He reached out for me again, and I shrunk back.
“Audrey, haven’t you ever done anything stupid in the heat of the moment and then regretted it afterward? I made a mistake, but I’m okay now. It was a cry for help; that’s all. It won’t happen again.”
“What was in the document, Rad?” I repeated.
“Nothing!” There was an edge to his voice. “Just the usual, about how sorry I was and how much I love you. All that kind of stuff you write when you’re in that frame of mind.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I swear to you that’s all it was.”
“Then why did Freddy call Lucy up in the middle of the night? Why did he say, ‘We have to warn Audrey about Rad’? Why did Freddy get in the fucking car and race over to see her because there was something you wrote in that document that scared the shit out of him?”
Rad’s mouth opened, then closed again.
“Do you know they found your laptop?” I continued. “It was lying by the side of the road, completely smashed to pieces. Freddy had it with him. Why would he take your laptop to Lucy’s place in the middle of the night? Why? What was so important that it couldn’t wait until the morning?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “Audrey—”
“I need to know the truth, Rad. Right now.”
He stood there for a few moments, staring at me. It seemed an eternity before he spoke again. “I wanted to tell you,” he said, his face crumbling. He sat down on the step and sunk his head into his hands.
“Then tell me.”
He looked up at me. His eyes had a terrible bleakness to them. All of a sudden, I was terrified.
“The letter—was there something in there about Ana?”
He nodded.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
He nodded again. “It was more of a confession than a suicide letter.”
A shiver went through my body.
“Tell me what happened.”
He took a deep breath. “I went to Ana’s house that day to confront her about the rumor,” he began slowly. “That part of it was true. It was exactly like I told you. She kept denying it, saying someone made it up. We got into a huge fight, and she slapped me. I was furious—I called her a lying whore. She reached out to hit me again, but I grabbed her arm and pushed her back. She tripped on a rug and fell, hitting the back of her head on the edge of the coffee table. I rushed over to her right away, but she wasn’t moving. I tried to revive her, but she didn’t wake up. I checked her pulse. She didn’t have one. That’s when I panicked. I was in shock. I mean, there wasn’t even any blood. But she . . . she just wouldn’t wake up.”
I stared at Rad with horror, and a wave of revulsion washed over me.
“So I sat in the corner of the room for a while. I didn’t know what to do. Then this weird sensation came over me, and what happened next was a blur.”
“Rad,” I stared at him, my eyes wide with disbelief. He turned away, looking straight ahead.
“When I was about nine, my mother took me to England for my uncle’s wedding. We went to Stonehenge, but it’s weird; I don’t remember ever going there. Even when I look at the photographs now, it doesn’t feel real. Like it happened to someone else.” He turned to face me again. “That’s what it was like that day with Ana,” he said, his tone almost mechanical. “I picked her up and put her in the bath with her dress still on. I ran the water. Then I found a razor in one of the cabinets. I got behind her so I would get the angle right when I cut into her wrists. I wasn’t sure if she would still bleed since her heart had stopped by then, but she did. God, there was so much blood.” He shivered. “Then, I dropped the razor into the bath and left.”
I closed my eyes. Cold, spidery fingers crawled up and down my spine. “You . . . you cut into her wrists?” I whispered. An image of Rad, razor in hand, shot to the forefront of my mind, and I thought I was going to be sick.
“Audrey.” He stood up.
I took a step back. “No!” I screamed, with a ferocity that took me by surprise.
Rad flinched and took a step back. “Audrey, I—”
“You cut into her wrists!” I shrieked. “You cut into her wrists!” The bile rose in my throat. I felt hysterical, out of control. My mind was spinning so fast I couldn’t seem to hold on to the thoughts that flitted in and out. Was Ana already dead when he put her into the bath? If she had been alive, wouldn’t that make him a murderer? And the lie I told—what part did that play in this tragedy? Nothing? Everything?
“How did you know Ana was already dead?” I demanded. “Are you a doctor?”
His raked his hand through his hair. “She didn’t have a pulse; I swear! She wasn’t breathing—there was nothing I could do. They wouldn’t understand that it was an accident. I just panicked.” He was scrambling now, eyes wild, ready to grab at anything.
“You panicked?” I said, incredulously. “People call the ambulance when they panic, Rad. They don’t stage a fucking suicide.”
His eyes widened, and his hand shot out to grip the banister, as if he’d been thrown off balance.
He stammered, “But you believe me, don’t you, Audrey? You know I had no other choice.”
“You did have a choice. You could have told me the truth. You were a coward,” I spat.
“You’re right—you’re absolutely right. I was a coward. If I could go back in time, I would do things differently. I would have called the ambulance. Fuck, I would have told you—I should have told you. Wouldn’t you do the same? If you could go back, would you have told that lie?”
“That’s not fair, Rad. You can’t—” I started.
