Bad Things

By Kristina Tanso

Even good people do bad things…
Ten years ago, eighteen-year-old Ariana Callum disappeared on the eve of her high school graduation in one of the most gruesome crimes Miami has ever seen. Everyone thinks they know what happened to her that night, but her best friend, Delphine Quin, knows more than she’s willing to admit. After all, she was at Ariana’s house moments before she disappeared…
Today, Delphine is the embodiment of the perfect woman who has it all: a loving husband, a beautiful home and a company on the verge of going public. All traces of her friendship with Ariana have been erased, as if their lives never intersected at all. That is until Ariana shows up in Miami one day, very much alive. Terrified that Ariana’s reappearance will jeopardise her perfect life, Delphine reaches out to her high school sweetheart, Ryan Martinez, the key to her alibi for the night of Ariana’s disappearance. But Ryan harbours a dark secret of his own and he’ll do anything to ensure it never comes to light.
Will the secrets they’ve kept buried for ten years finally surface and destroy their perfect lives?
Bad Things is a dark, character-driven thriller which will strike a chord with fans of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, Megan Miranda’s All the Missing Girls and Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive.
“Old secrets and obsessions plague three former friends... a dramatic crime story.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“Deliciously tense and relentlessly intriguing, this story gripped me from the beginning and didn't let go.”
– Alexi Lawless, Bestselling Author of the Complicated Creatures series

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781528966542

Kristina Tanso

Kristina Tanso is a journalist and a filmmaker based in Miami. She holds degrees from the University of Miami, Florida; and London School of Economics and Political Science. Bad Things is her first novel.

Book preview

About the Author

Courtesy of Louisa Cantley-Hinds

Kristina Tanso is a journalist and a filmmaker based in Miami. She holds degrees from the University of Miami, Florida; and London School of Economics and Political Science. Bad Things is her first novel.

Dedication

For my grandparents, Lily and Bill, for fanning the flame of my imagination.

Copyright Information ©

Kristina Tanso 2022

The right of Kristina Tanso to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528931151 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528966542 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgements

Stephen King once wrote, ‘Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction can be a difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.’ I am grateful to be gifted an incredible team to sail the proverbial ocean with me. Thank you to my editor, Brenda Peregrine, for continuously pushing me to write the ‘hard parts’ of my book, and my copyeditor, Dave Bruce, for his meticulous proofs and fact-checks. To the team at Austin Macauley, thank you for taking a chance on a debut novelist.

Helen Dooley of Tandem Entertainment, thank you for taking the time to teach me the fundamentals of the publishing world and for your words of encouragement. Ray Allen and Tyrone Fleming, thank you for believing in Bad Things when it was still a half-written draft.

I was fortunate to connect with a network of peers while writing this book. Shalini Boland, Chris Carter, Alexi Lawless, JP Delaney, Peter Swanson and Ruth Ware, thank you so very much for being gracious with your time and your words of advice. This book would not have seen the light of day if not for the personal anecdotes you’ve all shared of your journeys, and your words of encouragement.

My best friends and confidants, Laura Weinstein-Berman, Karen Lima-Costa and Louisa Cantley-Hinds: we live the kind of friendships dreamers dream about and writers write about. The world glows brighter because of the light you shine.

My cheerleaders and friends who sat through countless hours of what ifs with me and read numerous versions of a half-baked draft: Stephanie Chai, Conor Colwell, Sean Lee Davies, Thomas D. Gorman, Jonathan Kerrell, Mac Ling and of course my four-legged companion, Hugo. Thank you for believing in me before I learned to believe in myself.

Last but certainly not least, thank you to my readers. To be able to invite you into a world I’ve created is a dream come true. I can’t wait to share more stories with you in the future.

Prologue

Delphine

Summer 2009

‘You owe me,’ Ariana whispered.

Her hands trembled violently against her bare thighs, the carmine shade of blood on her fingertips a stark contrast to her milk-coloured skin. Broken veins and capillaries weaved a red and purple band around her neck. The wound could almost pass for a choker, except for the flayed skin along the deep, dark puncture wounds that dotted the band like a string of beads. Rosy pouches hung from the hollow of her vacant eyes, the only evidence that she had cried. Her body cautiously convulsed with each breath, as though she were on the brink of shattering into a thousand tiny pieces.

