Gluttony

Chapter 10

First came the relief.

Then came the rage.

Harper pressed herself flat against the wall, her nails digging into the cheap paint. She imagined they were digging into Beth’s big blue Bambi eyes. She wanted to claw them out.

I didn’t kill her. Every night as Harper went to sleep, she felt her hands on the steering wheel; she heard the crunch of metal, and the screams. But all of it had been a lie. It might as well have been Beth at that wheel; it might as well have been a gun in Beth’s hand. It wasn’t my fault, Harper thought in wonderment.

It was hers.

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” Adam stuttered. Harper realized he was still sitting next to Beth on the bed-next to a killer. Their hands were clasped together. She held herself still, and tried to resist the urge to attack. “How could you… what do you mean you killed her?” Adam said. “You weren’t even there, and-I thought Kaia was driving the car?”

“I was driving,” Harper said flatly. The words had been trapped in her for so long, poisoning everything. And now they didn’t even matter.

And Beth had known all along, she realized. Beth had known, and let Harper believe…

She almost hadn’t survived the guilt. She had almost drowned. And Beth held the life preserver in her arms, saw her flailing-and turned away.

“I was driving,” she said again, louder this time. The words gave her power. “But this-” Bitch. Psycho. Murderer. “You. You put something in my drink. And you let me get up there in front of all those people and make an ass of myself. Then you let me get into a car. You just let-” She gasped, remembering the sirens, remembering the screams. “You just let it happen.”

“I’m sorry…!” Beth wailed, her words trailing off into an incoherent moan. She tipped over onto her side and curled up into a tight fetal ball, shaking. Adam leaned over her, stroking her head.

“What the hell are you doing?” Harper asked Adam. “Didn’t you hear her? She killed Kaia. And she let me think that I-what are you doing?”

“We have to give her a chance to explain,” Adam said softly, as if Beth were a child who’d just confessed to breaking Harper’s favorite lamp. “This doesn’t make any sense, and she… it’s Beth. She’s a good person. There must be some explanation, some-”

“There’s nothing!” Harper shrieked. She felt like she’d slipped into some parallel universe where everyone but her was insane. How could he not see what was going on, and who he was comforting? How could he not care what she’d done to Kaia-to Harper? “There’s no excuse. There’s nothing she can say. She did it. She deserves to cry. She deserves to be miserable. She deserves to go to hell, and you should leave her the hell alone.”

Adam looked at her helplessly. “Don’t say that. I can’t. She’s still… whatever she did, I still care about her. I can’t just leave her here, like this.” He rubbed his hand slowly across Beth’s heaving shoulders. She didn’t appear to notice.

Harper’s stomach contracted, and tears of rage sprung to the eyes. Adam was a caring, responsible guy. It was one of the reasons she loved him. But this was ridiculous. He was Harper’s best friend-or he was supposed to be. He was supposed to love her. Protect her. Support her.

He was supposed to be on Harper’s side. But here he was, embracing the enemy.

“I made a mistake,” Harper reminded him, “because I loved you-and you threw me out of your life. You told me I was a horrible person, that you could never trust me again. Because I made a fucking mistake. But she… she kills someone, and you just… shrug?” Harper forced her voice not to tremble. She walked slowly to the door, turning away from Adam and placing her hand on the knob. “If you ever cared about me, you wouldn’t be able to look at her. You’d leave her here to rot. You’d leave right now.”

“Don’t say that, Harper,” Adam pleaded. “Please. Don’t make me…”

Don’t make me choose. That’s what he’d been about to say. And a chasm of black, bottomless darkness opened up inside Harper. Because if he thought he had to choose-if he thought, now, after hearing the truth, that there was a choice, that he had any option but one-then it was already over.

“She needs someone right now, Gracie. I can’t leave her alone.”

I need you, Harper thought bitterly. But she didn’t say it out loud. He shouldn’t need to hear it. “I’m leaving. Come if you want. Stay it you want.”

Harper opened the door, stepped through, and closed it behind her.

She didn’t need to look back to know what he’d decided.

Adam couldn’t believe she was gone.

He couldn’t believe any of this. Things like this didn’t happen. Not to him.

He was having trouble processing. Beth had spiked Harper’s drink. Harper had gotten into the car. And Kaia had-

None of it made any sense. Beth was so gentle, such a good person, always doing the right thing, guiding him in the right direction. He’d been with her for almost two years, and he knew what kind of person she was. The kind that would never do anything like this. Never.

Unless she’d been pushed past her breaking point. Unless something had happened-some one had pushed her so hard, hurt her so badly, that she’d broken.

