“You were scared. I get that.”

“You were screaming at me, yelling. We’d both drunk too much.”

The world slips and we’re back there, in the woods, the night of the wedding. Bella is in her tank top and jeans, barefoot. Still clean, still whole. She’s crying and so am I.

“You kept sneaking off, Tess, and I knew you were still seeing him. I had to stop it. Stop him before he raped you again.”

“He never did anything to me.”

“That’s not what you told me—you told me he was the monster. You told me what he did to you and I—”

“I lied.”

“What?”

“I lied. I fucking lied. He never touched me, never even looked at me after you came along.”

She recoils and shakes her head. “You lied? What…why would you lie about that? No, you’re in denial. I get that, what he did to you…”

“I lied. He never touched me.” I scream it at her, the words ringing out over the approaching storm. “It was me—I kissed him and he pushed me away. And he was kind but he never touched me.”

“You fucking lied?”

“Yes—I lied and then the words were out there and I didn’t know how to take them back.”

“Oh God, Tess, what have you done?”

I can’t answer her. The enormity of my lie increases the distance between us. She was so loving and fierce and protective after I told that lie. She was my Bella again.

All the color has gone from her face. “Oh God, Tess…you don’t know what you’ve done. You told me he was the monster. You told me and I thought if he did that to you, he must have killed Nic.”

No. No.

“That time he tried to kiss me, Tess, I got away, but what if I hadn’t?” She’s crying harder. “I couldn’t get clean after, I couldn’t scrub his hands off me. Then you told me he raped you and…it’s why I can’t sleep, because in my dreams he rapes and kills both of us over and over again.”