“I wasn’t sleeping with your sister. I never touched her.”
“That’s not how the Roost guys made it seem.”
“And who would know? Some drunk frat boys or me, the man that was involved in this little situation?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re hiding from me, but you’re hiding something.”
“Kaye.” I grab her arm. We’re far enough from the party now that we’re lost in the blackness of the night. She turns and looks up into my eyes, and I expect to see defiance, but there’s only fear. It breaks my fucking heart, and my fingers dig tighter into her flesh. “I didn’t fuck your sister. I never wanted to, and I doubt that’s what she wanted from me.”
“Why did they say she was obsessed with you? They said she was following you around all the time or something, like a puppy dog.”
I shake my head slowly. “You don’t want to hear this.”
“Emilio.” She pulls her arm away and steps back. “Just tell me the truth, okay? For once in your fucking life, stop with the games and tell me. What was it between you and my sister?”
I stare at Kaye and take a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down.
This is only going to hurt her.
She doesn’t want the truth. I can fall back on the old cliché,she can’t handle the truth, but sometimes clichés are true. It’s only going to upset her and tarnish whatever good memories she has of her sister.
And I don’t want to be the person that breaks whatever spell she’s under.
Another cliché:ignorance is bliss.
“Your sister was a complicated person,” I say finally, slowly. “I can tell you right now, there were no emotions involved between us. There was no passion, no sex, none of that. I’m not sure she was capable of feeling any of that.”
“Lucy felt. She definitely felt.” Kaye backs off, glaring at me. She’s already in denial and I haven’t even told her a quarter of the truth yet.
But she asked for this, didn’t she? And she’ll only keep pushing. Eventually, someone will tell her, whether it’s Lesley or Terrence or anyone else in Calico. They were all around and they remember what Lucy was like.
Someone will tell her, and Kaye’s heart will break.
It’s better coming from me, even if I’d rather gouge out my own eyes than say any of this.
“Lucy was the coldest person I’ve ever met,” I say, staring at her with a mixture of anguish and resolute earnestness. “She wanted to use me for a story. That was her angle from the start. Get in with the mafia boy and learn all his deep, dark secrets. She started out being friendly, but it turned from there.”
She’s listening intently and I catch a spark of recognition in her face. She knows what I’m saying is true. She knows the Lucy I’m trying to tell her about, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
“What else?” she asks, sounding like she doesn’t want to know but can’t stop herself anyway.
“She really did follow me everywhere. She stalked me, little pet. No, don’t give me that look. She was there after all my classes, there at the house in the morning and at night. She was constantly around, especially when she became friends with Lesley, and I’m pretty sure she only did that to get closer to Calico House. She did it all to write that stupid fucking article that didn’t even matter in the end. And you know the worst part? Lucy took pleasure in fucking with me. She wanted to ruin me, not because she disliked who I am and what I do, but purely because she thought it was fun.”
Kaye shakes her head. “You’re wrong. She wasn’t like that.”
“But wasn’t she? Lucy enjoyed her little power struggles. She loved her little battles, and I was her toughest opponent because I saw through her frigid charm. There was nothing beneath that pretty smile and those nice eyes, nothing below her surface, only a hungry ego like a black hole and nothing more. She was relentless, and when her article failed to make a dent, she lost her fucking mind.”
I still remember that way she raged at me. It was wild, her screaming, her fighting. She wanted to kill me—and she nearly did it.
“You’re lying. That wasn’t her, that’s not my sister.” Kaye’s backing away, looking like she’s on the edge of panic.
I don’t follow after her. I let her go, even if it breaks my goddamn heart to do it. “Think, pet. Think hard about your sister. Are you really going to tell me that Lucy was just another average girl? That she didn’t have a dark, frozen heart?”
“My sister wasn’t a monster,” Kaye says, nearly screaming. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about her. No, stay away from me, you asshole.” She turns and start running down the beach.
“Kaye!” I call after her, jog a bit, but she’s spiraled beyond control completely. If I keep going after her, she might get lost out in the jungle and stumble down the wrong blind trail and end up as dead as her sister. I let her leave me behind, staring as she recedes into the dark.
I look down at my hands. I feel like they’re sticky and black with blood. Why did I tell her all that? Just because it’s true?