Maybe me. He remembered pushing her away, cursing her, hating her for something she hadn’t done. He remembered sleeping with Kaia-and breaking Beth’s heart.

He looked down at Beth, who was sobbing into the comforter, her hands balled up tight and thumping softly against the bed, her eyes squeezed shut. She needed him.

But what if he needed Harper?

He owed Harper his loyalty. He owed Beth his help, maybe even his forgiveness. What did he owe himself?

“Leave me alone,” Beth mumbled, her arm spasming out as if to shoo him away. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Adam knew that he should, and that whatever Beth said, she knew it too. But he couldn’t stop staring at the door. And, eventually, he couldn’t stop himself from standing up, walking over, and opening it.

He looked up and down the hallway. Only a few minutes had passed, but he had waited too long. She was gone.

She probably hadn’t gone far-he was sure he could find her. But he could still hear Beth weeping, back in the room. She was crushed. Damaged. Helpless. And Adam still cared about her, enough to cringe at her whimpering. Enough to want to hold her and give her comfort, maybe even forgiveness, if that’s what it would take.

“Shhh, I’m back,” he told her, gathering her up in his arms.

“No.”

“Yes. And I’m not leaving you.”

Beth was weak, and she needed him now. Harper was strong.

She could wait.

The kiss hadn’t lasted long enough.

One moment he’d had his arms around her, his lips pressed to Miranda’s, his eyes closed while hers stared, wide open, memorized the tiny dips and crinkles in the skin around his left eye. The next moment, which came far too quickly, Kane had pulled away, and they were seated across from each other again, as if nothing had happened.

Maybe nothing had, and her obsession with Kane had finally swept away her last grip on reality. But she didn’t think so.

What did it mean?

Nothing?

Everything?

She was afraid of the answer, reluctant to ask. Harper saved her the trouble.

“Thank God you’re here!” she cried, flinging her arms around Miranda. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what just happened. I just, I don’t knoooooooow.”

Miranda let her best friend cry against her shoulder, trying not to regret the fact that she’d left Harper a message to explain where she was or to wonder whether her brand-new, now-tear-stained birthday shirt was dry-clean-only. She certainly tried not to resent the fact that Harper’s latest melodrama was interrupting-well, she didn’t know what it was, but that was the point.

Above all else, Miranda was a good friend, and good friends listened. They sometimes snuck glances out of the corner of their eye at tall, well-built Greek gods in training, and sometimes got distracted wondering how to kiss that hot smirk off a certain hot face-but mostly, they listened. Or at least pretended to.

“What’s wrong now?” Miranda asked, lightly patting Harper’s back.

And then Harper began to tell her story, and as the details poured out, Miranda no longer needed to pretend.

“Kaia’s dead, and now Beth’s just lying there, crying, like I’m supposed to feel sorry for her,” Harper concluded, taking a long gulp of Miranda’s drink and then, finishing it, grabbed Kane’s out of his hand and downed that one too. “And Adam’s just taking it. Like he doesn’t care. That she killed someone. That she drugged me. That…” Harper sagged against Miranda, moaning as if all the words had leaked out of her. Then she burst into tears.

“I don’t believe it,” Miranda said, shaking her head.

“I do.” Kane had been so silent that Miranda had almost forgotten he was there. He was holding himself very still, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “I should have known,” he said, so quietly that she could barely hear him. “I should have figured it out.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Miranda countered. “Where would she even get the drugs, and how would she, how could she do something so…” But she was beginning to remember how it had felt, those days and weeks after Harper betrayed her-and how Beth’s pain had cut so much deeper. How Beth’s lust for revenge had overwhelmed them both. And Miranda had been more than happy to let Beth talk her into anything. She had so desperately wanted to lash out, to hurt Harper the way she’d been hurt. If Beth had come to Miranda with the plan-the plan she must have thought would be harmless-would Miranda have talked her out of it?

Or would she have gone along for the ride?

Harper didn’t know how long she had been crying. She’d held it together as she walked out of the hotel room, strode down the hall, waited impatiently for the elevator-maybe because she had still hoped Adam would follow.

But he didn’t. And when the elevator doors closed her in, she lost it. She’d been crying ever since. Crying and drinking, drinking and crying, and even though she was in public, and she could feel Miranda and Kane staring down at her, for once, she didn’t care. What did it matter what they thought-what anyone thought?

She was in a strange city, surrounded by foreign people and places, and her world was shattered.

It shouldn’t matter, she told herself. Losing Adam. She’d been through worse. She’d lost more than that. She’d survived.

