Vivian’s diary.
“So all of you know,” I say, still out of breath from my awkward trip.
It’s not a question. The guilt burning in their eyes already tells me that they do.
“We googled you,” Sasha says, a finger pointed Miranda’s way. “It was her idea.”
“I’m sorry,” Miranda says. “You were acting so weird the past two days that we had to find out why.”
“It’s okay. Really, it’s fine. I’m glad you know. You deserve to be aware of what happened in this cabin.”
Exhaustion, whiskey, and sadness get the best of me, and I find myself listing to the side. Like a sailor on a rocking ship. Or my mother on Christmas Eve. I try to right myself, fail, plop down onto the lid of my hickory trunk.
“You probably have questions,” I say.
Sasha’s the first to ask one. Of course. Insatiably curious Sasha.
“What were they like?”
“Like the three of you but also very, very different.”
“Where did they go?” Krystal asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
Yet I would have gone with them. It’s one of the few things I’m certain of. That, despite Vivian’s hurtful betrayal with Theo, I still wanted her approval. And had she asked, I would have willingly followed, marching behind them into the darkness.
“But that’s not the whole story,” I say. “There’s more. Things no one but me knows.”
Seeing Vivian again has messed with my emotions. I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to confess. Instead, I say, “Two Truths and a Lie. Let’s play.”
I slip off the trunk, joining them. It’s a sudden, ungainly slump that makes the three of them recoil when I hit the floor. Even Miranda, who I thought was the bravest of the group.
“One: I have been to the Louvre. Twice. Two: Fifteen years ago, three of my friends left this cabin. No one saw them again.”
I pause, hesitant to speak aloud something I’ve avoided saying for fifteen years. But no matter how much I want to stay silent, guilt compels me to keep talking.
“Three: Right before they left, I said something. Something I regret. Something that’s haunted me ever since.”
I hope you never come back.
The memory of that moment arrives without warning. It feels like a sharpened sword swooping toward me, slicing me open, exposing my cold heart.
“I told them I hoped they’d never come back,” I say. “Right to Vivian’s face. It was the last thing I ever said to her.”
Tears burn the corners of my eyes—grief and guilt bubbling out of me.
“That doesn’t mean what happened to them is your fault,” Miranda says. “Those were words, Emma. You didn’t make them disappear.”
Sasha nods. “It’s not your fault they didn’t come back.”
I stare at the floor, avoiding their sympathy. I don’t deserve it. Not when there’s still more to confess. Still more I’ve kept hidden from everyone.
“But they did come back.” A tear slips out, rolls down my cheek. “Later that night. Only they couldn’t get back into the cabin.”
“Why?” Miranda asks.
I know I should stop. I’ve already said too much. But there’s no turning back now. I’m tired of omitting things, which is practically the same as lying. I want to speak the truth. Maybe that’s what might finally heal me.
“Because I locked the door behind them.”
Miranda sucks in air. A muted gasp. Trying to hide her shock.
“You locked them out?”
I nod, another tear falling. It traces the path of the first, deviating only when it reaches my mouth. I taste it on my lips. Salty. Bitter.
“And I refused to let them back in. Even after they knocked. And jiggled the doorknob. And pleaded with me to let them in.”
I look to the cabin door, picturing it the way it appeared that night. Pale in the darkness, dusted with moonlight, doorknob rattling back and forth. I hear the sharp rapping on the wood and someone calling my name on the other side.
Emma.
It was Vivian.
Come on, Em. Let me in.
I shrank into my bottom bunk, squeezing myself into the corner. I pulled the covers to my chin and huddled beneath them, trying to will away the sound coming from the other side of the door.
Emma, please.
I slid under the covers, lost in the darkness within, staying there until the knocking, the rattling, Vivian herself faded away.
“I could have let them in,” I say. “I should have. But I didn’t. Because I was young and stupid and angry. But if I had let them in, all three would still be here. And I wouldn’t be carrying around this awful feeling that I killed them.”
Two more tears follow the designated path. I wipe them away with the back of my hand.
“I paint them. All three of them. Every painting I’ve finished for years has included them. Only no one knows they’re there. I cover them up. And I don’t know why. I can’t help myself. But I can’t keep on painting them. It’s crazy. I’m crazy. But now I think that if I can somehow find out what happened, then maybe I’ll be able to stop painting them. Which means that maybe I’ve finally forgiven myself.”
I stop talking and look up from the floor. Sasha, Krystal, and Miranda stare at me, silent and motionless. They look at me the same way children eye a stranger. Curious and skittish.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not feeling well. I’ll be fine in the morning.”
I stand, woozy, swaying like a storm-battered tree. The girls slide out of my way and start to climb to their feet. I gesture for them to stay where they are.
“Don’t let me spoil your night. Keep playing.”
They do. Because they’re nervous. Because they’re scared. Because they don’t know what else to do but to keep playing, appeasing me, waiting until I pass out, which likely will be any second now.
“One more round,” Miranda says, her decisiveness not quite masking her fear. “I’ll go.”
I close my eyes before crawling into bed. Rather, they close on their own, no matter how much I try to keep them open. I’m too tired. Too drunk. Too emotionally flattened by my confession. Temporarily blinded, I feel my way into bed, reaching for the mattress, my pillow, the wall. I curl into a ball, my knees to my chest, back turned to the girls. My standard humiliation position.
“One: I once got sick after riding the Cyclone at Coney Island.” Miranda’s voice slows, cautious, pausing to hear if I’m asleep yet. “Two: I read about a hundred books a year.”