She pressed her mouth to the phone, kept her voice low in the crowded, frenetic room. The words, when they came, sounded surprisingly calm. Flat even. Oddly devoid of emotion.

“I killed someone,” she said.

Four Months Earlier

1

The Roommates

The first thing Nat noticed when she awoke was the taste in her mouth: metallic, burnt, chemical. Jesus . . . What had she drunk last night? The pounding in her head answered: too much. She reached for the glass of water sitting on the floor next to her mattress. The tepid liquid soothed her parched throat but made her stomach churn and roll. She flopped back down, willing the nausea to abate. She didn’t want to vomit into her overflowing wastebasket. And she didn’t want to stumble through the apartment to the tiny bathroom she shared with her two roommates. Her insides were just starting to settle when she noticed Miguel, sprawled on his back, snoring softly beside her.

Shit.

Nat must have been really wasted to have brought her coworker home. Again. She had made a vow not to hook up with Miguel anymore. Not because he wasn’t sweet, and funny, and hot—he was. But he was also a little in love with her, and she didn’t want that to turn into a lot in love with her. They were just twenty-one, both students who worked at the same bar. A relationship with Miguel would be complicated, was bound to get messy. Nat had already been involved in one toxic, twisted, ultimately catastrophic relationship. She wasn’t going to do complicated and messy again.

She lay there, for a moment, observing her sleeping partner. Next to Miguel’s warm, brown back, Nat’s naked body looked fish-belly pale. Her father’s Gaelic genes, the dismal winter weather, and her poor diet were to blame. When Nat was properly nourished and getting adequate sunshine, her skin was peaches and cream, in pleasing contrast to her thick dark hair. When she was perpetually bundled in a winter coat, hat, and scarf, subsisting on packaged ramen and frozen pierogies, her pallor became ghostly, her hair a flat, mousy brown. She needed sunshine, citrus fruit, and protein. But Mother Nature, and her bank account, were conspiring against her.

The third thing she noticed that morning—after the toxic taste in her mouth, the pounding in her head, and the bartender in her bed—was the noise from the kitchen. A cupboard door banged aggressively. Pots and pans crashed together as they were dropped into the sink. Her roommates were pissed about something and were relaying it in their usual passive-aggressive manner.

“I’m so fucking over this.”

The muffled voice belonged to Mara, an angular, ginger-haired NYU student. She was getting her master’s in economics. Or was it political science? Something dry, dull, cerebral—at least to an art student like Nat. Mara was intense and easily irritated and borderline OCD. What normal college student organized her canned goods by expiration date? Cleaned the fridge and sink twice a week with a bleach solution? Carried her toiletries back and forth from her bedroom to the bathroom, because, if left there, they’d be contaminated, with . . . what? Mildew? Urine? Feces?