But it all added up. And just knowing what Beth had done, knowing she was up there in the room, with Adam, that the two of them were… together… it felt like a knife digging into her side, carving out pieces of flesh. Soon there would be nothing left.

She felt a light touch on her shoulder. At least she still had Miranda. She felt a gush of gratitude. “Harper, come on, let’s get out of here,” her friend-the only one who hadn’t betrayed her-said gently.

“I can’t go back to the hotel,” Harper moaned. “Not when he’s there. With her.”

“Okay. Okay, then, let’s just go somewhere more private, get you… cleaned up.”

Dimly, Harper realized she must look like shit. And probably the whole bar was staring at the crazy girl, wondering what was wrong with her.

Someone spiked my drink, Harper thought giddily. Call the cops.

She didn’t care about any of it, but she let Miranda pull her out of the chair and guide her toward the back of the bar. Kane kept his hand on her lower back, keeping her steady. She wanted to tell him she didn’t need his help, but she couldn’t choke the words out.

“I’m going to take her in here,” Miranda said, and Harper realized she was talking to Kane. She was talking as if Harper couldn’t hear her, couldn’t speak or act for herself.

Miranda pushed open the door to the women’s room, and Kane caught Harper’s hand, pulling her toward him. He placed a hand on each of her shoulders and held her firmly. He looked blurry and out of focus, but she knew it was just the tears. “We’ll figure this out, Grace,” he said. “It’s all going to be fine.”

He’d always been a good liar.

Miranda led her inside the empty bathroom and left Kane outside to guard the door. Harper, usually unwilling to touch anything in a public restroom without several layers of paper towel between her and the germs of the masses, hopped up on the edge of the sink and leaned back against the mirror.

“This is it,” she said dejectedly, trying to pull herself back together. “He’s gone. I have to deal.”

“He’s not gone,” Miranda pointed out. “He’s back in the room right now, probably wondering where you are. You sure he didn’t call you?”

Harper shrugged. He had called. Seven times. She hadn’t answered. “I don’t care if he’s looking for me. He stayed with her, after what she did. He stayed with her.”

“Is that really so unforgivable?”

“Rand, after what she did to me?”

“She didn’t do it to you,” Miranda said flatly. A look of horror flashed across her face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like-”

“Yeah. You did.” Harper hung her head down and wiped away the last of her tears. “I get it. I’m selfish. It’s all about me. Whatever. This isn’t about me, I get that. It’s about Kaia. No, screw that. It’s about Beth, and what she did-and how she lied about it. She hurt so many people, Rand. And a few little tears and it’s like, poof! Adam forgives and forgets. He never forgave me.”

“I know.” Miranda put an arm around Harper’s shoulders. “I know it feels like he’s choosing Beth over you-”

“Because he is,” Harper said sullenly. At least she was finally getting it.

“But maybe…”

“What?”

Miranda opened her mouth. Shut it again. “Never mind.”

“Just tell me!”

“Maybe it’s not as simple as you’re making it out to be,” Miranda suggested.

“She spiked my drink because she wanted to humiliate me. She wanted to rum my life, and ended up killing Kaia. She’s a murderer. What’s simpler than that?”

“But she didn’t mean for it to happen.” Miranda smoothed Harper’s hair down and rubbed a hand across her back. “It was an accident.”

Harper laughed bitterly through her tears. “An accident. Right. The only accident is that Kaia’s the one who ended up dead. You know the little psycho was hoping it was me.”

Miranda sighed. “No. She didn’t want you dead. She just wanted…”

“What are you, a mind reader now? How could you know what she wanted? She’s crazy. She’s evil. She wanted me dead. And she almost got it.”

Miranda took a deep breath. “Harper, I think all Adam’s trying to do is look at it from her side. He’s not betraying you. He’s just… well, imagine what she must have been feeling-what could have made her do something so stupid.”

“What the hell are you trying to say?” But it was obvious. Harper would never have thought Miranda would have the nerve for bullshit like this. Kane, maybe. But not Miranda. Never Miranda. But if this was where she wanted to go, Harper was damn well going to make sure she went all the way. “Do you mean what made her-or who made her?”

“She was hurting,” Miranda said. “And… I can kind of imagine how she felt.” Harper could tell from her expression that Miranda was remembering her own pain; she was remembering her own anger. At Harper. “Maybe she just wanted to strike back, hurt someone the way she-”

“Maybe I deserved it,” Harper snapped. “That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it? Maybe you agree with her-maybe you wish I was the one who’d died!”

