Chapter Twenty-Five - Falling apart

I opened my mouth to explain. To lie. To say anything that would erase the hurt spreading across his face.

But the words wouldn't come.

Because he picked up the notebook.

And he read every name.

Every suspicion.

Every doubt I'd ever had about him, written in my own hand.

"You thought I killed her," he said. His voice was quiet. Hollow. "Alice. My girlfriend. You thought I killed her."

"Myles, I can explain…"

And just as if summoned Ashley and Madden entered the room.

“Did you find anything, Alexa?” Ashley was the first to ask. “And why is Myles' face like that?” She grabbed the book from his hand. “What’s this?”

“Let me see.” Madden said, rushing to stand beside her. I felt my heart ache when they both looked up at me.

“Guys …i..it’s not what it looks like.” I stammered

"You put my name in a murder notebook." Myles broke the silence that was already eating me up.

"I put everyone's name in that notebook. Everyone I didn't know. Everyone I couldn't trust."

"And do you trust us now?"

I looked at him, at Ashley and Madden who were looking at me in disbelief still holding the notebook, then back to Myles eyes, dark and wounded. The space between us, suddenly infinite.

"I don't know," I whispered.

He took the notebook from Ashley and set the it down on the desk. Carefully. Gently. Like it might explode.

"Then I guess we're done here."

He walked to the door.

"Myles, wait…"

He didn't wait.

The door closed behind him.

And the room fell silent.

“Really Alexa, really?” Ashley nodded her head in disapproval and left, so did Madden.

I stood there, frozen, staring at the notebook on the desk. At the names, circled in black ink. At the question mark I'd drawn next to it, now meaningless.

I'd been so careful. So paranoid. So afraid to trust anyone.

And now I'd lost the only people who made me feel safe.

The only people who looked at me like I was more than a girl with a dead sister and a broken heart.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Detective Cross: Warrant executed. The building is empty. No evidence found. I'm sorry.

I dropped the phone on the bed.

The basement was empty. The lab was empty. The evidence was gone.

And so were they.

I sat down on the floor, my back against the wall, and stared at the ceiling.

The water stain looked back at me.

A lung. A face. A reminder that nothing here was what it seemed.

But for the first time since I'd arrived at Westbrook, I wasn't sure who the enemy was anymore.

I sat on the floor for a long time.

The morning light shifted across the room, gold to gray, as clouds rolled in from the lake. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed. Footsteps echoed. Laughter. Normal sounds from a normal Saturday, the kind of sounds that belonged to people who hadn't just destroyed the only friendships they'd ever had.

The notebook sat on the desk like a confession.

Myles's name. Ashley's name. Madden's name. Everyone I'd ever met at Westbrook, reduced to ink and suspicion. I'd told myself it was an investigation. Caution. The smart thing to do.

But looking at it now, in the cold light of an empty room, it just looked like paranoia.

No. Not paranoia.

Fear.

I'd been so afraid of being hurt again that I'd preemptively hurt everyone else. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Push them away before they could push me. Assume the worst so the worst couldn't surprise me.

And now I was alone.

My phone buzzed again.

I didn't check it. I didn't care.

The room grew darker. The radiator clanked, a hollow sound that echoed off the cinderblock walls. Ashley's fairy lights hung dead above her bed. Her cat socks were still balled up on the floor where she'd left them.

She wasn't coming back.

None of them were.

I should have been relieved. No more lying. No more masks. No more worrying about who might be the killer.

But all I felt was cold.

---

At noon, I finally stood up.

My legs were stiff, my back aching from sitting on the hard floor. I walked to the window and looked out at the campus. Students crossed the quad in groups, laughing, talking, holding hands. The lake glittered in the distance, blue and calm and innocent.

The lake where my sister died.

The lake where someone held her under until she stopped fighting.

I pressed my palm to the glass.

"I'm sorry, Alice," I whispered. "I'm sorry I couldn't do this alone."

The glass fogged beneath my hand. And then it came back the second heartbeat but more fiercer this time. Not the dull throb I'd learned to ignore. Something sharper. Hotter. A knife twisting between my ribs, spreading through my chest like spilled ink. I pressed my palm to my side, waiting for it to pass, the way it always passed.

It didn't pass.

The room tilted. The water stain on the ceiling blurred into something unrecognizable. My breath came in shallow gasps, each one a battle. I reached for the bed, for anything to hold onto, but my fingers closed on empty air.

Alice, I thought, as darkness crept into the edges of my vision. I'm coming.

The floor rushed up to meet me.

And then nothing.