Chapter 3

### Chapter 3

"I—"

"But when I asked you a few days ago, didn't you say you weren't pregnant?"

Before I could get the words out, Susan threw the accusation in my face.

"Queenie, I never imagined you hated me this much. You know how badly Tyler wants a child, and you'd fake a miscarriage just to break his heart."

"It's all my fault. I'll go. I'll never show up in front of either of you again!"

She shoved past Tyler, sobbing, and rushed for the door.

"Susan!"

Tyler turned to me with a look of pure disappointment.

"Can you stop this, please? You wear me out. Why can't you be more like Susan? When I'm with her, I can finally breathe."

"I'll go after her. It's dark out there. You need to calm down."

Watching his face crease with worry, I spoke calmly.

"Go, then. I hope this is the last time we ever see each other."

"Enough! Won't you be satisfied until you've driven Susan to her death?"

I wasn't trying to drive anyone to death.

I'd just finally understood that you weren't worth it anymore.

"I'm giving you two my blessing. Shouldn't you be happy? Go be romantic wherever you like, no more hiding, no more secret accounts. You should be thanking me."

My voice was calm in a way that felt foreign even to me. He froze, then flushed with rage.

"Then get out! And never come back!"

"Let's see how many days you last before you come crawling back on your knees, begging me to marry you!"

With that, he spun around and slammed the door behind him.

The frame was still shaking when I laughed out loud.

Tyler, you think I can't survive without you.

But there's nothing left in this world that could make me beg you for anything.

I slowly pushed myself up and opened Instagram.

Tens of thousands of photos poured out, like a five-year-old dream.

The last one was from when Susan first came to Chicago, the three of us at the amusement park. In the frame we were all laughing, eyes crinkled at the corners, as if the bond between the three of us could last forever.

But a story with three people never lasts forever.

I closed my eyes and pressed delete. Everything we'd laughed over, cried over, lied to ourselves about, all of it zeroed out in a second.

The next day, after burying my parents, I dragged my exhausted body home and there they were, Tyler's custom leather shoes, right in front of me.

The next second I was pulled, startled, into a scalding embrace.

"I'm sorry, Queenie. I was too rash yesterday."

"You have to believe me, I never wanted to hurt you. I was just so worried about Susan. She cried all night last night—"

Susan. Susan again.

Every word out of his mouth was her.

The last shred of hope I had left was ground to dust, one syllable at a time.

He was about to say more when his phone suddenly rang.

The moment he answered, his face changed completely.

"Hold on, I'm coming right now!"

By the time he hung up, all that tenderness was gone without a trace. Tyler's eyes had gone terrifyingly dark. "Susan was already unstable, and then you went and deleted all those photos. Now she's convinced you'll never forgive her, and she's about to jump! Are you happy now?"

He hauled me off to Susan's apartment without another word.

As he dragged me, the wound on my knee tore open against my pants, and the pain caught my breath in my throat.

On the rooftop, Susan stood barefoot on the outer edge of the railing, swaying, ready to fall.

The moment she saw me, tears spilled from her eyes.

"Queenie, will you only be happy once I'm dead?"

Before I could say a word, Tyler was already shouting.

"Susan, don't do anything stupid! Queenie knows she was wrong, she came here specifically to beg your forgiveness."

I whipped my head around to look at him, struck by how absurd it was.

But Susan shook her head like she'd lost her mind, her voice tearing. "Impossible! If you knew I was the one who ran over your parents, you'd want me dead!"

Crack!

Thunder split open right above us.

Eyes burning red, I lunged at her, only for an arm to clamp around my waist and hold me back.

Tyler's cold voice pressed against my ear.

"Susan didn't mean it. The rain was too heavy, your parents ran the red light themselves!"

"If I hadn't taken her to the beach to clear her head, she'd never have made it through these past few days."

The blood in me went cold, inch by inch.

So he'd known everything all along.

I'd been thrashing through a nightmare, and he'd watched with cold eyes.

Susan, the murderer who killed my parents, and all he felt for her was pity.