Page 56 of We Are All Liars Here

Carmine, Tonya and Gigi. Three funerals, one memorial—and Billie just couldn’t stomach the mere thought of attending any of them. If there’s such a thing as a god, an afterlife, a heaven (who’s she kidding, hers would be a hell), does Carmine still exist, does she know Billie spent the whole funeral buried so deep in vodka bottles that she almost drowned in her own sick?

Will Carmine forgive that Billie ended up back in hospital the night of her funeral, getting her stomach pumped?

Billie almost died that night.

If it wasn’t for Preston coming to pick her up for the funeral, the only one Billie was strong enough to even try to attend… If it wasn’t for him coming to get her, then she would’ve died, unconscious, in that pool of her own sick. No doubt about it.

A part of her wanted to die.

Selfish. That’s what Kate called her.

“After everything, all those deaths, after we survived, you choose to be the most self-centered coward in town? Do you even know how selfish you can be, Billie?”

That’s when Billie was still in hospital, her throat ragged from the tube they’d rammed down it to pump out the booze from her insides. Of course Kate visited, but she sure didn’t hold back about what she really thought about the whole alcohol poisoning incident.

And while Preston stayed silent at the hospital room doorway, arms crossed and jaw set, Billie knew he felt the same way. He agreed with Kate.

Three good friends are dead.

Trevor took the fall for it all—

Even Henry Maxwell’s murder.

Billie should be grateful.

Should be grateful that she survived, Kate and Preston too, and that the murder she committed was pinned on Trevor.

Cops said Henry was Trevor’s first victim. A fight gone wrong, or whatever theory they pulled out their asses, and he went to Cletus for help covering up. But—as the cops tell it—Trevor found he got a taste for it. The thrill of the kill. So later, he went after Cletus. Covered his tracks there. Then targeted the girls—a group close enough to him that he knew where they would be, at all times, alone and together. But not close enough that he’d actually miss them or be bothered by their deaths.

So yeah, Kate’s right. Trev took the fall for it all, and somehow both girls got away with their lives. They’re not just survivors or victims though. They’reheroes, just ask anyone in Dosserport.

That’s a win, no ifs or buts about it. No suspicion cast their way, no trails leading back to them.

But…

But.

Billie still thinks of Carmine.

Billie was the one behind the wheel that night, the night that started it all, the night Henry Maxwell died. She killed him. And that means it all really started with her… Billie’s the reason Carmine is dead.

Knowing that only fuels her thirst for the drink. Vodka helps, it helps her numb it all.

But there’s no vodka in here. Her prison, of sorts.

Except, it’s not quite the prison she deserves.

No, it’s some fancy-ass rehab that Preston threw her into about forty-eight hours after her stomach was pumped.

Rehab. Rehab for the filthy fucking rich.

Been here about three weeks now.

And today is the exact one-month anniversary of Trevor’s brains being blown out by Preston.

Sober, that’s one of the many images Billie just can’t seem to shake.

At least it’s quiet out here. And Preston finally got her to leave town. Not exactly willingly, though. Some bodyguard types picked her up from the hospital in a shady ambulance, drove her out here. Sedated, of course.

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