Dear Enemy

Blood rushes from my head so quickly my hands prickle. Lisa Brown. The woman who ran me off the road and took pictures of the aftermath. In the darkest shadows of my heart, I can admit that she scared the hell out of me. “How?”

“I don’t know if you’d call it irony, but she was struck by a car crossing Sunset last week. I only just heard from Martin about it today.”

My breath expels with an audible whoosh. She’s dead.

The numbness crawls along my fingers, and I flex my hand. “And Michelle Fredericks?” The friend who was with her. “What’s going on with her?”

“From what Martin has gathered, Fredericks is heading back to her hometown in Arizona. Apparently that was in the works for a couple of months.”

It’s over. I close my eyes and take a couple of deep breaths. When I can talk, my words come out in a rasp. “I’m a horrible person, North.”

“Why?”

I can’t look at him. “Because I’m relieved. A woman is dead, and my first emotion is relief.”

“You’re human, Saint. She stalked you. You were physically injured. A lot of stalkers never give up. Of course you’re going to feel relief when that threat is gone.”

“Because she’s dead.”

North nudges my arm with a fist. His expression is resolute. “I was relieved, too, okay? Not because I wanted her dead. But because it was over. Don’t feel guilty for being human, man.”

Dully, I nod. I’m tired. All I want to do is curl up around Delilah and sleep. But she’s gone. When faced with the notion of actual death, my jealousy and hurt pride becomes meaningless. She made a mistake. I’ve made far worse ones when it comes to Delilah, and she’s forgiven me at every turn.

“Shit,” I mutter, resting my face in my palms. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on Delilah.”

North doesn’t say anything. It’s gone so quiet that I wonder if he’s left the room. But when I lift my head, I find him looking back with a thoughtful expression.

“What?”

He shakes out of whatever fog he was in. “I was just thinking how alike you two were. In the most basic ways, that is. I still like Delilah better.”

“As you should.”

He stands, stretching out a kink in his back. “You’ve been given a gift, Macon. Sometimes that’s all you need to know.”

He heads for the door.

“North?”

He stops and turns back my way.

“Lisa Brown? Did she have any family? Maybe I should . . . I don’t know. Should I offer condolences?”

The faint lines around North’s eyes deepen as he looks at me. “No family.”

“Then it’s truly over.” I think of Lisa Brown. A woman who, for whatever reason, fixated on me as her one chance of happiness. She died alone in the world. I used to relish my solitude.

I don’t want to be alone anymore.

Delilah

I can’t sleep. Macon is out there, hurting and upset, and I’m tucked up in a bed. The wrongness of that scrapes against my skin, and I fling the covers back. I can’t stay here another second. I get dressed in the dark and grab my purse and keys. But when I wrench the kitchen door open to leave, I come face to face with the last person I expected to see: Sam.

Neither of us says a word as Sam and I retreat into the kitchen. I pour myself a glass of water and take a huge gulp that burns its way down my throat. As much as I want to go to Macon right now, there are things I need to say to my sister.

“That fucking joke with the tater tots. Why would you do that to me? You had everything: beauty, popularity, a boyfriend. I had none of those things. All I asked for of prom was to have fun. And you took that away from me.”

Clearly she wasn’t expecting that word vomit, and it takes her a moment to react. She has the grace to duck her head. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, bullshit. You have a good reason for everything. Because everything in life is a game, right?”

“Because I was jealous!”

The shout hits me like a slap. I gape at her. “Of what? Being a loner? Getting teased by the entire school? Of being plump and plain and overlooked? Which one of those things did you covet, Sam?”

Sam wipes at her eyes. “You think you were plain? You were pretty.”

“Oh, for the love of . . . compared to you, I was average at best. Something you made certain to remind me of at every turn.”

Sam frowns but then laughs as if I’m deluded. “And yet he never looked at me the way he looked at you. He never talked to me as though he truly wanted to know what I was thinking. He gave you a nickname, not me.”