Page 30 of The Editor’s Choice

Once the dry heaves subside, she rests her head on her forearm, still poised over the can just in case. “Fuck. I killed my best fucking friend,” she says, just above a whisper. “I don’t even remember any of it. Hand to God, I don’t remember anything past when she found me on the trail that night. The next thing I remember clearly was walking out of the overgrown trail and back into that parking lot. I remember feeling sick, like there was poison or something pumping through my veins. Something just felt wrong.” She lifts her head to look at me, sincerity burning bright in her eyes.

“What happened, Jade?” I ask, keeping my voice calm, refusing to let any negative tone creep in. I want answers. None of this makes any sense. Jade isn’t the type to just kill her best friend, even if that friend was cheating with her boyfriend.

“I read the messages. Jesus, those messages. They were brutal,” she recalls, pain seeping into her features from the memory. “They were together. For way longer than I could have ever expected. I never saw any of the signs, but it’s all so clear looking back.” For a minute, she pauses, lost in the memory.

“Anyway,” she continues, making her way back to the chair on shaky legs. “I was pissed. Honestly, that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I was feeling. But I just wanted out. Killing either of them never even crossed my mind. I just wanted to get my stuff and start over, focus on myself and building a life where neither of them existed.”

“So what happened? Something changed,” I prod.

“I kept reading,” she says with a small shrug. “Which was followed by a conversation with Dawson where he told me everything. Things that shook me and changed the way I viewed the most important people in my life.” With some hesitation, she continues.

“You’re not going to believe me though. Everything I found out from Dawson was insane. Hell, I didn’t believe it myself at first.” She peers at me, sheepish and red-faced from the tears.

“Try me,” I say, fully invested.

She pulls in a full breath, inflating her entire chest, before blowing it out in a rush. “Emily wasn’t at all who I thought she was. At least not for the last few years,” she explains, locking her gaze with mine. “She got into a lot of trouble, according to Dawson. She started gambling a few years ago, which turned into a huge problem fairly quickly. She got in with some bad people and owed them more money than she could have ever reasonably expected to pay back.”

Swallowing the emotion, she bats at her eyes again, though new tears instantly replace the ones she swiped away.

“She traded her body to repay the debt. Or at least some of it. But she was in too far for that to satisfy these disgusting men,” she says, a grimace contorting her features. “She was trying so hard to get out of that world, but nothing she did seemed to make a difference. She never even told me. Never came to me for any help at all. I never had a clue.” She drops her eyes to the floor, shaking her head in disbelief.

“There’s no way you could have known, Jade,” I soothe, desperate to ease her pain even as my own head spins. “People are good at hiding things. Especially those kinds of things. They don’t want us to see the darkest parts of them, no matter how close we are.”

Nodding, she wipes away more tears. “I know. I know there wasn’t anything I could have done differently. She didn’t come to me, and that isn’t my fault. But the fact that she’s dead is my fault.” She pins me with her gaze before speaking again. Not once has she tried to deny what she’s done, and for that, I give her props. Damn near every human on this planet would have been denying it, trying to get out of what they’d done.

“The most shocking thing of all is that my best friend in this entire world was planning to trade me to these men to settle her debt.” The finality in her voice takes me by surprise.

I can only imagine the look of shock that filters across my face. What? There’s no way. What kind of vile person would do that?! I knew Emily was in a lot of trouble, but I didn’t realize she would stoop that low. My mind races when this last piece of the puzzle clicks into place.

Everything I knew from James corroborated Jade’s story, making the new information easily believable. Why would she lie about that if she so willingly admitted the rest of the story, including her own fucked up part in it? Fuck.

“What happened at the overlook, Jade?” I question, voice firm as I try to piece together that last tidbit that remains unknown.

Pulling her eyes up to mine, I notice they’re filled with a sorrow I’ve seldom seen. Seeing her look so lost and hurt causes an ache to grow in the pit of my stomach. The urge to go to her, to take the pain away - even for a moment - is overwhelming.

With a shaky exhale, she begins to recount the events from that night. There’s a subtle strength in her voice now that wasn’t there a few moments ago. She’s reciting facts now, completely devoid of the emotions she felt when recalling her former best friend. Memories of the good times.

There’s a shocking coldness in her tone now. “I went to the overlook to clear my head after I talked to Dawson,” she starts, gaze dropping down to her hands where she picks at her fingernails absentmindedly. “I didn’t know what to do or have anyone to turn to really. I knew the gym wouldn’t cut it that time, so I wanted to look out over the river. Think things through, ya know?” She shrugs before wrapping her arms around her knees that are tucked against her chest again.

“I stayed there forever it seemed. Completely lost in my head. After a while, I decided to head out and try to get a plan together to move forward. I remember thinking there were so many things to do now. Pack my shit, find a place to stay… on and on. I was super overwhelmed.” She pauses, lost in the memory of that night. Her eyes look far away, even from here.

“All of a sudden, I got chills. In the next second, Emily was standing in front of me, acting over the top, like she was out of her mind with worry for me.” She pauses to roll her eyes dramatically. In any other situation, it would have made me laugh. “She wasn’t concerned for me,” she continues, looking up at me now. “She didn’t give a fuck about me,” she says, quieter this time, the hurt evident in her voice.

“She did care about you, Jade. She was just lost. When people get in that far, they do things you could never have imagined them doing. They’re desperate for a way out, even if that means destroying everyone in their life in order to get that,” I explain, thinking about all the people I’ve tracked down over the years. None of them were inherently bad people. They just got into some really fucked up situations and had to do some even worse things to survive.

“Yeah. Maybe,” she says, brushing the thought to the side. “Anyway. I didn’t want to see her then. I was pissed. As anyone would have been,” she glances up, looking for confirmation, but when I don’t make a move, she continues her story. “She wanted to talk. I didn’t. I just wanted to get away from her, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. I pulled her over toward the overgrown overlook so we could talk without other people around.”

As I listen to her talk, my whole body is screaming for me to go to her. Pull her into my arms and make everything else go away. I pull my feet up onto the couch, moving my hands underneath my thighs in an attempt to calm to urge.

“I asked her about it. About everything Dawson had said. She admitted to all the shit about the gambling, about owing those pigs so much money. About selling her body to appease them temporarily. When I asked her about her plans for me, everything I’ve ever known about her changed. She calmly told me that yes, she had full intentions of trading me to them, knowing what they were capable of, in order to settle the score. In order to give her a chance at a happy life with my boyfriend.” The tears are pouring in streams down her cheeks, though I’m betting they’re half from heartbreak and half from rage.

“When I asked her why, she just shrugged her shoulders. Then she told me I never deserved the life I had with Dawson anyway. I was never good enough. That for years, she had remained friends with me so she could stay close with him, hoping to eventually get her shot at a life with him.” This time when she looks up, there’s a fire that has taken over her eyes. I’ve never seen someone look so terrifying, yet she remains the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I can feel the rage building in my chest for her. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, let alone by their best friend since childhood. If she wasn’t already dead, I’d kill the bitch myself just for those comments, James and his motives be damned.

“At that point, I just kinda lost my shit,” she admits, curling more into herself, though I didn’t truly think that was possible. She looks so tiny, fragile even. But the rage pouring off her in waves says otherwise.

“What happened from there?” I ask, genuinely interested in how she did it. After hearing her story, I can already feel my defenses wavering. Fuck.