Page 52 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

I nod, unable to speak.

“I think it’s best if you go back to Manhattan,” she says.

“I just—I—are we okay?” Are you going to disappear again for another nine years? Or is it forever this time? Will I only be watching you from afar, telling anyone who will listen that I used to be friends with you?

Thalia sighs. “I’m just a bit hurt that you would—I don’t know, suspect me of something? After everything we’ve been through, Jane. I mean, I trusted you fully at Oxford when I was—I was assaulted.” Her voice breaks then, and to my horror, tears roll down her porcelain cheeks. People are looking over. Rebecca leaps into action, crossing the room quickly with a deadly look on her face.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say hurriedly. “Of course I don’t suspect you of anything.”

“I think it’s best if you leave now,” Rebecca says in a cold voice. She wraps an arm around Thalia’s thin, shaking shoulders and leads her away with one last glare thrown my way.

Another writer peels away to join them, murmuring to Thalia. The rest of them glare at me. There’s a couple of officers left, and they both watch the scene, looking back and forth between me and Thalia, before exchanging looks with each other. My insides are knotted so tight that I think I might vomit. I’m sweating through my clothes, my palms slick, my hair sticking to the back of my neck. For a few painful moments, I’m rooted to the spot, their glares pinning me down like a butterfly struggling as pin after pin is stabbed through its wings. Then something snaps and I stumble away, half running. I hurry up the stairs and into my shared room with Thalia. I pack in a frenzy, stuffing everything I see into my bag, and don’t spare the room a second glance before rushing back down, the weight of the house suffocating me. I don’t look at anyone as I pass by the living room, but I know they’re all still watching. A thought flashes through my mind—you’re going to look so guilty if you run now—but I’m beyond caring. I don’t hesitate before wrenching the front door open and running out into the blinding sunlight.

The memory of Thalia and me driving up here, so carefree, the wind in our hair, smiling at each other, is like a knife wound. It actually makes me take in a sharp, hitching breath. I shove the mental image out of my head and order a Lyft to the train station. I breathe easier as the miles are eaten up, as I gain distance from Montauk, from those cold stares—god, I swear I can feel them, even now. A sudden rip of pain startles me, and I look down to see that I’ve ripped my thumbnail to the quick anddrawn blood. I suck on it, and the tang of blood takes me back to that night in Oxford, the way it always does. But now, instead of the usual sensation of longing that I’ve always felt with a memory associated with Thalia, all I feel is nausea. That look of hurt on Thalia’s face—god. I take my thumb out of my mouth and wipe the blood off on my jeans instead.

I send Thalia text after text:

Are you ok?

Please answer me.

We need to talk.

No replies come. My rib cage has turned into a vise that is crushing the air from my lungs, the life out of my heart.

My mind is a mess by the time I get back to the city. I stumble out of the train into Penn Station, find my way to the right subway train, and make the rest of the trip back to the hotel in a daze. It’s only when I walk into the lobby, closing my eyes with relief at the cool, soothing air in the hotel, that it hits me. What the hell am I doing back at this hotel? I no longer have a reservation here. Ted would’ve checked out already.

The thought is too much to bear. I can’t stand it. I sense the tears coming and I rush into the elevator before any of the receptionists notices me. Maybe they haven’t reset my key card yet. Maybe I can still go inside our room and take a hot shower before booking a flight back to SFO. Yes, one could hope. Oh god, please. I need it to happen so badly that I mutter to myself as I make my way down the hallway, my bag dragging on the carpeted floor behind me.

I tap the key card against the door lock and the light turns red. My stomach plummets. “God, no!” The words come out in a harsh whisper. I try the card again even though I know it won’t work. The light turns red again.

Everything inside me plummets to the floor. I’m done. I am so tired that I actually sink to my knees, letting my head slump forward and thump against the door. I feel thoroughly and utterly defeated. What happened at Montauk? What happened at Oxford? I thought I knew, but now I realize I know nothing. What really happened with Thalia? But even now the thought is a painful one. I don’t want to think of her as anything but the Thalia I knew. The perfect angel. I don’t know what to do with this growing stain that’s tainting the image of her in my mind. I’m untethered and directionless. My eyes flutter closed and I let out a long, exhausted sigh.

Then the door swings open, and there’s Ted.

“Jane!” His eyes are wide with surprise.