“I know that now,” he cut in quickly. “In the end, that was the thing that unraveled me. That I left you thinking you were in the wrong when I had done such a terrible thing. I wanted to tell you so many times, Audrey.” His eyes were pleading when they looked into mine. “I love you so damn much. You came and found me when I was in that shitty place, and you brought me back to life. I tried to push you away, and you wouldn’t let me. Then when we grew close, I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t handle the thought of losing you again.”
I shook my head. “No, don’t you dare!” I said, gritting my teeth. My fingers tugged fretfully at my rubber band, and it snapped in two, falling silently from my wrist to the ground.
“Audrey.” His eyes locked on to mine. Those strange, beautiful eyes: one a stormy gray, the other summer blue.
Like a jagged rock pitched from a slingshot, my mind traveled back to the night I told that lie. I thought of Rad, his strong, gentle hands stained red with Ana’s blood. Candela lying in the hospital bed, fighting for her life. Duck shoved into the back of a police van. Now Freddy—poor Freddy. Another one for the body count. And I had to add Lucy as well because you couldn’t separate the two.
“Audrey,” Rad repeated. There was a desperation to his voice. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do.” He grabbed my arms. “Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything you want.”
I broke free from his grasp and stumbled back. “I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said weakly, my eyes watering and my voice trembling.
“I’ve put my life in your hands,” he pleaded. “Don’t you see? We have a fresh start ahead of us in L.A. We can leave all this behind.”
All of a sudden, I felt an eerie calm settle over me. It was as though I was standing in the eye of the storm, and everything had stopped. In that moment of clarity, I knew I was just as culpable as Rad. I knew there was blood on my hands too. We had become caricatures of ourselves, trapped in this nightmare; the entry ticket for this grotesque carnival, my lie. I had cursed us from the moment the evil spilled from my lips. Yet beyond the madness, the utter horror of Rad’s confession, I couldn’t ignore the love that was there, pulsating with a life of its own, pulling us closer and closer, blurring t
he lines. We could start all over again in L.A., where no one knew us. I was stronger than I had ever been. I was strong enough for the both of us. Then the clarity dissolved, and I was pitched back into blinding chaos.
I sobbed violently, my shoulders heaving from the effort. I cried in a way I never had before. I felt everything I lost compound into this cruel, unforgiving moment. Rad put his arms around me, and I pushed back as hard as I could, thrashing wildly at his hands, his face, tearing at his hair. With all my strength, I pounded his chest with my fists, but still, he wouldn’t let go. After a while, my arms grew limp, and I let him hold me.
Epilogue
The early morning sun streamed through the curtains of our one-bedroom flat in Santa Monica. I was on my second cup of coffee, and Rad was just waking up.
He opened his eyes and gave me a sleepy smile. “Morning,” he said.
“Morning.” I put my coffee mug down on the side table, then leaned over and kissed him gently. He ran his hands through my hair and buried his face in my neck. “You smell good,” he murmured, pulling me down onto the bed with him. He wrapped his arms around me, and we stayed like that for a while.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost ten, I think.”
“You’re already dressed.”
“I was up early this morning and thought I’d go for a walk on the pier—pick up some bagels on my way back.”
“Sounds good.”
I gently untangled myself and got up.
“Blueberry for you?”
“Yeah.”
I put my Audrey jacket on.
“Is it cold out there today?” he asked.
I nodded. “I was out on the balcony this morning, and it was a little chilly.”
He sat up and stretched out his arms with a yawn, turning his head to the window. “Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”
I smiled. “I think so too.”
The sun had climbed high above the horizon. A seagull was hitching a ride on the wind. I watched as the tide swirled around the wooden legs of the Santa Monica Pier. People milled about taking photographs and talking animatedly on cell phones. The sea was a perfect backdrop to the spinning Ferris wheel and the colored umbrellas that dotted the promenade. In the distance, there were shrieks of delight coming from the bright yellow rollercoaster.
I leaned against the powder-blue railing and closed my eyes, letting the sun warm my face. It had been unusually cool these past few days, and I felt the cold a lot more than I used to. I took in a deep lungful of the salty sea air and let it out again with a sigh.
So here I was, several months after the night of Freddy’s funeral. I had settled into my new life with Rad. I didn’t want to think about the dark days that followed the night when Rad revealed the truth about Ana to me. We had agreed to leave all that behind. I left Lucy and Candela bewildered and begging for answers—answers I couldn’t give without implicating Rad. I knew I could never tell them the truth because they wouldn’t understand. How could I explain it to another person if I couldn’t even justify it to myself? All I knew was that my decision to stay with Rad was not so much a choice as a necessity.
