Page 15 of Because I Killed Him
Her posture stiffens awkwardly. She rises from the sofa and edges toward me, her hesitation making her seem even more foreign. “Look, Lore, I didn’t mean to blindside you like this. I’ve wanted to reach out for a long time, but I didn’t know how. I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”
“Idon’twant to see you,” I snap, and that’s the least of it. I want to erase the day she entered my life. If I could, I’d wipe away every memory we shared, still stacked like bodies in my mind, unburied and rotting. “Never once, Charlotte. Never once did I pressure you to put me first, and yet, after three years of calling me your best friend, you screwed me over for afling.”
“It wasn’t a fling,” she says, her voice rising. “Jack’s theone, Lore.”
“Well, if he dumped you, he must not think so.”
“Yes, he does—I mean, he did. It’s just that… before we broke up—” She licks her lips and shakes her head anxiously. “Never mind.”
She walks around the sofa, her fingers trembling against her thigh. The nervousness in her movements makes me do a double take.
This isn’t Charlotte.
The real Charlotte would be yelling at me, firing back just as fiercely. She’d give me a clear reason for why she cut me off, remaining confident even if she knew she was wrong. I expected everything else except this quiet, sad-eyed person willing to swallow whatever I throw at her. The change in her attitude is even stranger than the one in her face. It’s the only thing keeping me from unloading on her, from tearing into her the way she tore into me.
“So, why did you do it, then? Are you hiding from someone?”
Charlotte frowns, a tight expression with no forehead wrinkles. “No. I made a shitty decision, is all—one of a thousand since we last saw each other. Ironically enough, the only good decision I made was cutting you off, but it wasn’t because I wanted to.”
“Why then?”
“Because as long as Jack and I were together, I hadnochoice.”
I stiffen. There’s no way I’m letting her shift the blame. “How the hell could you have had no choice? Did Jack force you to cut me off?”
“No. Of course not. It wasn’t because of him.” She pauses, a hint of fear flashing across her face. “It was… because of his best friend.”
“Buckle up. We’re taking off,” Harrison calls.
The moment he steps out of the corridor, Charlotte returns to her seat on the sofa and lets her hair fall over her face. I watch, stunned, as she opens a Polo magazine and flips through the articles as if I weren’t even here. What the hell does she mean? Why would Jack’s best friend be involved in this? Confusion washes over me, followed by a terrible feeling of being cheated, as if the moment meant to give me closure has been snatched away.
Charlotte and I keep to ourselves during the first leg of the flight. Pinkies serve appetizers and champagne cocktails at the dining table, though the spread remains untouched. Charlotte is still staring at the Polo magazine in her lap, her expression blank, as if she’s not seeing the words.
From the dining table, I keep glancing at her, fighting the urge to demand the whole truth. Who is Jack’s best friend? And what’s his problem with me? Is he someone who opposes Dad’s politics and pressured Charlotte to cut me off because of my last name? I don’t understand it. And now that she’s tossed me a few scraps, I’m starving for the rest.
Harrison, who’s aware of the bad blood between Charlotte and me, avoids the tension by calling Vivian. He communicates with her through his Bond, a computer interface chip embedded in his brain’s cerebral cortex. Almost everyone has one—myself included—because it’s more advanced and convenient than a mobile phone. With a Bond, you don’t have to type with your fingers; the device decodes brain signals, letting you browse the internet or send messages with just a thought. The only people who refuse to get one are those like Dad, who don’t trust the technology, and others like Vivian, who don’t understand it.
When Harrison finishes his call and deactivates his Bond, his left eye shifts from electric blue back to its original green. Grabbing a bottle of vitamins from his jacket, he slides one into his mouth and heads to the custom putting green that winds through the middle of the lounge.
“We need to talk,” he says, nodding toward a black velvet sofa near the putting green. “Both of you, please sit.”
“I can hear you just fine over here,” Charlotte calls from the bar, where a Pinkie is mixing her a Gibson cocktail.
“You want to talk about your final tip?” I ask, half expecting him to repeat Dad’s warning to steer clear of the Blues.
“Yeah.” Harrison rolls up his sleeves and takes a putter from a Pinkie. “Look, I know you two aren’t friends anymore, but if you want to survive at Grandmaster, you’re better off sticking together.”
Charlotte and I exchange a tense, prickly glance from opposite sides of the lounge. Harrison sighs and shakes his head as if our disagreement is a spitball compared to the bullets we’re about to face.
But I don’t care.
“I’ll just stick with you, Harry,” I say.
“That’s not possible.”
“Why not?” He’s a third-year student, so we won’t have any lectures together, but that doesn’t explain why he can’t be around outside of class or on weekends.
“We’ll get to that.” Harrison lines up his shot, his leather-laced brogues sinking into the turf, then taps the golf ball into the hole. “Ten years ago, seven percent of low-citizens got executed before graduating from Grandmaster. Now it’s eleven percent. Do you know what’s behind the spike?”
