“Hey! What the—”

But my words died in my mouth as I saw the knife in her hand.

“We really need to talk, Kaavi.”

I gulped.

This bitch was crazier than I could have imagined.

AMAYA

Interview Transcript: Amaya Bloom (abbrev. AB)

Date: January 25, 2020

Location: The Mount Lavinia Hotel

AB: My name is Amaya Bloom. I live in Los Angeles, though I’m currently staying at my family home at 75 Gregory’s Road, Colombo 07.

EP: Miss Bloom could you please explain to me what you were doing at the Mount Lavinia Hotel on the night of the twenty-fourth? It is our understanding that you were disinvited from the wedding.

AB: Yes, I was disinvited. But Kaavi is my oldest friend. I hoped she wasn’t serious when she asked me not to come. Besides, I had already booked and paid for my room many weeks ago and didn’t want it to go to waste.

EP: But you did not attend the Poruwa?

AB: No. I requested a room with a seaside view and watched from my balcony instead. It felt wrong not to respect her wishes on her big day.

EP: But you did visit her room later on that day?

AB: Yes. I did. I wanted to apologize.

EP: To apologize for what?

AB: For—well, it’s a long story. All of it. But mainly I wanted to apologize for everything that happened at the bridal shower, and to tell her the truth about what happened. Why I stopped talking to her so long ago.

EP: Did Miss Fonseka appear normal to you, during this visit?

AB: To be honest, no.

EP: Would you please elaborate?

AB: She appeared distraught and upset. Mainly with her fiancé, Matthew Spencer. She spoke to me about leaving him. She said she had an air-ticket booked to Singapore, and intended on flying out early this morning.

EP: You are certain of this.

AB: Yes. That is what she told me. She said she would contact her parents when things settled down.

EP: If this is the case, Miss Bloom, may I ask why you delayed informing her parents or the authorities of such vital information?

AB: Because she asked me to. She didn’t want it getting out until she was gone. She was afraid.

EP: Miss Bloom, I’m sure you are aware that there were signs of an attack in Miss Fonseka’s room. During our investigation, we were able to take an inventory of Miss Fonseka’s belongings. Among them was her passport.

AB: Her passport was in her room?

EP: Yes. And the night guard on duty claims that she never left from the main entrance, which she would have to do if she were to leave anytime before 6:00 a.m., as all other entrances would be locked.

AB: [Silence]

EP: Miss Bloom, would you mind telling us about your relationship with Miss Fonseka?

AB: I can’t believe this.

EP: What can’t you believe, Miss Bloom?

AB: That this is happening. Kaavi and I have been friends since we were children. We grew up together. We went to the same school here in Colombo. She even decided to apply to universities in the US with me instead of going to the UK like her parents would have preferred. We were like sisters. We remained close through university, which is where I met Spencer.

EP: Yes, Mr. Spencer. You were romantically involved with him, am I correct?

AB: Yes.

EP: You must have been jealous, then? That your friend was marrying your boyfriend?

AB: I was not jealous. I was scared.

EP: Scared of what? Of losing your boyfriend? Is that what motivated you to hurt Miss Fonseka?

AB: No. I— Listen.

[Pause]

[Takes deep breath]

Let me start from the beginning. When I first met Spencer I had just turned nineteen and had never really been in a serious relationship before. He, well, he took care of me. I wasn’t ever taken care of much growing up. My mother died when I was young, as you must have heard by now, and my father never really wanted anything to do with me. Spencer was this handsome, dashing man who paid attention to me and, well, I suppose you can imagine the rest. On the surface, we looked like your run-of-the-mill couple. We were in love. We were happy. He was friends with my best friend.

EP: Could you please get to the point, Miss Bloom?

AB: Y-yes. That’s what I’m trying to do here.

[Pause]

He was, well, I guess you could call it controlling. It was nothing significant, at first anyway. He had a preference for how I dressed. He hated it when I wore high heels, or makeup, for instance. At first, he would say that it was because I didn’t need it to look beautiful, but then he used to get, well, almost irritable if I ever even wore lipstick. And then one day I came home to find that he had thrown away every bit of makeup I owned.