I stood on the top step of her porch, staring down at her. She was wearing the same white dress she wore earlier today, except it was now stained with browns and reds, like she’d tie-dyed the shirt to match the blood on her kitchen floor. Or the gravel on her driveway. Either, or. I couldn’t quite decide.

‘Please, Del. You need to go and pretend this never happened. You owe me,’ Ariana tried again, her voice an octave more defiant this time.

I didn’t move.

‘You know me,’ she added softly.

There were an infinite number of things I knew about Ariana. The way her black pupils bled into her transparent grey eyes like a drop of ink in water when she was excited. The way she dipped her chin down and twirled a strand of her icy blonde hair around her index finger whenever she wanted to change the topic of conversation. The way she cocked her head ever so slightly to the side when she saw a person’s weakness and debated what to do with it. I knew Ariana’s middle name was ‘Delilah’ and that she’d eat bacon for the rest of her life if she could. Her favourite colour was blue—no—blue like the ocean, and her period fell on the twenty-second of every month for exactly two and a half days. I knew Ariana was my best friend, and I hers.

But as she stood in front of me now, her face sullen and the lock of hair she curled in her finger brown with blood, I realised all that I knew of Ariana were trivialities that lent no insight to her past, to her emotions, to her thoughts. I knew nothing of what went on in her incredibly guarded mind.

I wanted to say something. To walk down to her and give her a hug. To clean up her mess of a face. But I didn’t do any of that. I couldn’t. Instead, I clutched her pink cardigan close to my chest, finding comfort in the lingering traces of lavender and vanilla. Those scents belonged to the Ariana I knew.

Bring her back, I silently willed.

I blinked my eyes, one, two, three times, but the girl I thought I knew was gone.

Earlier in the Day

‘Look what I have here,’ Ariana said with a cheeky, dimpled smile, pulling a silver flask out of her backpack. A ray of sun reflected off the smooth, metallic shell, and bounced straight into my eye.

I propped up on my elbows and shielded the sun with a hand. A drop of sweat ran down my hairline to the nape of my neck, collecting droplets of condensation as it rolled down the curve of my back. It was near five in the afternoon, but the Floridian sun was strong—and humidity, rife.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘You’ll have to try it, if you want to find out,’ she said with a shrug. Strands of her long, blonde hair caught the sun’s glare as they flowed wispily behind her. She tucked a strand behind her ear and looked at me, her full lips turned up one side to a mischievous smile. She swung her legs down to the grass between our loungers and leaned over to my side. ‘Here,’ she said, setting the flask down on the wicker side table between us. The red flicker of her BlackBerry caught her eye as she did so. She grabbed her BlackBerry swiftly and opened her message.

‘Ah, crap. Harrison just texted me,’ Ariana’s face contorted into a frown. Harrison was Ariana’s charming, handsome stepfather who—from what I gathered—took his patriarchal role pretty seriously. He kept close tabs on Ariana when her mother couldn’t, especially now that her mum was eight and a half months pregnant.

Ariana sighed and placed the phone back on the table next to me.

‘Look.’

I spun the phone so that the screen faced me, and read the message.

We need to talk.

‘Sounds like you’re in trouble,’ I teased.

She looked me dead in the eyes. ‘I’m always in trouble, Delly. I gotta go call him before I get into even more trouble.’ She bent down, the gold and silver bangles in her hand jangling as she swooped her phone up. ‘Don’t touch the flask until I’m back.’

She squeezed through the narrow gap between the lounger and the table, and walked towards the house. I flipped onto my belly and watched her slide the door open, then disappear into the kitchen.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Ryan’s head turn in my direction.

‘How long do you think we have?’ he grinned. He had taken his shades off and was squinting under the bright sun, one eye closed, the other fighting to stay open under the shadow of his palm.

‘Excuse me?’

‘How long do you think Ariana will be on the phone for this time?’ He shifted his body upright and pushed himself off the lounger. His feet landed on the ground with a low thud.

