Page 84 of My Grape Crush
I slice into the water, swimming hard and fast toward shore. I charge up the stairs, taking two at a time, my chest on fire when I blow past Dani’s place and the parking lot. My villa is shrouded in shadows, nothing but blackness upon darkness. I rush inside to the bedroom and snap the light on.
Nothing.
My palms go humid, the knob to the bedside table door slippery under my fingers.
Maybe…please.
I yank it open. Empty.
A wave of nausea makes me flush with sweat. My head suddenly feels too heavy for my body, and I sink onto the bed, face cradled in both hands. Listen, I’m no serial killer creepily cataloging my victims, but I have an active imagination. And my drawing skills are decent.Not that Van Gogh will be rolling over in his grave or anything, but the pages and pages of excruciating details reflect my Dani-obsessed brain.
To calm the fuck down, I tell myself Myla won’t do anything stupid. Maybe she gets red with fury and rips it all to shreds. Or chucks it into the Mediterranean with a feral scream. Lights it on fire in a parking lot, muttering an incantation. I project all of those scenarios into the universe without a shred of hope.Wishful thinking only takes one so far.
Because I saw it in her eyes.
That unhinged sheen of someone with nothing to lose.
All the air in the bedroom contracts around me like a vise. How does that saying go?“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?”
I blocked Myla on Instagram so she can’t post on my account, but if she rage-blasts on her socials, the pick-up will spread faster than a code red virus.
I’m spiraling into full-blown panic when my phone chimes from the kitchen. A terrible, sinking feeling hits—like Myla somehow knows I know— and I brace myself to face the damage. But when I check the screen, it’sSee Sawlighting up, with stacks of unread messages from both JC and Sawyer beneath it.
Urgent. Call me. 911.
I feel untethered, light as air, as a different kind of horror takes over.
The phone keeps shrieking in the dark.
Every cell in my body screams,Don’t answer.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DANI
“Excuse me?”Amelia shoots back, but we both know she heard me just fine.
“What happened between you and Rhys?” I ask again, an eerie calm to my voice despite the churning in my stomach that started on Saturday and hasn’t stopped.
It’s ten p.m. I’m sprawled on my bed, exhausted from a day that refused to let my mind focus on anything but this call. Amelia and Dean took off for a couples’ weekend retreat in Whistler—their first since the twins arrived—and I had the decency not to sabotage their little getaway by unloading on her.
But now it’s time for her to come clean. Sisterly payback.
After a long silence, Amelia asks, “What did he tell you?”
“I don’t have the energy to talk in circles all night, Ames. You owe me a straight answer.”
In the background, I can hear the TV in her bedroom and Dean whispering, asking if she needs space.
Amelia's voice returns, tighter now, “Give me a minute, Dani. I need to make a tea and walk you through this.”
I hear the rustle of movement, the soft padding of feet as she heads downstairs into their dream of a kitchen that my entire apartment could fit inside of. At a future date, will we sit at the marble counter, eat home-baked cookies, and gossip? Or is this an unfixable rift?
The silence stretches, punctuated only by the muffled sounds of Amelia preparing her tea. Every second without closure is an unbearable burden.
“Did you sleep with Rhys?” I blurt out. “Yes or no.”
My heart seizes. Three agonizing seconds pass before she says, “No.”
