‘Andreas and I… We’ve had some issues.’
‘What kind of issues?’ I open my mouth to speak, again wishing I could tell Anette the truth, wishing that a parallel universe existed in which she would understand and still be my best friend. But there isn’t and there is simply no way to tell her. What I’ve done is unthinkable. Unforgivable. Unexplainable. I killed a man today. I took his life and now he is dead. It was self-defence, of course it was; according to Bianka he was completely wild and I had no choice but to defend myself and get him off me, but still. I killed him.
I start to cry, huge sobs escaping me like bursts of steam from a pressurized container.
‘I…’
‘Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. This must all feel very strange and confusing for you.’
After a long while, I manage to stop crying. I pull back from Anette’s embrace and make myself look her in the eyes. If she guesses what I have done, I will tell her the truth. I feel as though I have ‘murderer’ carved into my forehead, but of course I don’t and Anette just squeezes my hands in her own and smiles gently at me.
‘Try not to worry too much. This is just one indiscretion after years and years of fidelity. Your secret is entirely safe with me. We’re going home in just a couple of days. Just turn your focus to fixing stuff with Andreas, I know you can. You two are such a rock-solid couple.’
I nod. I try to summon to mind an image of that life I have to preserve at any cost. Madeleine, Oscar, my husband and me. But I can’t.
The clock in the hallway strikes eight and Anette glances at it.
‘We should get ready, I guess,’ I say.
‘Are you sure you feel up for going out?’
I swallow hard, panic rising at the idea. Then I nod. I know Bianka’s right and that it’s better to go out and act normal than to cancel and fall apart here, rousing suspicion. Bianka and I have to just somehow hang on until we’ve gotten rid of Maxime and we can go back to London and pick up our lives as though none of this ever happened.
Anette gets up and bends back down to where I’m sitting on the bed to give me a hug. Before she heads for the door, she gives my hand a long, hard squeeze. I feel so stupid, suddenly, for having thought that my newfound and intense friendship with Bianka was any match for Anette. I’ve neglected her for weeks now, spending every free moment with Bianka. I stare at Anette as she opens the door to leave, at the fiery red hair pouring down her back, and I feel lonelier than I have in all my life. I can tell her everything but not this. Not that I killed someone. My mind is overrun with thoughts and questions, questions I’ll never have answered. Wouldn’t almost anyone have done what I did in those moments, to protect themselves? Can I ever truly become the same person again after this?
‘Oh, hi,’ says a voice – Bianka. She’s opened the door at the same time as Anette and awkwardly manoeuvres her body into the room, meaning Anette has to take a step back.
‘Hi,’ says Anette in a pleasant, neutral voice. Bianka looks past Anette to where I’m sitting on the bed, my face still no doubt bloated and distorted from the crying. Bianka, too, looks different. It’s as though her usual peppy, high-energy way of moving and talking now just makes her seem nervous.
‘Everything okay?’ asks Bianka, her eyes still flitting between me and Anette. Anette shrugs and leaves the room, shutting the door with a soft click. Bianka moves softly across the floor toward me. I avoid her eyes; I don’t need to look into them to know they are steely and cool.
‘Yeah,’ I say, my voice coming out in a sore whisper.
‘Why am I getting the feeling you told her something?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Oh, come on. Please. The look on her face. She knows something.’
‘Of course I haven’t said anything. I’m not completely insane.’
‘I’m glad you fully understand that,’ says Bianka, and I am filled with fury at her tone, as though I’m some dumb kid who doesn’t grasp the implications of what has happened.
‘I need a little space right now, Bianka. I’ll see you downstairs in half an hour.’
‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me. You just seem… I don’t know. Not yourself.’
‘I just killed someone.’
Bianka looks stricken, like she wasn’t there when it happened and has just been told.
‘I know. Just… I want you to know that I’m here for you. We’re in this together. I am going to make sure nothing happens to you. We’re going to make this go away.’ I look her in the eyes, and nod. Whether I like it or not, I need Bianka now and have to play my cards very carefully.
‘Why are you putting your own life and safety on the line to help someone who’s just committed murder?’
‘Why do you think?’ Bianka smiles softly at me and picks up my right hand which was resting in my lap. She cups my chin with her hand and tilts my head so I am forced to look her in the eye. Her smile is the same as it always has been, curling upwards almost cartoonishly, and her sparkling blue eyes grow narrow, sunken beneath thick, arched brows, but now I no longer find her slightly quirky look endearing or cute. After everything that’s happened, I find her sinister.
‘Because we’re friends.’
‘Best friends,’ she says, giving my chin a little squeeze before letting go. ‘Girlfriends.’
I nod, bile shooting into my trachea again, making me swallow, then cough.
‘What happened to your skin?’ She’s still holding my hand and picks up the other one, too, angling them so that they catch the light from the overhead lamp. They are bright red and visibly sore from the scrubbing.
‘I – I scrubbed a lot. To get the blood off.’ I deliberately avoid looking at my right hand, the one that did the deed and plunged the hairpin into Maxime’s neck. I swallow hard. ‘I can’t remember anything, Bianka.’
‘I think that’s probably a good thing, considering,’ says Bianka. For a moment I feel sorry for her, for the moments she spent alone with Maxime as he lay dying and I’d blacked out.
‘I’ve heard before that with things like this, memory quite often returns eventually. I guess I’ll have to hope it doesn’t. I just want to forget all of this ever happened.’
‘All of it?’ asks Bianka, caressing the pale skin of my wrist with a long, slim index finger. ‘Even me and you?’
‘Well. No,’ I begin. I instinctively know that I can’t afford to say or do anything to anger her. The truth is, I’m afraid of her. It’s strange how quickly things have changed. I look away and feel a sudden chill chase up the length of my spine at the intensity of her gaze. ‘I just can’t think of any of that right now.’ When I get home to Andreas and Madeleine and Oscar, I hope this will all seem like a hazy nightmare eventually, and I will find a way of dealing with Bianka. I can’t see us maintaining any kind of closeness but I equally can’t anger her.