Miranda flinched, and her lip began to quiver the way it always did just before she started to cry. “Don’t say that. You know that’s not what I mean. I’m not trying to hurt you.” She tried to touch Harper again, but wised up when she caught the look on Harper’s face. She stepped away. But she refused to stop. “I know you don’t want to believe this. I know you want it to be simple, and have Beth be evil, and everyone on your side-”

“Because that’s the truth,” Harper insisted. “That’s reality.”

“Or maybe that’s just what you want to be true, because then you wouldn’t have to face the fact that maybe you-”

“You want to talk about what’s true?” Harper said, hopping off the sink and charging toward Miranda. She couldn’t let the conversation go any further-she didn’t know what would happen if she let Miranda finish her thought. “You’re going to tell me about making my own reality? Avoiding the harsh glare of truth?” She forced a bitter laugh. “That’s hilarious. That is fucking hilarious.”

“Harper, I’m just trying to-”

“And here, of all places.” Harper spun around, flinging her arms out toward the filthy stalls. The anger coursing through her felt good. It swept away the misery, and gave her strength. Power. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing, rushing off to the bathroom after every meal? You think I haven’t figured out your pathetic little problem, even if you want to pretend it doesn’t exist?”

“That’s ridiculous, Harper, I do not-”

“What was that about facing the truth? Oh, ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’” Harper said, pouring a bucket of fake sympathy into her voice, “‘but it’ll be good for you to face reality.’ Life isn’t always what you want it to be, after all. You want to be sexy, desirable, and stick thin-but instead all you are is a pathetic closet-case bulimic who’s so incompetent at keeping your oh-so-special secret that the whole world knows what a head-case you are.”

“Harper, stop it,” Miranda whispered, backing away. “Please.”

“And if you want to talk hard truths, here’s another one,” Harper yelled. “Kane will never love you. He knows how you feel, and he’s playing with you. Like a toy. Get it? You’re a joke to him. You’re nothing.”

Harper wanted to stop herself now. She’d gone too far. She pressed her hand against her lips, to stop the flood of words. But the dam wouldn’t hold for more than a second. Screaming at Miranda, forcing the tears out of her, was the only way to drown out everything that Miranda had said. And everything she hadn’t said.

Because Harper could fill in the blanks.

You wouldn’t have to face the fact that maybe you caused this.

Beth would never have done it, if it hadn’t been for you.

Kaia might still be alive if it hadn’t been for you.

You destroyed everything good in Beth’s life-what did you expect her to do?

You still got in the car. You’re still the one who was behind the wheel.

“Shut up!” she screamed, even though Miranda hadn’t said anything. “You’ve been following after Kane like a sick little groupie for all these years, and where has it gotten you? You’re alone, you’re bitter, and you puke your guts out every day like the before version of some Oprah charity project. And you want to lecture me about avoiding the truth? You make me sick.”

Miranda fled, flinging open the door-and slamming into Kane, who was waiting just outside. It was obvious he’d heard everything. She took one look at him, let out a thin cry of despair, and ran away. “Miranda!” he called. “Wait-” But she kept running.

Kane stared after her for a moment, then turned slowly toward Harper. “How could you?” he asked, his voice icy.

She just wanted to crawl into a corner and die. “Kane, I-”

“Don’t.” He’d never looked at her that way before: stern and serious. Disappointed. “Just don’t.” And he spun around and left her behind.

Harper gulped in one deep breath after another, trying to summon up the strength to figure out what to do.

She needed to do something. She needed to fix this, fix everything. But it was all so screwed up. How could all of her friends turn on her like that-why couldn’t they see that Beth was the enemy? Why were they so ready to give her their sympathy and to leave Harper to fend for herself?

You drove them away, a voice in her head pointed out.

But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear someone rage against Beth for what she’d done. She wanted to hear that she wasn’t the only one who cried herself to sleep most nights, imagining that she could still hear Kaia’s icy laugh.

Or Kaia’s screams.

She wanted someone to blame for everything that had happened. She wanted someone to punish.

And though her friends may have abandoned her, she suddenly realized that she wasn’t alone.

It took a few phone calls and a little detective work, but in Grace, CA, there were far fewer than six degrees of separation between Harper and, well, anyone. She had the phone number in under five minutes. It only rang once.

“Beth?” a voice asked hopefully. “Where did you-”

“It’s not Beth,” she snapped. “Is this Reed?”

“Yeah, but who-”

“This is Harper Grace. We need to talk.”

