After who knows how many Hi, you’ve reached Ellies, I tossed the phone onto my bed, shaking my head. It didn’t matter. For a second, I didn’t even care. John was gone. I would never hear from him. I would never meet him in our little hideaway in the Adirondacks. I would never kiss him or hug him or tear myself up about my feelings for him again. I would never be able to tell him everything I’d been thinking about these past two days. I’m sorry, but I’m not. This can never happen again, but part of me is glad that it did. I’ve fallen for you, but I’ve fallen for her, too, and there’s no good solution, but all that matters is that I don’t want to lose either of you.

Please don’t tell Vera.

I heard a noise outside and jolted out of bed. I flipped on the lights frantically, wiped beneath my eyes, then approached the door. Maggie. Part of me wanted to turn around, hide under the covers, make everything – and everyone – go away, but she’d already seen me.

Slowly, I opened the door. ‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked, her eyes narrowed in concern. ‘I saw the police come by.’

‘I –’ I couldn’t even get a word out. Tears swam in my eyes.

‘Oh my goodness,’ Maggie said, rushing in without waiting for an invitation, wrapping me in a hug.

She led me to the sofa, and I found myself sinking down, spent. She took a seat next to me, Dusty jumping into her lap.

‘Lucy, what happened?’ she asked.

I stared at her, blinking back new tears.

John was dead. Stabbed. Fuck.

‘Are you hurt?’ she asked. ‘Did someone, did someone attack you?’

‘No,’ I managed. ‘It’s just –’ I took a deep breath. ‘We went on a hike yesterday,’ I said, voice wavering. ‘Just a regular hike that John and Vera go on all the time, and John fell.’

‘What?’ Maggie asked, her jaw dropping. ‘What do you mean, he fell?’

Already, I was messing this up. I needed to get my new story straight. ‘I mean, he went up ahead to take some photos, and he disappeared. We couldn’t find him, but we saw his backpack, and so we thought he fell and we called the police. His camera was at the bottom of the ridge, so we –’

‘Oh, Lucy,’ she said, eyes narrowing. ‘Is he, was he all right?’

‘No,’ I said, scooting away from her, attempting to calm my breaths. ‘The police think …’ I bit my lip, wondering if I should tell her everything – only it hardly even mattered now. ‘They think someone murdered him. They found his body this morning.’

She gasped, and Dusty, looking back and forth between us, began to whine.

‘Murdered?’ she asked. ‘Here?’

I nodded weakly.