It escalated from what I wore, to who I spoke to, where I went. It’s all a bit cliché now, of course. I didn’t see it at first. It was almost like, well, like those rocks that get shaped by a river. How could something as soft, something as beautiful as a river have the ability to change the complete structure of something as hard as a rock? Because I was as hard as a rock. I’d lost my mother. I’d survived. I was indestructible.

It was only when I saw a photo someone had taken of me on my first day of college that I realized how much I had changed. If you spoke to anyone from my childhood they will tell you how outgoing, how “bossy,” how full of life I was. And then I was afraid to leave the house without him. To make any decisions at all. It was even more terrible because I was paying for everything. For his share of the rent, starting capital for his various businesses, for his—um—I guess you could call it a cocaine habit. He—he’d struggled—with his addiction, though he’d never call it that, of course—over the years. He said he only used it as a coping mechanism. And he’d get upset if I ever spoke back to him. Said I was going on a power trip because I felt I owned him. It couldn’t be further from the truth of course. But his ego was fragile, and I didn’t want to hurt him. He was all I had.

And what started as requests, and gentle berating, and subtly putting me down, then grew to much, much worse. I—well, I don’t think I need to spell it out. I tried to end things with him many times. I fought back, you know. But it was—well, you never think it could be you, you know? You hear stories about women in abusive relationships all the time. You always wonder why they never left. You never think it could be you. I never thought it would be me either. Even when I was in the thick of it. I didn’t—and I can’t even believe this when I think about it now—but I didn’t even realize that things were so bad for me. He never hit me, you see. Not outright. There was grabbing, I think he might have choked me once, but I justified it to myself. He was just trying to calm me down because I wouldn’t stop crying. He was trying to stop me from walking away. He was forcing me to stay, to talk about our fight. That was healthy, right?

EP: And was Miss Fonseka aware of your turbulent relationship?

AB: No. Not at all. I went to great lengths to hide it. So did Spencer, I guess. She knew we argued, of course, but Spencer never spoke to me the way he did when we were alone around her. Around anyone else really. To Kaavi, I must have just looked like an overly emotional girlfriend. Crying all the time. Breaking up with him one day and taking him back the next.

I—well, Spencer didn’t have it easy, either, you know. His family was never there for him too. It was one of the things we bonded over. I wanted to be a safe space for him. Like he was for me.

I must have done an excellent job covering it all up, though, because when it came down to it, she took his word against mine.

EP: Please explain further.

AB: It was the end of my senior year, the day after graduation, and I wanted to end things with Spencer for good. We were moving to a new apartment, so it felt like the right time to make a clean break. I ended things and asked Kaavi not to tell him our new address. She did.

When Spencer showed up at the new place with flowers, he assumed, just like Kaavi assumed, I suppose, that I hadn’t really meant it. That this was just the threat of a breakup and not a real one. He played me this song on his phone, and chased me around the living room as I tried to back away from him. He was—it was not like the other times. He’d been angry before, sure, but this time I thought he’d kill me.

[Pause]

I’d never been that scared. After a few hours, after I pretended like things were okay, I managed to convince him that I needed something from the store, and the moment he left I just took my passport and my purse and ran. Kaavi was just getting home as I left the apartment, and I—well, I was very, very angry with her for giving Spencer our address. I should have told Kaavi then. I mean, I knew. Of all people I had known what Spencer was like. How charming he was. How he could have coaxed information out of her as easily as taking candy from a baby. But I was so hurt. So angry. I blamed everyone. I blamed Kaavi for giving me up. My parents for abandoning me. I blamed myself for letting things get this far. I told her that I hated her and never to speak to me again.

I waited at the airport for fifteen hours until I could get a flight to Sri Lanka. I was terrified he’d find me while I waited. I hid in the bathroom for almost the entire time.

