will,” she says. “Will, are you all right?”
The darkness swallows us both. Then there’s nothing.
I posted on Instagram this morning, a lovely sunny-day shot of the red front door of my agent’s gorgeous town house office.
This is a big day, I wrote. Today I sign my first book deal.
I’ve really been growing my social-media presence, and I had a hundred likes in the first ten minutes. Even Anisa sent me a comment, just emojis: clapping hands and some stars.
It’s true; it really is a big day. My novel, which I finally finished, sold to a real publisher, one of the best—after a vigorous auction. My debut was acquired by a famous editor, one who has launched bestsellers and prizewinners.
Now I sit with Paul, my agent, the one with whom Emily connected me, as he and I page through the contract. We go over every detail in the enormous legal-size document.
Of course, even if the elliptical, purposely confusing language translated to “And upon literary stardom, you will relinquish your eternal soul,” I would sign.
“This is going to be big, Will,” Paul says. “Congratulations. And the book—it’s amazing. Just everything it needs to be. A great hook, perfect suspense. And that ending. No one will see it coming. I still think about it.”
He shakes his head in admiring disbelief. “I never once suspected the brother. Not for a second until the truth was revealed. Just masterful.”
“Thanks, Paul,” I say, lifting a modest hand. “I owe it all to you. Well, really to Emily first.”
“That was a hell of an auction. I owe her big-time for connecting us,” he says.
I feel a rise of something, a whisper, a niggle in the back of my brain. Guilt. Sadness. I push it back hard. Don’t look back, Dr. Black always says. That’s not the way you’re headed.
“Me too,” I say. “Big-time.”
We stack the documents, all the copies now bearing my signature. There’s a tidy pile on the varnished mahogany table. I can smell the ink. I thought the contract would be digital. But no. Publishing is still a pen-and-paper business. I’m glad. It feels more solid, more real this way.
“Hey,” Paul says. “Have you heard from her? Like, actually talked to her?”
“Emily?” I say with a disappointed frown. Tension creeps into my shoulders. “Not in a while.”
I can tell he’s trying to be light, casual. I think he has a crush on her.
He buzzes for his assistant, and a frazzled, bespectacled young woman hurries in. For a second, it could almost be Emily. Same anxious sweetness.
“Oh,” she says, breathless. She looks at me with eyes wide in admiration. I see that look a lot lately. I could get used to it. “I loved your book.”
“Thank you,” I say. “What’s your name?”
“Bella.” She blushes a pretty scarlet.
I take her hand and smile into her eyes. “Nice to meet you, Bella.”
“Really,” she says. “It was mesmerizing. Such an unreliable narrator. He hid so much from himself, we never knew what was true.”
I smile. “Well, we’re all unreliable narrators of our own lives, aren’t we?”
She nods, sighs. “That’s so right. Wow.”
When she’s gone, Paul is looking at me with a knowing smile.
“You are going to do very well, my man. Handsome, charming, talented. They’ll be eating out of your hand.”
“Hey,” I say with a laugh. “I’m just happy to be here at all. It’s been a long road.”
“Let’s grab a drink. Celebrate.”
He pats me on the shoulder. I fold my copy of the contract and slide it into my satchel, right next to the Moleskine I carry with me everywhere now. And we head out.
“So a writers’ retreat, huh?” he says on the street. We’re still on this, I guess. I’d really like to move on from the topic.
“What’s that?”
“Emily still on a writers’ retreat?”
Yeah, he’s got it bad. Poor guy. We push through the door of the restaurant across from his office, take our usual spot on the corner of the marble bar. We’ve knocked back quite a few here. It’s elegant and dim—leather seats and smoky mirrors, black-and-white tile floors.
“I guess so,” I say, settling onto the stool. “According to her last post.”
“Where is she again?” He waves at the bartender, who doesn’t even need to take our order.
“I’m not sure. Out of the country. The Cotswolds, was it?”
“Just took off,” Paul says. “Went for broke.”
“That was the plan.”
He clicks his phone. We’re all always doing that. Checking and checking. When everything real is right in front of us.
“I’m envious,” he says, looking up. “Some days.”
When the bartender brings our drafts, we clink glasses.
“To Emily,” he says. “I wish she was here to toast with us.”
“I’m glad she’s following her dreams, wherever they’ve taken her,” I say. “She just published that poem. Her work is better than ever. She’s really grown.”
He nods. “I miss her.”
He takes a sip of his beer.
I miss them. All of them. Claire. Anisa. Emily.
I’d bring them all back into my life if I could. Sometimes regret is a bitter meal you have no choice but to eat.
When I look down into my glass, for some reason, I flash on the murky cold water of the lake on our property up north.
“You okay?” Paul asks. I’m not sure what he sees on my face.
“I miss her too.”
I’ve learned something important since Anisa left me. That part of loving is releasing. That to truly honor someone you love, you have to let her be.
“Well,” Paul says, trying for brightness, “maybe sometimes you just have to drop out, disconnect, to really dig into your truth. Into that real space within.”
The infinity necklace, the one I gave Anisa. I carry it with me in my pocket, a kind of touchstone. I reach for it now, feel the cold metal between my fingers.
“Yeah,” I say, patting him on the back. I know what it’s like to wish you could be with someone who has slipped away. “That’s so true.”
Don’t miss this gripping thriller––from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger––about a chance encounter that unravels a stunning web of lies and deceit.
Selena Murphy is commuting home from her job in the city when she strikes up a conversation with the beautiful stranger in the next seat. Their connection is fast and easy. The woman, Martha, confesses that she’s been stuck in an affair with her b
oss. Selena confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. But days later, Selena’s nanny disappears. As Selena is pulled into the mystery of the disappearance, she begins to wonder: Who was Martha, really?
Read it now!
Available wherever books are sold.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Unger is the New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45 and the Edgar Award–nominated short story The Sleep Tight Motel. Her books have been published in twenty-six languages and her essays have appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and on NPR.
