I shut my laptop and set it down on the coffee table, deciding I won’t get anything else done today, “Get used to what?”
Bowen raises his arm and waits for me to curl into his chest, then he turns and looks down at me, “That goddamn beautiful smile,” he drawls, his smile widening the longer he looks at me.
“I’m glad you’re home,” I say softly, running my fingers across the top of his forearm.
Bowen presses his mouth against my forehead and takes a deep breath. Usually, Bowen’s silence is comforting and devoid of awkwardness, but something is different this time. When I pull back and look up at him, he’s gazing out the glass doors with a faraway look in his eyes.
“What?” I look him up and down, “What’s wrong with you?”
He lets out a scoff, “Um,” his eyes roll over the ceiling and finally settle on me, “I have to talk to you about something.”
I don’t like his tone and my stomach drops as soon as he opens his mouth. But that’s what happens when someone says, we have to talk, right? If it weren’t a bad sign, they would just say what they have to say.
I lower my eyes to my knees, “What is it?”
The silence is agony, like he’s deciding whether he wants to even bring it up at all. And since when does Bowen ever have trouble bringing up anything? It’s not him—Bowen never hesitates to say anything, even when he should.
Finally, he breaks the silence, “Something happened with Barrett.”
Relief washes over me. No one died, Hannah isn’t stirring up more trouble—I haven’t seen or heard from her in weeks—and as far as Bowen is concerned, Colson’s still just lingering in the background.
So, why does he look so broken up about Barrett?
I smile and knit my brow in confusion, “What do you mean?”
Bowen leans forward and reaches into his back pocket for his phone. He taps the screen a few times and then holds it out to me. When I take it from him, a text thread is pulled up and the first thing I see is the tail end of their previous conversation about oil changes and Barrett’s text to him last night.
BARRETT (8:42PM): 824 Hibernia Hills
BARETT (8:42PM): The key is under the yellow flower pot on the porch
BARRETT (9:02PM): (Attachment)
Beneath the string of texts is a thin sliver of an image, and when I scroll down, my heart seizes.
Shut down. Game over.
I’m frozen, and all I can hear is the rush of blood pumping in my ears and my heart hammering against my chest. I can’t breathe, and my hands go cold, beginning to shake as adrenaline shoots through my veins.
Because what I’m looking at is a nightmare.
I’m holding my boyfriend’s—my fiancé’s—phone, and there’s a topless picture of my best friend on it.
I can barely swallow, my throat suddenly parched as I stare at the picture of Barrett, standing in her bathroom next to the white marble vanity. The lens is slightly elevated and tilted down so I can see the familiar grey tile floor. But she’s holding the camera close, taking up most of the frame as she shoots a flirtatious smile while her shiny dark chocolate hair cascades over her shoulders and frames her completely bare breasts.
I can’t move, but I also don’t want to look at the phone anymore, so I shift my eyes and stare just past the screen at the fireplace hearth across the living room. Maybe if I focus on that, I won’t melt into a blubbering puddle on the carpet. After a few moments I finally manage to open my mouth and, to my surprise, an airy voice rasps out a question.
“What is this?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you because nothing happened,” Bowen pinches the bridge of his nose, “but I tell you everything, so that would’ve been just as fucked up.”
“Why—” my voice catches and I clear my throat, “why did she send you this—” I flip the phone up again to quickly glance at the date and time, “last night?”
I scroll down and read the texts that follow. They pick back up early this morning.
BOWEN (6:42AM): Barrett what are you doing?
BARRETT (8:06AM): I’m going to tell Brett about this.
BOWEN (8:18AM): You should
“I didn’t see her text until I was already driving over there,” Bowen says as he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “I figured she sent it to me by accident because I’m the last person she texted, so I was going to give her hell about it. Anyway, I get there and the house looks dark, so I get her key and go in. But she’s still there because she’s walking around upstairs. I call up that it’s me and she yells back, so I go into the kitchen and get to work.”
Every syllable hits my ear like a drumbeat. I imagine it’s the kind of drumbeat one would hear if they were about to witness a human sacrifice, or an execution, or the beginning of a massacre. It’s the rising tempo of emotional carnage.
“She finally comes down,” he continues, “and when I turn around, she’s in nothing but her panties. She goes over to the dryer, digs around for a while, comes back out with some clothes, and stops right in front of me and starts talking about her busted outlet like it’s nothing.”
I make myself look at the texts again, read them over and over. I start tapping the screen.
Screenshot. Send. Screenshot. Send.
I glance at Bowen, thinking he’s finished, but he takes a breath and I know he’s not.
“She starts going back upstairs, but then stops and asks if I want to go with her.”
I wince as a sharp sensation pierces my temple and behind my eyes, as though the words themselves are physically painful to hear. I drop Bowen’s phone on the carpet and squeeze my head between my fingers.
What the fuck?