I pretended not to care, but I craned my neck up to see if Ryan’s dismount caught Ariana’s attention. Not that the sound would have travelled that far, but the paranoid bit in me expected her to walk through the doors and say, Gotcha!

Ryan didn’t let me indulge my paranoia. He took two steps towards me and crouched down, so that his face was inches away from mine. A strand of his brown hair, lightened by the sun, fell over his eye. Heat radiated from his forearms, which he deliberately parked on the lounger, inches from my body. When he opened his mouth to speak, a hint of his peppermint gum filled the space between us, and my body involuntarily relaxed as I was reminded of our minty kiss in the shadows of my front porch last night, moments before he held me close to his heart and whispered, I love you, in my ear.

He cupped my face with one hand and smiled, his touch a thousand degrees warmer than the sun above us. I leaned into his hand and his smile widened. He brushed his calloused thumb gently underneath my eye. ‘You know I meant what I said last night, right?’

So, he was thinking about it, too.

I gave a variation of a nod, rubbing my face into his palm, like a cat marking its territory. I let the weight of my face stay in the comfort of his palm and ran a finger along his arm that held me, from the soft, translucent skin of his wrist up to the thick, cinnamon skin on his forearm. A constellation of freckles on the underside of his forearm formed a perfect D.

He looked down at my finger tracing his arm.

‘It’s fate. You and me,’ he said, and leaned over to give me a kiss. He pulled away just as our lips met and smirked. ‘I know, I know. I shouldn’t be doing this with Ariana here. I just can’t help it.’

My mouth fell slightly open, my body protesting the withdrawal of something that felt so blissful. I wanted to pull him back down to me. I wanted him to stay, to tell me that what we shared between us was none of Ariana’s business. But my guilt-ridden mind fought back loudly, and won, forcing my body to sink down onto the lounger.

Ryan popped back up to his feet and backed away, convinced that distance would keep us safe from giving in to the magnetic pull we felt towards each other. He lay down, slipped his Aviators over his head, and faced the sky. Our moment was gone.

The patio door closed with a wumpth. ‘Argh!’ Ariana scowled. She stomped her foot in exaggerated annoyance and marched over to us, her eyes still on her phone. ‘Harrison is so annoying,’ she announced.

‘He wanted to double check if I needed a ride home, because he didn’t want to have to drive all the way to South Beach,’ she rolled her eyes. ‘I told him we weren’t even on the beach! We are halfway to the beach. Then I told him to check the driveway. Told him, See? My car isn’t there, so obviously I am going to drive myself home. Can you believe that? Seriously! So dense.’ Ariana stood at the foot of our lounger, with her arms crossed. The floral neckerchief around her neck fluttered with the breeze. ‘It’s to protect my neck from the sun,’ she said, sensing my eyes on her. ‘Anyway, what did I miss?’

‘Nothing!’ I answered quickly.

‘Just a few precious minutes of sun,’ Ryan responded at the same time.

Ariana looked from Ryan to me, then shrugged. ‘Well, not like I could tan, anyway,’ she let out an exasperated sigh and drew a circle around her face with her index finger. ‘Where were we? Right…’ she leaned down and picked the flask up and thrust it my way. I reached forward and took it from her.

I flinched as I caught sight of my reflection staring back at me. I was a sweaty mess, unlike Ariana, who, in her cotton candy pink cardigan and her floral neckerchief, seemed unaffected by the ninety-something degrees. My brown hair looked like a collapsed bird’s nest on top of my head, and streams of sweat and sunblock streaked through my hairline. Oh god. This was the face Ryan looked at close up just a minute ago. Suddenly self-conscious and embarrassed, I smoothed out my hair with the pad of my palms before I sat up. I grabbed the corner of the towel and patted my forehead and chest.

‘Del, it’s okay to be sweaty, you know?’ Ryan said in a lazy voice behind me.

I stole a glance at him as I laid the corner of my towel back down. He was laying on his back, his hands wrapped underneath his head and his legs crossed at the ankle. Sweat glistened off his body, but he looked cool as a cucumber. And hot. Very hot. He tilted his Aviators down to the bridge of his nose and gave me a wink.