I thought about my time in Delta. About Gabe, that day we said goodbye. How he told me I didn’t need anyone anymore. But he was wrong. I needed Rad—we needed each other now more than ever. Then I thought about the rope that kept the ship attached to the mooring—the one that should never fray, never break. Like the rubber band that used to occupy my left wrist, the rope had snapped, and I was free-falling, but I wasn’t afraid anymore. I thought of Rad and the terrible secret we shared—the lie we chose to bury for good. It would always be there—we knew that—but we would no longer give it any power over us. It nearly drove us apart, but, instead, it had bound us to each other like a blood pact. And now here we were, in a whole new life. It was a blank canvas—the chance to start all over again.
I walked by a busker in a felt hat, a white feather stuck in its brim. He was strumming a muted rendition of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” I stopped and put my hand in the pocket of my jacket for some loose coins. I could hear the jangle, but I couldn’t seem to find the coins. I frowned, my fingers pushing deeper against the red satin lining. I felt a tear that I had never noticed before. As I fished the coins out, I heard the unmistakable rustle of paper. I dropped the coins into the busker’s open guitar case and continued walking, my hand pushing through the tear until my fingers found a piece of folded up paper. It was the page from Ana’s diary that had gone missing the day I opened up the metal box. It must have been caught inside the lining of my jacket this entire time. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt the old familiar panic rising up again. Then, almost as soon as it began, it was over. I took a deep breath and looked at Ana’s tiny writing. As I read, her words seemed to travel from a time so long ago they felt closer to the future than the past. I sensed somehow that those words were always meant to find me here.
I’m going to do it this time. My parents will be away this weekend, and I am going to seal up the garage with Dad’s beloved red Thunderbird running inside. Then I’m going to fall asleep to the sweet perfume of carbon monoxide and “Sugar Baby Love” blasting on the stereo. Seventeen seems like a good age to leave this shitball of a world.
I wonder who will be the first to find me. Maybe the lady next door, the one who keeps giving me the evil eye. I once heard her yelling at her husband about the way he looks at me. I can imagine her at the scene, that initial look of horror. Then her fat, rubbery lips will curve into a smile, secretly pleased with the discovery. Or maybe Rad will get to me before she does. I can just see those sweet, puppy dog eyes, wide with incredulity and brimming with tears. He can be so sentimental sometimes; it makes me want to gag. He still thinks I was a virgin when we fucked for the first time. Can you believe it? I know he thinks he’s in love, but he has no idea what love is. Not yet anyway.
The truth is, everyone wants to believe they’re in love but no one really is. So to all the girls out there who are stuck between two minds about some stupid crush, I have news for you. If you have to wonder, if you have to question what you feel, then deep down you actually don’t give a shit. As for the rest of you who do get it, welcome to the club. If you know what it’s like to want someone so much you would kill for them. If you know what it’s like to feel someone so deep under your skin you would sacrifice everything to protect them—even if it screws up your own moral compass so you can’t see right from wrong. If you’re like me, then let me leave you with this: That’s what love is. Don’t let them tell you any different. Don’t tell yourself otherwise.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Al Zuckerman. It has been a privilege and an honor to work with you on this book. Your wisdom and guidance have been invaluable, and you have taught me so much. I’m truly grateful for all the advice you have given me, and I can’t wait to work with you again on the next novel.
Thank you to Kirsty Melville, Patty Rice, and the team at Andrews McMeel for your amazing support. I really appreciate how tirelessly you have worked behind the scenes to bring Sad Girls to life and make it available in bookstores all over the world.
Samantha Wekstein from Writers House, your wonderful feedback and notes have been such a big help to me. Thank you.
To my editor Chris Schillig, thank you for your advice and valuable input. You did an amazing job.
Mum, Dad, Niv, Jerric, Karen, Sherry, Sivvy, and Aleks: thank you for being the metaphoric rubber band around my wrist.
Dr. Gwendoline Smith, thank you for your valuable time and expertise on the subject of anxiety. I thoroughly enjoyed our little late-night chats and your incredible insights.
To Ollie Faudet, who has been an avid supporter of Sad Girls since day one. Your unique worldview has been a source of inspiration, and it wouldn’t be the same book without you.
Thank you t
o Michael Faudet, who lived and breathed the world of Sad Girls alongside me. For years, we spoke extensively about the characters, settings, and plotlines. If this is my baby, it is in equal parts his as well. Our collaboration, both in life and work, has been the greatest gift of all.
Lastly, to my readers from all corners of the world, a big thank-you. You have shown me that love is the very thing that unites us. If it wasn’t for you, I would never have written a single book.
Also by Lang Leav:
Love & Misadventure
Lullabies
Memories
The Universe of Us
Sad Girls
copyright © 2017 by Lang Leav. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.
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[email protected] About the Author
Lang Leav is an international bestselling author and social media sensation. She is the winner of a Qantas Spirit of Youth Award and coveted Churchill Fellowship. Her book Lullabies was the 2014 winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for poetry.