Page 63 of I Need You to Read This
“I have to say, I didn’t expect you to get so involved in all of our drama,” she says, picking up the cup.
Alex’s whole body feels like a wrung-out sponge. She can practically feel the water on her lips, and stretches out her fingers. Instead of handing the cup to her, Regina takes it with her, setting it on a ledge far across the room. She sits again, straightening her pant legs. “But I’m glad you did. Like I said, I’m grateful you helped put Howard in jail. That’s where murderers belong. Now, where were we? Oh, that’s right, I believe we were talking about you keeping your job.”
Alex marvels at how comfortable the woman is with wielding her power. Regina Whitaker doesn’t get caught for crimes. She gets away with them.
Alex hears something at the door and glances past her at the hallway. “And what about the knife?” Alex asks, her voice hoarse.
“What are you talking about?”
“The knife. It was a gift to Howard from you, wasn’t it?” Alex says, thinking of the inscription on the leather case.
“Yes, I gave it to him for our twentieth anniversary. What about it?”
“I found it,” Alex says as Regina’s perfect face falls. “It was under the desk in Francis’s office at the beach house. The police have it now.”
Regina smiles, and Alex watches her chest fall as she exhales, relieved. “You couldn’t have found it. I buried it in the garden.”
There is a moment where she realizes what she’s done. The two of them stare at one another.
Regina blinks. “Oh, please. I’ll just deny it.”
“You can’t,” Alex says, her heart pounding.
“Oh, and why is that?” Regina smirks. A machine next to Alex begins to beep as Regina steps toward her. This is what having no consequences looks like. She is a woman who will do whatever she can to get what she wants, knowing that she will get away with it. She will kill someone. But not right now. Because a slim figure has come to stand in the doorway behind her, quietly slipping into the room through the cracked door.
“Because I heard it, too,” Jonathan says. He stands behind Regina, a bouquet of flowers in his hand.
Dear Constance,
I thought it was over for me, I really did. When I heard the door shut, I thought I might only be imagining things. I was hardly able to keep myself from falling asleep by then. I could feel my pulse slow down, like all the blood in my body was coming to a standstill. He’d left, I realized, to avoid getting caught with my body. He’d make sure to come back later so that he could say he found me and put on a little show for everyone, cry some of those fake tears. He’d call 911. Assuming it was all over.
But slowly I got better. And now here I am. I may have choked in the final moments. I may not have left when I needed to, but I had done some smart things to prepare. I contacted one of the women’s rescue organizations, which helped me change my name. When he came to find me, there was no one under that name. It allowed me to get better without him, for the wounds to heal. And once I was better, they helped me disappear.
I stepped out into Penn Station. Some people might be afraid of being in a big city, but I felt a stirring in my chest as I emerged into the bright light of Midtown. This was my chance just like you said it was. All this time I’d wanted to escape. And now I had. You were right about that. You were right about everything.
Sincerely,
Lost Girl (now hopefully found)
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
“Saved your seat,” Raymond calls out when Alex walks into the Bluebird. It’s a beautiful Sunday morning and the diner is buzzing with activity. It is that wonderful moment in early winter when the city looks clean and magical. The department store holiday light displays sparkle in a coat of freshly fallen snow. Winter coats spill out into the narrow space as Alex squeezes past to get to the end of the counter.
“How’s it going, Alexis, or should I say Constance?” Raymond says, raising his wild eyebrows. “I saw your new column, quite the contentious one this week.”
Jonathan had texted her this morning. Apparently there is already a bit of an uproar in the comments section about her latest answer.
The young man from this week’s column had written to Constance despondent over the direction his life was headed. He had an unsupportive family, no real romantic prospects, and a relentless problem with a bully at work. He’d wondered if he could run away from his problems, start fresh in a new location. Of course, Alex knew the typical response would be to tell him to stay put. But she has more nuanced views about these things. Alex may have even been going against what Francis would have said when she wrote her response.
Dear Escape Fantasies,
You’ve probably been told that you can’t run away from yourself. Wherever you go, there you are, isn’t that the old adage? Though I appreciate the sentiment, I respectfully disagree. Because there are certain times you need to go someplace new to put your life back on course. I’m not saying it will automatically make you a different person. But it can be hard to change under the microscope of people we know, hard to stretch ourselves through the claustrophobia of the familiar.
Sometimes the only way to be able to see yourself clearly is through a fresh lens. So go forward toward your new beginning. It’s not often in life we get to start completely fresh. Savor it.
Alex smiles, thinking about her answer. It might be her favorite column to date.
