Page 78 of Only If You're Lucky
“And Lucy’s things?”
“Still inside,” I say. “We locked up so nobody would take them. We assumed her parents would be coming.”
Frank looks at me, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“The fraternity isn’t using the house for anything until the lawsuit blows over,” Sloane adds. “They said we can just leave it for now.”
“Well then it’s going to be sitting here indefinitely,” he says, shifting his weight. “The lawsuit isn’t blowing over and those boys aren’t coming back. What’s this?”
He gestures to the porch and we stay quiet, watching as he walks up the steps, peels our note from the door and holds his finger out, a blue Post-it stuck to the pad of his pointer. He skims it quickly, then looks back at us.
“Your new address?”
“It’s for Lucy,” Nicole says. “Just in case—”
“In case she comes back,” he interrupts, understanding settling over him slowly.
“She won’t have our numbers anymore,” I say. “Not without her phone.”
“We didn’t want her to think we just left—” Sloane adds, but Officer Frank interrupts her, holding his hand up.
“Girls.” He says it gently now, his eyes squinting like this is thefirst time he’s really noticed us before. The first time he’s ever seen us at all. “She’s not coming back. You understand that, right?”
We’re all silent, sheepish and embarrassed, staring at the piece of paper in his hand like kids getting scolded after our parents found something salacious hidden beneath our beds. Nicole looks down, rubbing the sole of her shoe against the concrete, because we know how childish this looks, leaving it behind like that. Such a desperate and deluded show of hope.
“Lucy Sharpe… she isn’t your friend,” Frank continues. “She’s not who you thought she was. You understand that.”
We stay firm, fierce in our commitment to her, our solemn vow, and I can see the slow shift in his face. The gentle softening as suspicion recedes and pity takes over.
We watch as he sighs, sticking the note back on the door for us and walking down the steps before planting himself on the sidewalk again, shaking his head. Eyeing the three of us now, a slow scan down the line before his gaze stops on me and I see him swallow.
“The two of you can go,” he says to Sloane and Nicole, refusing to avert his eyes from mine. “You and I need to have a talk.”
CHAPTER 61
BEFORE
It’s dark by the time Lucy comes home, the scuff of her shoes ascending the porch steps alerting me to her presence.
I’ve been in my room this entire time, all eight hours, my door bolted and my laptop open and dead on my comforter. My thoughts on Lucy, on Eliza, on how the two of them have more in common than I ever could have imagined. I hear the front door slam as she makes her way into the living room, her feet heavy as she stomps through the house.
“Hello?”she calls, her voice echoing through the empty living room.“Where is everyone?”
She can be so quiet when she wants, so catlike and contained, but now, I feel her radiating through the walls, the floor, her very being pumping hard like an organ deprived of oxygen. Something atrophying slowly, a transplant suddenly rejected by its host.
I hear a banging on my door that comes out of nowhere: a hard, closed-fist pounding that makes the bones of the house rattle in place. I eye the knob jiggling back and forth, the door jerking wildly on its hinges.
“What is with the locked doors today?” Lucy yells, slamming her palm against the wood. “Margot, get out here. We need to talk.”
I stay rooted on my bed, frozen with fear, a million different scenarios running through my mind.
“All of us,” she adds, and somehow, I can tell she’s making her way back to the living room, waiting for me to follow.
Knowing that eventually, like always, I will.
After a few more seconds of silent debate, I stand up and walk to the door, twisting the dead bolt and opening it wide. The hallway is empty in front of me, the overhead lights all clicked off, and I creep into the living room, rounding the corner to find Lucy sitting on the couch. Her hair is frizzier than normal, her skin shiny and a little too damp, and I glance out the window, into the inky black night. Noticing, for the first time, that it’s started to rain.
“What’s going on?” I ask, a little tremor in my voice as I try to see through those sparkling eyes. They’re impenetrable, like always, tough as diamonds and just as rare.