And then I got home, but I was afraid that he’d follow me all the way here, to Colombo. So afraid that I couldn’t bear to live alone in my house. I told everyone that there had been a break-in at my home, and turned to the only family I ever had, even though Kaavi and I weren’t speaking to each other. I moved in with them—it was just for a while, at first. They didn’t know what had happened. Just that I was going through a bad breakup and needed to recover. Mrs. Fonseka was the first person to realize I was pregnant. They were less than thrilled, as you can imagine.

EP: And was Matthew Spencer ever made aware of this?

AB: No. I never wanted him to know.

EP: Before he attacked you, you said you wanted to leave Mr. Spencer for good. Was there anything else, apart from the abuse, of course, that helped you make this decision?

[Pause]

Miss Bloom?

AB: Remember I told you how he hated me wearing makeup? How he liked to control what I wore? I didn’t really connect the dots until later. He didn’t want me wearing makeup because he hated me looking grown-up. The same with high heels. And the clothes he wanted me to wear were always, well, they were girly. And young looking. I—I didn’t think much of it, at the time anyway. Who cares if your boyfriend insisted you always wore white cotton panties when you finally felt like you were important to someone? Like you finally had a place in this world?

It happened right after I graduated—I used his laptop while he was in the shower and an email popped up with a link that routed through a bunch of sites. And I knew I shouldn’t snoop but something felt off and just—well—and I found—well, I still don’t know exactly what it was I’d found. The extent to which it went. Just that it contained children. That it was very, very wrong.

That was when I knew that I absolutely had to leave. He didn’t know what I had found. When he got out of the shower I just told him that I never wanted to speak to him again and then I left. But he found me, as you know.

[Pause]

This is why—well, this is the main reason why I flew back here. To stop the wedding. Not just because I didn’t want Kaavi to marry him, but most importantly, because I needed to keep him away from Nadia. I know I agreed to stay away from her. To not interfere in her life—with all their lives. And I don’t have this pining to be a mother or to step in and take her away, which is probably what Mrs. Fonseka thinks. I can see she’s happy there. I just want her to be safe. I needed to keep her away from him. I’ve seen the photos of Spencer with the Pink Sapphire girls too. He shouldn’t be around children.

EP: But why not come clean? Why not simply tell everyone what you knew?

AB: [Pause] What proof did I have? Spencer is, well, he’s this perfect man. Everyone loves him. I could see it from half a world away. If I showed up here, screaming that he was some sort of pedophile, I’d have just been the crazy ex-girlfriend who wanted to ruin this perfect wedding. Don’t tell me you didn’t think that to begin with. Don’t tell me that you didn’t think I was here because I was still in love with him, or because I was obsessed with her.

EP: Is this knife yours, Miss Bloom?

AB: Y-yes. I gave it to Kaavi. Last night. For her to defend herself. She was trying to leave him.

EP: We have a video that Miss Fonseka recorded on her phone. Would you like to see it?

AB: She—she left a video?

[Kaavindi Fonseka’s voice fills the room]

If someone is watching this, then chances are that I’m already dead.

I don’t even know why I’m recording a video. Call it a force of habit. Maybe later on I’ll see it and it’ll be hilarious. But tonight, well, [nervous laughter] this isn’t the kind of nerves I was expecting the night before my big day.

I’m having my dream wedding. I’m tying the knot at this beautiful hotel where my parents got married. Where I spent so much of my childhood playing down by the beach. I should be out of my mind with joy.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. But I’ve had this feeling for a while now, that things aren’t right.

Maybe it’s just—

Hang on.

[Whispering] I hear footsteps.

I think someone’s outside my door.

[Knocking]

Oh god.

[Louder] Who, um, who is it?

[Whispering to the camera] They aren’t saying who it is.

[Knocking again]

Oh god, here goes.

AB: [Pause] Her face. She’s only showing the right side of her face.

EP: Is that what stands out to you, Miss Bloom? Because I would have thought—

[Interruption]

Security officer: Miss Padmaraj, please come with us at once. There’s been a situation in room 311.

EP: [Standing] Room 311? Isn’t that . . . ?

Security officer: Yes, madam. That’s the groom’s, Mr. Spencer’s, room.