‘Well? Are you gonna try it?’ Ariana asked, drawing my attention back to her. Her angular eyebrow was arched high above her right eye. She leaned her chest back, as if to say, Really?

I could only imagine how red I was, judging by the feverish flush I felt on my face and the way Ariana’s cool grey eyes studied me. My mind scrambled for some sort of excuse to diffuse the situation.

‘I think the sun’s burning my skin,’ I said, raising my arms in front of me. They were a nice shade of olive, like they always were, but I hoped Ariana wouldn’t notice. Just like I hoped she wouldn’t notice my flushed cheeks from the way Ryan just winked at me.

Ariana leaned over to inspect my outstretched arms. ‘Looks fine to me,’ she said, arms still crossed. She cocked her head ever so slightly to the side.

She knows.

‘Give that to me,’ I grabbed the flask out of her hand and unscrewed the cap quickly, hoping to distract her by drinking whatever she had in the stupid flask. I brought it to my lips and took a large sip. The fiery liquid burnt my throat. I clenched my jaw and tensed my neck. An unexpected shiver ran up my spine.

‘It’s tequila,’ Ariana said in an excited whisper, her crystalline eyes reflecting the blue bay.

‘What! My dad’s going to kill me!’ I yelped. After what happened to mum, I’d promised my father I wouldn’t touch alcohol until I was twenty-one. I hadn’t planned on reneging on that promise. I closed the flask and tossed it back at her like it was a hot potato.

‘We gotta celebrate the fact that we made it through senior year alive!’ Ariana’s usually narrow eyes widened fractionally to match the smile on her face. Her hands came together in a silent clap. She took a swig of the tequila and passed the flask to Ryan.

Ryan sat up and abjectly took a small sip, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I looked at him. He shouldn’t be drinking. He was driving himself home in a few short minutes. It was unlike him to be so reckless.

Reading the expression on my face, he looked at me and said, ‘Relax, Del. It’s just a shot.’ He reached over to place a hand on my neck and give it an affectionate squeeze, sending another shiver down my spine. I looked at him, mesmerised by his soft, hazel eyes. It was moments like this with Ryan that I wished I wasn’t such good friends with Ariana. Then, maybe, I could reciprocate his touch with a touch of my own and say something cheesy and flirty, like ‘wow, someone works out’—without worrying about how Ariana would feel.

But, you know, life.

‘Can we go back inside now? I really need to get out of this heat,’ I said, standing up. Ariana watched me intently as I grabbed the towel from the lounger and wrapped it around my body. She knows, I thought once more, my heart pounding against my chest like a goblet drum, as I hurried into the house.

Present

Tap-tap-tap.

I drummed my freshly painted nails on the double-paned glass of my bedroom window. The sound of my fingers hitting the glass was as dull and opaque as the flesh-coloured polish that Maria, the exorbitant publicist we hired, commanded I wear today. That same publicist was also the reason my husband, Christian, and I were cooped up in our own bedroom, nervously biding time while a ragtag crew of strangers scurried about our million-dollar home, staging our designer living room into something more… relatable. ‘You have to show them your home, Delphine. Invite them into your life. Be relatable!’ Maria had said with a practiced smile that was neither warm nor cold, just matter of fact. I agreed, because I was always agreeable, and also because I had no more fight left in me. The last twelve days had drained every drop of it.

‘It’ll be okay,’ Christian broke the awkward silence with his go-to supportive husband phrase.

Those words were meant to make me feel better, except today they made me feel worse. I could tell that Christian was trying hard to sound sweet, but try as he might, the words that tumbled out of his mouth were devoid of emotion, a basic algorithm in reaction to a very bad situation. Deep down inside he knew what we were about to do wasn’t okay. Lying to the world never was.

He reached out for me but dropped his hand back down, right before it made contact with my shoulder. This was the first time in our three-year marriage that my Find a Solution to Everything! husband had nothing up his sleeve. After all, there wasn’t exactly a tried-and-tested way of getting away with murder.