Sleep was impossible. But Beth had gotten good at pretending. She lay on her side, Adam’s arm curled protectively around her, his face pressed against her shoulder, and kept her eyes closed, listening to his steady breathing. Her arm was twisted at an odd angle and had long ago fallen asleep; her neck ached, and she longed for a tissue with which to blow her stuffed-up nose or to clean the dried tears off her face. But she didn’t want to move, lest she wake him.

She didn’t want him to leave.

Because she was so intently focused on Adam-the comforting pressure of his body, the soft, snuffling sounds he made as he slept, the tickle of his hot breath on her neck-she didn’t hear the door inch open, or the footsteps creep toward the bed. And because she had her eyes closed, she didn’t see the figure standing over her, fists clenched.

But she smelled him. Stale coffee, cigarettes, motor oil, and the faint sweetness of fresh-grown marijuana. She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, hoping he would believe the pose and go away, so she wouldn’t have to face him-not like this.

“Is this a fucking joke?” he growled loudly.

Adam jerked awake and stared groggily at the intruder. Beth opened her eyes and sat up, wondering how much he knew, and how much she would have the courage to tell him.

“We fell asleep,” she lied. “But nothing happened. Adam was just-”

“You think I give a shit what you do with him?” Reed’s voice, usually so warm and slow, pelted her like hail, rapid and unforgiving. “You can screw every guy in town, for all I care. You can fucking die, for all I care.”

And she knew that he knew.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Adam said, about to stand up. Beth put a hand on his back.

“Let me,” she told him. This was her battle to lose. “Reed…” Her voice sounded strangled. Which is how she felt. “I wanted to tell you myself-”

“I comforted you,” he spit out, looking disgusted. “I touched you, I held you, I let myself-” He sagged against the wall and wiped the back of his hand against his mouth, as if to wipe the memory of her off his lips.

“How did you find out?” she asked in a whisper.

Harper stepped through the open door. “I told him.” She glared smugly at Adam. Beth didn’t turn to see his reaction. She didn’t care about anything right now but making Reed understand.

“It was an accident,” she told him, the tears returning even though she thought she’d wept herself dry. “It was a mistake. I should have told you. I know. But…”

“But you didn’t.”

“Because I thought you’d hate me!” she cried.

“You were right.”

“Reed…” Beth lunged toward him, then, pulling him toward her, wrapped her arms around him and clutched his worn cotton T-shirt in tight fists so he couldn’t escape. She expected him to push her away, but he didn’t move, just stood there in her embrace, his arms at his sides, his head staring straight ahead over her shoulder, motionless, like a mannequin. She glanced over at Harper, hating to do this in front of her. But she had no choice. “Up on the roof, I only ran away because-because I was afraid of this. I told you! I told you I didn’t deserve you, that you didn’t really know me…”

“So this is my fault for not believing you?”

“No! No, that’s not what I mean.” She clutched him tighter and closed her eyes again, trying to memorize everything about his body, knowing this might be her last chance. “I just don’t want you to think that I was… I wanted to stay with you. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I wanted to tell you…” She lowered her voice so that only he would hear. “I’m in love with you, too.”

There was no answer.

“Reed? Did you hear me? I love you. And maybe we can find a way-”

He didn’t push her away, or touch her at all, but somehow he stepped out of the embrace, so quickly that Beth found herself holding empty air.

“You make me sick.” His voice was hoarse and expressionless. “There’s no way. There’s nothing.”

“But after everything we-”

“Don’t you get it? There is no we. None of it happened-none of it was real. It was all a lie.”

“It wasn’t! You have to believe me,” she begged, “it was all real. And everything I said was true, except-”

“You’re a liar,” he said flatly. “You’re a killer. You… you took her away from me, and then thought you could just replace her? You’re psychotic.”

“I love you,” she told him again, this time loud and clear. She knew now that it didn’t matter, that he was already gone, but she needed to say the words. She needed them to hang in the air so that there was at least some record of the last good thing in her life, before it faded away.

“I don’t even know you,” he shot back. “I don’t want to.” He pressed his hand over his eyes and hunched forward, as if he were struck by a sudden sharp pain. Beth moved toward him again, but Harper was quicker. She materialized by his side; he took her hand.

Beth felt like her own hand had been dipped in acid.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, the words now sounding meaningless even to her.

“Save it,” Harper sneered, leading Reed to the door. She was no longer holding his hand; now her arm was loosely wrapped around his waist. Beth didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself. “No one wants to hear your lame apologies.” Harper paused in the doorway and glared once again at Adam. “Some things are unforgivable.”