Page 77 of You'll Be Sorry

Raquel made it to the end, then returned to the beginning. Theo and Mr. Man cleared the cheese and cracker platter. Put together a light dinner. Plunked down a salad and glass of wine before her.

She frowned, squinted harder at the fraying diary pages in between bites of food. There was something here. A slight change in tone and pattern, but she’d be damned if she could get it. Maybe if she scanned each page, played around with the contrast. Something. Anything?

She’d just sat back with a sigh, rubbing at her temples, when Theo spoke up from the sofa.

“Raquel, honey.” There was a timber to his voice. “You need to see this.”

She found him with his feet up on the coffee table, dog splayed on the rug below. Theo appeared to be watching something on his phone. As she settled in beside him, he twisted the screen until she could make out a video from a local station, highlighting the “new” discovery at the “old” Dixon property, with words such as “horrifying,” “shocking,” and “disturbing” being tossed about with near reckless abandon.

Raquel was already rolling her eyes at the melodramatic coverage, when suddenly her own image appeared on the screen. She recognized the clip immediately from earlier in the day—her and Detective Adams walking down Main Street. But who? How? The wide-angle shot zoomed in closer and closer, until her face filled nearly the entire screen, capturing everything from the arch of her brows to the curve of her cheek to the small dark mole near the corner of her right eye.

She stared. Told herself it didn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter. Not after all this time. And this far away, right? Who paid attention to happenings in a remote little New Hampshire town? Except, ofcourse, there was nothing small about this story. People everywhere were fascinated by crime. Especially ones high on the horrifying, shocking, and disturbing scale.

She was acutely aware of Theo sitting quietly beside her, watching her intently.

“How bad?” he asked at last.

“I don’t…I don’t know.” At least she wasn’t denying this might be a problem. That was a concession of sorts, which he seemed to respect.

He took her hand, his thumb gently rubbing the inside of her wrist, where her pulse was beating frantically.

“How did you know? About the bones in the crockery, which really did look like a handful of debris. Not even Chief Grady recognized them for what they were. But you?”

The dog was sitting up now, his deep brown gaze ping-ponging between the two of them. A second later, he rested his pale head on the edge of the sofa, closest to Raquel’s knees. She reached down her free hand and patted him softly.

She knew what Theo was asking. She simply didn’t want to say the words.

“Forever and always,” he prodded softly.

“I am not the person I once was,” she managed at last.

He waited.

“I paid my dues,” she heard herself continue. “I…I served my time.”

A slight charge in the air. Theo, being Theo, always so attuned to subtext.

She stroked the dog’s ear, not making eye contact. Then: “Who I am now is real. This, us, we are real. Isn’t that enough?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

A brief flare of anger. “I wasn’t the monster. She was!”

Theo, still holding her hand.

Raquel blinked her eyes several times rapidly, while the dog pressed closer. She hated this sudden rush of emotion. The rage, the fear, but mostly the shame. Because sometimes even doing what you knew was right didn’t change it from being wrong.

And she was never as completely emotionally removed as she wanted to be. Let alone these days.

She might have been vibrating slightly. It was hard to tell. But Theo wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her into the solid warmth of his body, resting her head upon his chest.

“Forever and always,” he repeated.

She closed her eyes. She listened to the strong, steady rhythm of his heartbeat and willed herself to believe, as much as she’d ever wanted to believe anything, that their life together was enough. That the woman she’d become was enough. That Theo’s love would definitely be enough.

But Raquel knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that faith was for fairy tales.

In the real world, you had to rely on yourself.