Page 37 of Good Girls Lie
This is ridiculous. The room is no different than the first time I saw it, full of old paint cans and drapes, hardwood flooring and ladders stacked against the walls. Boxes and crates, covered in paint-dappled sheets. A storage room. A leftover.
But the scent lingers.
I shake my head, trying to get it out of my nose. Whatever am I doing? My mother is dead. And I don’t believe in ghosts.
* * *
Camille isn’t in the room again. Whatever. I grab my bathroom gear, hurry down the hall, wash my face, brush my teeth, braid my hair, and am back in less than five minutes.
I am unsettled. I can’t fall asleep. And when I finally drift off, I dream of death. The slack jaw. The harsh scent. The blankness in my mother’s eyes.
The blood.
I wake to the sound of weeping. It takes me a few minutes to realize the room is still empty, and it is my own pillow drenched in tears.
* * *
Camille misses breakfast, but when I go back to the room to switch books between computer and English, she is there, sitting at her desk, twisting a curl in her fingers, staring out the window. Pale, washed-out in the sunlight. Black circles under her eyes, the heating pad clutched to her stomach.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
Lies, lies, lies. Why not? After last night’s little trip down memory lane, I’m feeling...vulnerable.
“I was worried when you didn’t come back.”
“I slept in Vanessa’s room. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
Her eyes fill with tears but she shakes her head. “It’s all good. I told you, my time of the month is rough.”
I’m surprised to find myself feeling sorry for her. “If you ever want to talk—”
“I. Don’t. So. Stop. Asking.”
“Sod off then.” I grab my books and leave. Screw her. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to get the Goode stamp of approval. This is all that matters. The petty bullshit of my suitemates isn’t important.
Or so I think.
JUNE
Oxford, England
24
THE PROPOSAL
They are sitting together at one end of the dining room table when I drag in, high, drunk, dirty. I’ve come through planning to sneak up the back stairs to my room. This is a place I don’t expect them to assemble, in either position or companionship. I don’t know how they’ve managed it, how they knew I was coming home, how they timed it. Surely, they haven’t been here waiting for two days—no, someone from the village reported that I was heading their way.
They look ridiculous, eclipsed by the grandness of the room, awkward, the two of them snugged together like this.
Mind, our dining room table might be a bit different than yours; it seats forty comfortably, forty-six in a pinch. The room is massive, echoing when empty, but the acoustics are perfect for a house party. The dark oak wainscoted walls are covered in priceless oils of hunting scenes. From forest to table, the Carr family philosophy.
It strikes me as funny, this. I, too, come from forest to table now.
Damien Carr has a reputation—likes to keep to himself, holds his own counsel, does everything with stiff-upper-lip discretion, which is why his clients love him. Why the Queen knighted the sick fuck “for service to the British banking system.”
