Page 33 of She Haunts Me Still

A flash of hurt flickers across Arden’s face, and Mallory instantly wishes she could take her words back.

“I’m sorry,” she scrambles to say. “That was supremely bitchy of me.”

But the lines of Arden’s face only harden. Like she’s searching for something that will hurt just as much in return.

“Maybe,” she clips, “your locket fell off when you were hooking up with Ezra.”

Mallory exhales. “What’switheveryone tonight? We’re not hooking u—”

“I’m not oblivious, and neither is anyone in this cast. The two of you have been eye-fucking each other nonstop since auditions.”

Mallory chokes on a surprised laugh, and Arden’s gaze darkens as she leans closer.

“It’snotfunny—do you have any idea what people are saying about you?” she hisses.

The laughter flutters away. “What?”

“I’m only telling you this because I’m your friend, okay?” Arden sits beside her on the floor. “They’re saying you gotthis part because you’re sleeping with the assistant director. And that’s only second to the rumor you got cast as Juliet because you’re a legacy student. That youboughtyour way in. Not just into this production, but to Shore in general.” Arden’s blue eyes burn into hers. “I’ve had your back for days, Mal, while you’ve been off doing god-knows-what, coming home smelling like a damn candle store.” She huffs an exhale. “So maybe you can summon some energy to be nicer to the one person who actually knows the real you.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Mallory says again. Fresh guilt swells at Arden’s words, at the way she can saythe real youwith such conviction when Ezra said the same thing last night. How he already knows so much more about her than her best friend ever could. “Arden. Do people really think that? Raf, Jess? The whole cast?”

“Some of them seem to.” She clamps a hand on Mallory’s knee. “But I don’t, okay? I don’t.”

Mallory closes her eyes, fingers pressed to her lids.

“Mal.” Arden squeezes her knee. “You know I would never judge you, right? If you’re with Ezra, you can tell me. You don’t have to sneak around.”

Mallory sighs, opening her eyes. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?” Arden leans closer. “ ‘Never leave each other behind,’ right?”

Their pact. The first time Arden said it, the words were literal. Whispered during a game of Assassin, one of their boarding school’s century-long traditions. Each student was assigned another to “kill,” and once you completed your task with a plastic water gun, you absorbed your victim’s target. It was Arden’s idea to share their marks, to stake out the dining hall in the morning and weave through the snow-coveredsoccer field in the afternoon.Never leave each other behind,she whispered as they shook hands, palms sticky with the heat of new friendship.

But the meaning changed shape over time. What started as a pledge of protection turned into a vow to blend their lives, to share a singular path that might not be wide enough to hold both their feet.

And as Mallory stares at Arden’s pleading face, she can’t help but wonder what happens when people outgrow the spaces they used to fit.

“It’s hard to explain,” she finally answers, and disappointment takes over Arden’s expression. She removes her hand, fidgeting with the cross at her neck.

“I don’t know what you’re scared to say. But if you think I wouldn’t love you anyway, I guess you don’t know me at all,” she sniffs, standing.

“Arden.” Mallory stands, too, pulling her sleeves over her hands. “Look. There are things that happened to me before we met. Things that are hard to talk about.”

Arden studies her carefully. “Things you can tell Ezra but not me?”

Mallory swallows, unsure how to explain that she can’t unravel the most nightmarish corners of her history to someone like Arden Thatcher, someone whose world is full of light and faith. That as close as they are, she’s not sure Arden has the capacity to understand these particular hurts.

That sometimes, it’s easier to whisper your ugliest truths to someone who is broken in matching places.

When Mallory doesn’t answer, Arden nods.

“I get it,” she says. “You don’t have to say anything more.”

“Wait, Arden—”

The only response is the click of the door as Arden leaves the greenroom. And the quiet that follows seems to whisper the shape of the rumors.Entitled. Undeserving. Unworthy.

Slut.