Page 115 of Such Sharp Teeth

“Honestly? Maybe part of me wanted to feel something different. Or to not feel at all.”

I catch her up. I tell her about my failed trip to the occult shop, the wolfsbane under my bed that I don’t know what to do with. I tell her about Ian.

“Maybe he’s trying to fuck all the girls he didn’t get to fuck in high school,” I say.

Scarlett makes an ambiguous noise.

“What?” I ask, dribbling a small stone between my feet.

“Do you really believe her?”

“Mia? Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You know how she is.”

“How is she?” I ask. “Seriously. How is she?”

Scarlett sighs.

“She’s like me,” I say. “We flirt. We fuck around. Doesn’t make us liars.”

“I’m not saying she’s lying,” Scarlett says. “But she might have misinterpreted. I just don’t think there’s anything incriminating about them hanging out one time. They’re old friends.”

“They weren’t friends.”

“Acquaintances,” she says. “It’s Ian. He deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

“Does he?” I ask. I kick the stone too far, lose it over the hill. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours,” she says, sitting on a nearby bench. There’s an angel statue perched behind her, and from this angle it looks like Scarlett has wings. “Why don’t you just ask him?”

“How can I trust him? He kept this from me. If it wasn’t anything incriminating, why didn’t he say something? It’s shady.”

“When you love someone, you don’t just cut them off. Even if they make a mistake.”

“Love? Who said anything about love?”

“Rory,” Scarlett says, a tremble in her voice that makes the air go still.

I look back, and she’s braiding the fringe of her scarf.

“I have to tell you something. I should have told you the minute you got here.”

“You can tell me anything.”

She takes a sharp breath. “I cheated. I cheated on Matty.”

It’s rare for me to be rendered speechless. Difficult to shock me, all things considered. But I’m shocked.

“When I first found out I was pregnant, I panicked. It wasn’t planned. I felt . . . I don’t know how to describe it. It was like my life wasn’t mine anymore. I knew I should be happy. Matty was happy. When I was lying there in the doctor’s office, staring at the little blob on the screen, I just thought, ‘I’ve never been to Barcelona. I’ve never been out of the country.’ I always thought someday I’d take a long holiday in Spain. Maybe do an art program. Have dinner at ten o’clock at night. Get wine drunk, smoke cigarettes. And after I’d travel around Europe, meet people. Draw. There was this other life I had in my head—this fantasy life that I didn’t even realize I wanted until the possibility of it was gone. Until I was holding that sonogram in my hands on the drive home, knowing that this was my life now. Is my life. It’s never going to be anything else.”

Somewhere above us, clouds shift. Birds caw. The sun burns. The moon waits.

“I thought I liked where I was at. I thought I loved Matty, my work, my house. But there was this shift. I felt stuck. He was really excited about the baby, and I tried to pretend. I could feel my body changing, and every morning I woke up, I felt like . . . like everything was slipping away from me. I just wanted to feel like I had some authority. Over my life, over my body. I was at a tattoo convention in Philly, and there’s this guy I know. I’ve met him a couple of times. He came on to me. I wasn’t showing yet. I didn’t sleep with him, but it wasn’t just a kiss either. I went too far. And after, I felt so guilty, so stupid. Even more out of control. I wanted to tell Matty, but I couldn’t bring myself to. The weeks went by, and I just didn’t know how to be around him. Didn’t know how to live with him, with myself. So I picked a fight and threw him out. I tried to be alone for a while, but that was bad, too. I found a therapist. It helped, but . . . I was lost. I wanted you. I needed you. To be around you and feel like myself again.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

She finally looks up from her scarf. “Because I knew you would be forgiving, and I wasn’t ready to be forgiven.”