Page 32 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

“I know you’re trying to get her some alone time with Ivan.” She laughs, but it ends in a sigh. “I’ve seen it all; bitches are always using me to get to my brother. Eeevvverybody wants a piece of Ivan.” The cab turns a corner and her head lolls to one side, and I wonder how much force it would take to snap her neck. Not very much at all, I don’t think, especially if I use the momentum of the moving car in my favor. Wishful thinking, of course.

By the time we get to Pemberton, I’m half toying with the idea of just leaving her in the car, but in the end, I grab her arm and yank her out, not bothering to be gentle. Outside of the cab, she teeters on her stupidly high heels and I have to swing her arm over my shoulders and practically carry her into the college.

“Why’re you Thalia’s lapdog, Janey? I can tell you like Ivantoo. Why wouldn’t you try your luck at him?” She snickers at this, and I know, I’m not delusional enough to think that me going after Ivan isn’t amusing in a very pathetic way. We lumber up the stairs, and I think about how it would be so easy to get to the very top and then give her a little push. How very much like the universe, to make Ani so delectably killable. But if I were to take that prompt, everything would end. Ivan would be heartbroken—or at the very least he’d be inconvenienced, and inconvenienced people aren’t the most giving. Thalia wouldn’t be able to afford to continue her studies, and I’d lose her.

So I keep going. Keep on keeping on, as they say. I let her breathe her rancid alcohol fumes down my neck and I look at the myriad ways that Ani could die and I ignore each and every one of them. Love moves us to do great things, they say, and they’re right.

Ani lives one floor above us. When we get to her door, I have to go through her purse to find her key, and Jesus, how many freaking pills does this girl have? There are at least three different bottles in her Prada handbag, but I don’t know what they are as the labels are in Indonesian.

“Diet pills,” she says, watching me under half-closed eyes.

“Why?” I can’t help blurting out. I’ve just helped her up three flights of stairs and she weighs practically nothing, her bones sticking out under my hands, brittle bird bones.

“How do you think I manage to look like this? Give me that,” she says, snatching her purse back and fishing inside it. She locates her key and stabs it at the door, missing the lock until I grab her hand and put the key in myself.

Her room looks like a fashion show has exploded in it. Mounds of clothes, shoes, and bags are strewn on every availablesurface. The window is open, which is good because it smells slightly rank in here, a stench of old smoke that’s going to cling to my skin even after I leave.

“You’re not supposed to smoke in your room,” I say.

Ani snorts. “So they’ll make me pay a fine, whatever.” She flops onto her bed and moans. “Ugh, my mouth tastes disgusting. Isn’t that weird? Tasting your own mouth?” She laughs. “What do you think Thalia’s doing with my brother right now? You think they’re fucking? I bet they are. I bet she’s dragged him all the way back to his hotel and they’re smashing right now.”

“I’m gonna go.” But I don’t go. I’m too busy watching Ani and daydreaming about smothering her with her pillow or maybe one of her fancy, overpriced outfits.

“Thalia’s not the angel everyone makes her out to be. Why are you so obsessed with her? She’s not even a natural blonde. You haven’t seen what she’s like when it’s just her and me. That girl is trouuuble.”

I have to ask, because it’s about Thalia and I can’t not ask when it’s about Thalia. “How is she trouble?”

“She is a sluuut.”

I suppose I did ask. I don’t know why I did; it’s not like I was ever going to get any reliable information from this drunk bitch. “Okay, out of the two of you, she’s not the one who’s been sleeping around with different guys.” I hate how petty I sound, how high school. But this is the effect that Ani has on me. She drags me down to her level and I’m left feeling dirty.

She laughs, her eyes closed so I can see the way her eyeshadow has smudged across her lids. “They’re all guys she’s sampled herself, before she gives them to me. ‘He’s a yummy one,’ she’ll say. Wink-wink.”

Wow. Ani’s even worse than I thought, and that’s saying something. But what I can’t figure out is why she’s saying these things. Because she’s drunk? Or because she wants to hurt me?

“Why are you telling me this?”

But she’s already out, snoring softly as she finally falls into a drunken sleep. I stand there, watching. Why, god, why must you make it so easy to kill her? I look around her room. There are at least six different handbags in here, and two clutches, and I have no idea how many red-soled shoes, strewn about like carcasses. If I were to swipe a pair of her Louboutins, she wouldn’t even notice. Then I see, on the mantelpiece above her fireplace, a careless tangle of jewelry. My cheeks grow hot, my heart thumping a manic rhythm. Pearls and diamonds and gold all twined like rat tails. I take a step toward the fireplace and glance at Ani. Still asleep. Another step, and another.

Close up, the pile is even more impressive—the pearls are perfect, smooth spheres and the stones are bigger than I thought, and there must be at least thirty different pieces here. I glance at Ani again. She won’t miss one. Just one. I deserve it for putting up with her throughout the past few weeks, and for letting her live now. I try to pick out a ring lined with little diamonds like a sugar crust and a square diamond in the middle as big as my fingernail, but it’s too tangled up with a necklace that has an infinity symbol made out of diamonds. Whatever, she has so many pieces of jewelry here she won’t miss these. I take another quick look at her before slipping the ring and the necklace into my pocket and leaving the room, quiet as a ghost.

16

Present Day

New York City

Thalia’s my sister-in-law.Sister-in-law.

The words echo in the hollow recesses of my heart, bouncing off the walls and resounding over and over and over again, until I want to cover my ears and shriek just to drown them out. Sister-in-law? Thalia is married?

But even in the storm of pain raging inside me, I realize that of course she is. Why wouldn’t she be? We’re in our thirties. I’m married. Of course Thalia is married too. She’s never had a shortage of men and women going after her.

But it’s not just the fact that she’s married, a small voice whines. It’s the fact that she’s married to Ivan. It’s been a while since I thought of Ivan, even though he was such a pivotal part of our Oxford experience. Now his face floats back to the forefront of my memories. His flawless love-interest-in-a-rom-com face. They made a stunning couple then. I’m sure they make a stunning couple now. I can’t stand it.

“Yeah, she and Ivan pretty much tied the knot as soon as she left Oxford,” Ani says, each word a knife wound, twisting and turning in my guts. I need her to stop fucking talking already.

I can’t bear it; I can’t stand here and listen to this anymore. I raise my hands and shove Ani aside. She squawks and stumbles back, almost falls over, but some passerby manages to catch her just in time. “Whoa,” he calls out, unnecessarily loudly.

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