Page 50 of You Will Never Be Me

Ben drags his eyes to meet mine, and his expression is so haunted that it pushes me back physically. “I’m so sorry, Aspen. Meredith is dead. They found her body.”

25

If it’s possible to blackout while still standing, then that’s exactly what happens when Ben tells me that they found Mer. One moment I’m there, listening to Ben; the next moment, it’s like I’ve plunged underwater. Every sound is muted and hollow, every movement thick and slow. I stay there for a while, in that peaceful, quiet space between one second to the next, not wanting to resurface. From afar, Ben’s voice calls out my name. I ignore him until he reaches out and shakes my arm, jerking me back to the present.

“Aspen!” he shouts. “Are you okay?”

I look at him, dazed, and let him lead me to the couch.

“Sit down.” He pushes down on my shoulder gently, as though I’ve forgotten how to sit down on the sofa. And maybe I have, because one moment I’m standing, and the next moment I’m sitting, and I have no idea when that happened.

“How?” I manage to choke out.

If Ben thinks it is a suspicious question to ask, he doesn’t show it. “Some divers came across it.”

Divers. I should’ve seen this coming. As Ben takes Sabine into the nursery, I stare blankly at the wall. My mind is still struggling to catch up with everything that’s happening. The past few days, I somehow managed to convince myself that everything would be alright, and now, all of a sudden, everything is crumbling. I place my hand on my inner thigh and pinch, hard, digging my nails into the skin until I suck in my breath in a hiss. The pain is a sharp lance spearing through the fog in my mind.

Get a grip, I snarl mentally at myself.This is not the time to fall apart. You cannot afford to be weak, submissive Aspen. There is no room for that Aspen. Not unless you want to land in prison.

I keep pinching until the pain is all I’m aware of. By the time I let go, I’m panting slightly, and my thigh is throbbing. It worked, though. I’m no longer underwater. Okay. Let’s think.

So they found her body. How the hell did they find her body? This would never have happened if I could’ve buried her in that hole I’d prepared. It’s so unfair how I had to derail my meticulous plans because some asshole found the hole I’d dug out in the desert.

Stop that, I scold myself.No use harping on that. The most important thing is to figure out what they know.

Another wave of despair threatens to overwhelm me, but I shove it away. They know that Meredith is dead, obviously. Okay…so what will they think? Who would they suspect? Well, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t still think it was a Joe Goldberg situation. Right? That’s the most obvious suspect. Meredith was an attractive single woman. She was on most dating apps. She partied a lot. Chances are, they’ll still think it was some guy who was obsessed with her. Definitely not me, the best friend whocreated a GoFundMe page for Meredith’s sister and child. I’ll still be okay. Nothing has changed.

God, I’m coming up with some really desperate bullshit. Everything has changed. Before, there was still a chance that Meredith left of her own accord. There were even rumors about it flying around; people who insisted they saw her in Bali or the Maldives #LivingHerBestLife. Now, all those theories have been smashed to hell. And the focus will shift from finding Mer to finding her killer. The noose around my neck is tightening.

But there’s nothing I can do, aside from sit tight and maybe post a couple of videos about how distraught I am over the news. With shaking hands, I take out my phone and turn it back on. The notifications come in a never-ending cascade of beeps, so many all at once that it almost turns into one long beep—an alarm shrieking straight to the center of my skull. And for the first time in my life, I feel a desperate need to get away from my phone. I grip it tight, wanting to fling it away as hard as I can and watch it shatter against the wall, but somehow, a part of me remains that hasn’t been whittled down into an animalistic state. A part of me hangs on to its senses. A part of me swipes up on my phone and turns it to Silent mode.

Sweet, blessed silence. Still, the top part of the phone screen is constantly moving as more and more notifications come in. I lick my lips. Bone-dry. What to open first? Definitely not social media. I can’t deal with that just yet. I open my messages.

Clara:Aspen, call me ASAP

Clara:They found Mer’s body

Clara:My sister is dead

Clara:Where the fuck are you???

My breath comes out in a tiny whimper. I close her text messages. There is a string of messages from my other friends, and the school moms’ text group is blowing up. I skip over all of them. I tap on my message chain with Liv.

Liv:OMG ASPEN??!!! DID YOU HEAR??? HOLY SHIT!!!

Liv:Rain has a cough so I’m at the pediatrician’s but BE RIGHT OVER ASAP

Liv:OMG YOU MUST BE DEVASTATED. ILY HANG IN THERE!!

Shit. The last thing I want is Liv to be—

Well. Is that really the case? No, not anymore. Over the past couple of weeks, she’s gone from someone threatening to reveal the real me online to someone who’s an actual asset. Her content ideas are refreshing, and she coaxes out the best in me when we make our videos. With a start, I realize that I actually would like to have Liv by my side, especially when I make my reaction video to the news of Meredith’s death.

Ben comes back into the room, sighing. “I can’t even imagine what Clara and Luca are going through right now.”

Bile rushes up my esophagus. The last thing I need is to think about poor, sweet Luca growing up without his mother. I feel a sudden inexplicable rage surging toward Ben. Why would he bring up Luca right now? To rub my guilt in my face? I want to shriek:But I made a GoFundMe account for him! What more do you want from me?My hands close into fists and start trembling.

Get a grip, I think to myself. What Ben said has nothing to dowith you. It’s a normal train of thought. Whenever a mother dies, the world focuses on her children. And in Luca’s case, he didn’t even have a father figure in his life to begin with. Then there’s Clara. How is she going to manage everything now? It’s normal to be thinking about these things. It’s not meant to be a hidden commentary about me. He doesn’t know I had something to do with Meredith’s death.

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