“You’ve been trying too hard to remember things,” Emmett says.
I’m out of the car. I don’t remember getting out, but now I’m standing next to it, and Emmett is looking at me worriedly. His fingers are wrapped around my wrists.
“It’s not good for you,” he continues. “Remember what happened last time you tried too hard? You started creating things in your head.”
The crack of the hammer against Savvy’s skull is replaying on a loop in my brain.
Too real to be something I created.
“Matt told you I was there that night, didn’t he?” Emmett asks. I blink. “What?”
Emmett’s expression goes dark. “He told you I was there. He promised he wouldn’t, but I should have known that asshole wouldn’t be able to keep a secret.” He puts both hands on my cheeks. “I would never hurt you, you know that.”
“Matt told me you were there,” I repeat, even though it’s a lie. Matt didn’t tell me shit.
Emmett was there? And Matt knew?
“I left the wedding for like twenty minutes because I had to go home to let my dog out,” Emmett says. “I saw you … Well, you don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do,” I whisper.
“We fooled around, at the wedding,” Emmett says. “We were … Well, we kept doing that. You remember, the times before that. You and I are always making our way to each other.”
That was one way to describe my getting drunk and kissing him twice, I guess.
“Savvy saw us, and she got really mad. I don’t know if she ever told you, but she and I had a brief fling. It was nothing, just a couple of times, but she acted really cold to me after. I think maybe she thought it was more than it was?”
That was one way to describe Savvy avoiding him after bad sex.
“You two left together. I decided to run home to let my dog out, and I came across Savvy’s car on the side of the road on the way out. I thought it was weird, because most of the guests took the main road out. It was supposed to rain that night, and the people at the venue had told us not to take that road, that it flooded easily. I guess she forgot. I forgot, until later that night.”
“You came across her car, already parked,” I repeat.
“Right. I got out, and you two were off in the trees, yelling at each other.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. It was too hard to follow. But you seemed really upset. She slapped you, and you scratched her. I started to intervene then, but you grabbed the tree branch and just … I don’t think you meant to hit her that hard. You panicked, and started screaming, and you ran.”
“You forgot about my head injury,” I say to Emmett. He drops his hands from my cheeks. “What?”
“My head injury. You forgot that I got bashed in the head too.”
“Oh.” Something like panic flits across his expression and then disappears. “I don’t know how that happened, but you were running like a bat out of hell. You must have hit your head on something. I actually tried to chase you, but you took off.”
“And you just left Savvy there to die?” I ask.
“She was already gone,” he says quietly. “There was nothing anyone could do.”
“And you didn’t go to the police because…?”
“Because I love you.” His gaze is steady on mine. “I don’t care if you made a mistake once. Technically, she hit you first. And you didn’t mean to
do it. I know that.”
“What did you say to him?” I ask. The buzzing in my brain is back. It’s hard to think. “To Matt.”
“I told him the truth. That I saw you kill Savvy.”
“Why did I…” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Why did I run?” “I think you were scared to face what you’d done.”
“And Matt didn’t call the police either?”
“We wanted to take care of it ourselves. We were going to find you, but the road washed out and we couldn’t get back to find you. And then that guy found you before we could, and it just … it seemed better to say nothing. You didn’t remember anyway.”
I look up and meet his eyes. “That must have been a real relief for you.” His eyebrows draw together. “For me? I was relieved for you. I never want you to remember that trauma. I was disappointed that you didn’t
remember our moment at the wedding, because we were finally—” “About to fuck next to a dumpster?” I finish for him.
“We were finally acknowledging our feelings for each other.”
“I guess we were. Like when I said I didn’t care about your childhood crush, and I just wanted you to fucking leave me alone.”
He freezes. “You never said that.”
“Why did Matt believe you when you said that you saw me do it? I hit you. You didn’t have any evidence of it on your face?”
“You never hit me,” he says.
“I think Savvy hit you too, but she wasn’t very good at it. She was so short, and small. She was better with knives.”
Emmett looks startled by this.
“I should have punched you harder. I’ve had practice.” A knife to the gut would have been better. Savvy was right.
“Lucy.” He speaks like he’s talking to a child. “Let’s take a step back.
You’re getting hysterical.” I punch him in the face.