I scramble to my feet, staring at him, wondering if it’s a mirage. If I blink, maybe he’ll disappear. I do so, but he remains in front of me, solid as ever. “Why—I thought—wait. Aren’t you supposed to be back in the Bay Area now?” An ugly thought rises, a noxious bubble bobbing to the surface of a toxic swamp—he’s cheating. He’s got another woman in there. Maybe he hired a sex worker.

He smiles sheepishly. “Okay, so this is going to sound stupid, but I thought it would be nice to surprise you. We haven’t had a chance to explore the city, just the two of us, so I extended our stay for another week. I thought it would be nice—Jane? What’s wrong?”

He’d extended our stay so we could explore the city, just the two of us, and here I’d jumped to the conclusion that he’dextended his stay to fuck around. Here I’d gone off and left him, seen him as nothing more than a burden I have to bear while I went off chasing the dream of Thalia. A dream that had ended in a nightmare. And for the first time in so long, I realize that I’m glad to see Ted. Relieved to be back with him. For the first time, I long for the boring, predictable comfort of our home. I feel my heart cracking, the gray wall around it crumbling, and I fall into my husband’s arms and cry.

24

Thalia

Poor Jane. It’s honestly like kicking a puppy. Something I have never done before, just to clarify. I really am not a monster. Killing men, I believe, is a much more forgivable transgression than kicking a puppy, wouldn’t you agree? And honestly, the men I’ve killed—it’s a gift to humanity to erase them from this world. Kurt Fenton, your typical lazy, entitled, straight, white male author who has mistaken his success for brilliance. Antoine Deveraux, your typical straight, white male who likened himself to a romantic savior. Ha, it just hit me that if Antoine had been alive today, he’d probably love Kurt’s books. (I’m smiling at the thought. What a hoot.) How’s that for irony?

But Jane, the poor thing, I really didn’t enjoy doing that to her. My goodness, the way she’d looked at me when I’d asked her to leave! Those kicked-puppy eyes. They’re a study in pitifulness. I took a mental picture of them and shall practice in the mirror later on. Everything I do, I do very seriously, because I must excel at everything I am interested in. I do this withwriting, cooking, fashion, and my most masterful craftwork of all: human behavior.

It’s not easy for me, you know, having APD. It’s like there’s a bridge missing and all I can do is stand on one side of a deep ravine and watch as other people—the normals—mix with one another and go through emotions as easily as changing clothes. I hope you can see that I was the victim all along. It felt like everybody was feeling things at me to taunt me:Ha, look at pathetic little Thalia who doesn’t understand why birthday cakes are a cause for delight, and why people coo at babies or dogs, and why people cry when you tell them, with all sincerity, that they’re ugly/worthless/stupid.It’s honestly quite rude of other people to parade their emotions in my face, I think. Would you jump up and down in front of someone in a wheelchair? Didn’t think so. But somehow, it’s okay to rub things like joy or pain in my face.

Anyway. Where was I? Right, Jane’s hurt expression. Must remember the angle of her eyebrows and the way her mouth had parted ever so slightly. Not just hurt, but a little hint of surprise—how could you?—as well. Chef’s kiss. I can’t wait to try that particular mask on. But for now I must mill about with the rest of my writer friends and allow them to fuss over me. And they’re fussing over me because, poor me, to have my stalker classmate reappear after all those years and follow me all the way to Montauk! How awful. How terrifying. How delicious.

It’s the kind of thing this crowd can’t have enough of. I can see the hunger in their eyes as they mine me for more information about Jane. Mining—that’s exactly what they’re doing—using me for research for their next manuscript. I wonder how many of them are going to go away from here and start pitching their next book—a story about a stalker. Rebecca for sure isgoing to write a stalker novel. Now that sci-fi/fantasy is going through a rough patch, she’s been talking endlessly about venturing out into writing thrillers, an evergreen genre. She’s so predictable, hovering about me, her breath a disgusting hot blanket of sour tequila as she plies me with questions.How long did you know Jane? Did you know back in Oxford that there was something wrong with her? What was she like then?I have to resist shoving her away. I wish she’d at least make more of an effort to disguise her opportunistic research as concern.

I stay long enough to make sure that the story takes flight; quite easy to do with this bunch, obviously. They’re so wrapped up in storytelling that everything is a fucking prompt to them.

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