Page 65 of You Will Never Be Me

“Will the cops catch the bad guy who killed Aunt Mer?” Elea says.

“Yes.” Then, to my surprise, Elea nuzzles her head into my chest, and I think my heart might actually burst with love for this girl. “It’ll be okay.” I think of how my fans are coming to bat for me now, their loyal chorus overwhelming all of the trolls, and I think of how Helena is busy putting together a battle plan, and I really do believe that everything will be okay.

I tell the twins that I love them and leave their room. I go out to the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine, and open up TikTok. A video pops up on my FYP. The wineglass slips from my hand and shatters on the floor.

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I don’t know the couple inthe video before me. I’ve never seen them a day in my life. And yet here they are, destroying it.

“We didn’t know any of these so-called influencers,” the man says. “We’re not really social media people.”

“We mostly use Facebook,” the woman says. “Then we started seeing Meredith Lee’s face everywhere. And I thought she looked so familiar. But I couldn’t place her for the longest time. I thought maybe she just had one of those faces.”

“Then over dinner one night, she came up on the news—we watch the news while eating dinner,” the man says. “And there’s her photo, and Shelley says to me, ‘Don’t you think she looks familiar?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I know her. She’s that lady we bumped into at the open house. The one in Alhambra.’ And Shelley went, ‘Oh my god, that’s it!’ That was probably one or two days before she was murdered. I mean, how creepy is that? Very, that’s how.”

“I downloaded TikTok,” Shelley says proudly.

“She did.”

“I did a deep dive, and I watched all the videos about Meredith and Aspen, and I said to Andrew, I said, ‘I don’t trust this Aspen. There’s just something about her that’s rubbing me the wrong way.’ ”

Andrew nods. “Yep.”

“So I watched Aspen’s videos, and that’s when I saw him!”

“The Realtor,” Andrew says, just a beat before Shelley says the same thing. She glances at him, annoyed at giving it away.

Shelley leans forward, her eyes wide. “The Realtor who was holding the open house where we saw Meredith shortly before she went missing is Ben, Aspen’s husband.”

•••

That’s it. The silver bullet.All the stuff I just did, Helena’s brilliant strategy—all of it is shattered just like that. I stand there, ignoring the broken wineglass and spreading puddle of wine at my feet, and I start doomscrolling.

The responses are swift and unforgiving. Theories sprout like wild grass.

Ben was sleeping with Meredith!!!

Aspen killed Meredith because Ben was sleeping with Meredith!!!

Aspen was following Ben and spied on them!!

No, Aspen was stalking Meredith!!

The last one makes me laugh a thin, mirthless sound.No, I want to say to them,shewas stalkingme. And how has all of this ended up centered around Ben? Can we please have a single story that doesn’t center around a man? God, it’s going to boil down into me killing Meredith because I got jealous about her and Ben, isn’t it? Come the fuck on. As if I would do such a thing. I’ve always said, if a husband cheats on his wife, revenge should be taken out on the husband, not the mistress. Not that anyone would believe me. It’s too familiar a storyline. Someone cheats, so the spouse offs the other man—or the other woman, in this case. People like familiar storylines. And I suppose at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter why I killed Meredith.

I video-call Helena. I don’t expect her to pick up the phone—it’s eight thirty p.m.—but she picks up on the first ring. She’s wearing a silk robe, but still has full makeup on.

“I was just about to call you,” she says.

“You’ve seen it?”

“Would be hard not to; it’s everywhere. They’re likable too. Relatable. People believe them.”

“Everyone thinks I killed Meredith because she was sleeping with Ben.”

“I’m going to ask you this once, Aspen. And I will trust you.”

I brace myself.

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