But had it always been there? Harper wondered. Or had circumstances created it?
Circumstances. Such a bland, passive, forgiving word. Circumstances, like heartbreak, manipulation, humiliation. Circumstances, as if they were beyond human control. As if, in the end, there was no one to blame.
Circumstances had propelled Beth over the wall, onto the narrow ledge, to the limits of sanity and the cusp of disaster. Circumstances had left only Harper as her would-be savior.
Circumstances, it seemed, were out to get them both.
“What do you want me to say?” Harper asked wearily. “What are you waiting to hear? Can we just cut to it?”
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how pathetic I am. I can’t even do this right.”
Harper didn’t allow herself to question whether it was true. “You’re not pathetic, Beth.”
“I said don’t lie to me!” she wailed.
“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say here.”
“Try the truth,” Beth suggested bitterly.
“I can’t.”
“Because you know what you’d have to say. Because you want me to jump.”
The unspoken accusation: You want me to die.
Harper wanted to deny it. She didn’t want to hate anyone that much. Death was too final. She got that now, finally understood that Kaia was never coming back.
But Kaia didn’t have to die, she reminded herself. They could call it an accident all they wanted, but that didn’t make sense. Nothing so huge, and so horrible, could be so random; it didn’t feel right. There had to be a reason-there had to be someone to blame.
And didn’t that mean someone should have to pay?
“Let me in!” Reed shouted, pounding harder on the door. “Come on, wake up! Let me in!” Finally, just as he’d accepted the fact that no one was there, the door swung open, Adam in its wake.
“What?”
Now that he was here, Reed almost didn’t want to ask the question. What she wanted to do was her business. But he had to make sure. “Is Beth here?”
“What’s it look like?” Adam stepped aside and ushered Reed into the empty hotel room. Unless she was hiding in the closet, Beth wasn’t there.
He checked, just to make sure. The closet was empty.
“Where is she?” Reed asked.
“Hell if I know. I thought she was with you.”
“Why? Did she say something?”
Adam stifled a yawn. “When she ran out of here, I figured she was looking for you. Guess not.”
“If you hear from her, can you just tell her to call me?” Reed said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “I need to see her.”
“Why? So you can mess with her head some more? Maybe get her high again? That worked great the last time. If I hear from her, I’ll tell her she’s better off without you. Or maybe she’s finally figured that out for herself.”
Reed wasn’t big on physical violence. Especially when it came to all-star athletes who could bench-press cars. But he didn’t even stop to think before grabbing Adam’s shoulders and pushing him up against the wall. “This isn’t a joke. I need to find her.”
Adam took a deep breath, then another. “Look, asshole, you want to take your hands off me,” he said, in a deliberate and measured voice. “Now.”
Reed let his arms drop, and sagged against the door frame. “If you hear from her. Please.”
Adam’s scowl shrunk almost imperceptibly. “I’m not going to hear from her. She’s not answering her phone. But…” He grabbed for his cell. “Let me call again and-shit.”
“What?”
“There’s a message-I must have fallen asleep, missed the call. Hold on.” He dialed into his voice mail, his eyes widening as he listened to the message. He closed the phone, then hurled it against the mattress. “What the hell are you doing, Beth!”
“What did she say?” Reed asked urgently, though he could guess.
“She-it doesn’t matter. It’s personal. But… I need to get out of here. Find her.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Whatever.” Adam grabbed his jacket and his room key, opened the door, then doubled back to slip into his sneakers. Reed waited impatiently in the hallway, but Adam paused, just before stepping through the threshold. “You don’t think she… I mean, she wouldn’t…”
Reed was trying not to think at all. “Let’s just find her,” he suggested, striding down the hallway without waiting to see if Adam would follow. “Soon.”
“You want the truth? Fine. Truth.”
Beth dug her fingers into the pitted stone of the gargoyle and tried not to shut her eyes against the stinging wind. She wanted to see everything, even if it hurt.
“The truth is, I hate you,” Harper shouted down.
Big surprise there.
“I’ve always hated you. You’re weak, you’re bland, you’re spineless, you act like you’re this model of virtue who always does the right thing, as if you get to look down on the rest of us because you never make any mistakes. Everything about you is a lie.”
“Is this supposed to be helping?” Beth could feel the loose gravel between her left foot and wondered how big a gust of wind would be required to push her off balance. At least that way she wouldn’t have to do it herself.
This was humiliating. She’d lowered herself down here, she’d made peace with her decision, and then-she’d frozen. Unwilling to go back up, unable to let herself go down, she’d stood in this gusty limbo for what felt like hours-until Harper arrived, apparently determined to ship her straight to hell.
“Why should I help you, after what you did to me? And to her?”
“You shouldn’t!” Beth cried, her voice carried away on the wind, so that she didn’t know whether or not she would even be heard. “No one should. That’s the point.”
“That’s my point!” Harper shouted back. “Can’t you come up with anything better than that? Can’t you even defend yourself?”
“What am I supposed to say? I did it.” After keeping it trapped inside all this time, it almost felt good to say it-to shout it-to know that when she did fall, it would be without secrets.
“You could say Kaia was a bitch who slept with your boyfriend. You could say I’m a bitch who tried to ruin your life and drive you crazy-that I did drive you crazy, and you were just trying to get back at me. You could say you weren’t the one who was driving the car.”
Her perch was precarious, and she didn’t dare look up again to see Harper’s face. And Beth’s imagination wasn’t rich enough to come up with something that matched the odd mixture of rage, hysteria, and regret in her voice.
“I can’t blame anyone else,” Beth insisted. “I did it. I killed her. And this is the only way to make things right… even.”
“Maybe you don’t get to just blame yourself!” Harper yelled. “Maybe you don’t get to decide who’s guilty.”
“So I’m supposed to blame you? For almost getting yourself killed? You want to join me down here?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Because that would make everything neat and even again, right? Because you can’t stand a fucking mess.”
“I can’t stand-”
“You can’t stand to face it. To deal with it. You think you’re doing the right thing? You’re just doing what you always do, taking the easy way out. Look, you did something horrible. And maybe I…”
Now Beth did look up, just enough to see Harper leaning over the wall, her hair flying across her face, close enough to touch.