Instead of turning around and meeting the sad brown eyes of my defeated husband, I focused my gaze on the horizon in front of me. The Atlantic stretched for miles, specks of sun dancing on its surface. Everything below me looked peaceful and blue and inviting. If only I could jump out of my twenty-one-story penthouse balcony and free fall into the blueness. I slid open the glass door and stepped out onto the balcony. I wanted to get as close as I could to the warmth of the sun, just for a moment.

Snow blindness wouldn’t be so bad right now, I thought to myself. I tilted my gaze upwards and stared at the bright noon sun. I wondered if my retinas were burning. If they were, it wasn’t very painful. I blinked, and red orbs came into my vision. What was I doing? Had I not been selfish enough the past two weeks? I owed her.

I stepped back into the room and turned to face Christian. He looked like a despondent school boy, sitting silently on the downy white duvet that draped our perfectly made bed. His eyes were on the ceiling, and his mouth moved rapidly, reciting in a whisper the lie we both agreed to tell the world. I wondered if he regretted asking me what had happened to me that night. Maybe he regretted begging for the truth? He probably wished he could turn back time. Hell, I wish I could turn back time.

But, well, life.

‘Delphine, they’re ready for you!’ Maria yelled the same time a solid, no-bullshit knock sounded through our room.

‘I’ll be out in a moment!’ I called back. I hurried over to the door and paused one last time at the floor-length mirror next to it. I felt like an imposter in the blue Roland Mouret dress I was advised to wear. The angular sleeves were tailored to look like wings, and the bodice was so tight, I worried that the seams would snap when I sat. I wished I had listened to my gut and wore something more comfortable, something more me, rather than a dress chosen by a publicist we only met thirty-six hours ago.

As if on cue, Christian automatically stood from the bed and walked over to me. He looked just as uncomfortable in his navy pinstripe suit and pale pink pocket square. He had never worn a pocket square for as long as I’d known him. But then again, we had never done what we were about to do. Our reflection beamed back at us mockingly. We looked like the consummate couple in our subtly colour-coordinated outfits and Miami tans, ready to conquer the world.

Christian looped his hand into mine. His large hands, once so comforting and strong, were now clammy and insecure. I gave his hand a gentle squeeze, wishing I could offer him the same comfort he had offered me so many times in our years of being together.

‘Let’s get this over with, Delphine.’ He placed his hand on the doorknob, the wedding band I gave him glimmering in the sun. For better or for worse.

I’m so sorry for everything.

If I could take it all back, I would. In a heartbeat.

1

Delphine

12 Days Ago

‘Bye,’ I said into the receiver of my mobile phone, the sound of my ‘eye’ trailing until it faded and no longer held. My tone was cheerful. Too cheerful to be sincere. Staring at the white wall in front of me, I stood still, collecting myself, one four-second breath at a time.

Inhale, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four.

Each breath I took steadied my pounding chest and my racing mind, and shifted me one step closer to being present. Against my expectations, the ground didn’t shift from underneath my feet, nor did the world come to an abrupt halt.

I looked down at my phone, gripped tightly by my right hand, double-checking the screen to make sure the line was dead. The blinding white sand and turquoise water of the Caribbean stretched tranquil across the length of the screen, confirming the phone was locked and disconnected.

I laid the phone down on the vestibule table next to my set of keys, a plethora splayed out like the rays of a sun. Along with the natural birch wood vase overflowing with white tulips and an antique mother of pearl chest as centrepieces, the components came together like they were staged to accompany some article or Instagram post, falsely touting the new kind of woman: One who was busy (phone), immaculately stylish but classic (vase and address book), and responsible (the assortment of keys opening important doors to God knows where). This was the kind of image my company’s PR manager would spend hours staging, not knowing that the assortment of random everyday things were a testament to who I truly was. The kind of person who was so averse to her past that she locked the only reminder she had of Miami Prep inside the seemingly decorative chest, the key of which she carried around with her at all times.

I leaned a hand against the wall and pulled my running shoes off my feet. It was almost eight-thirty in the morning. I’d just been out for my morning run and had run a good seven miles in under an hour in Miami’s overbearing humidity. My lungs had felt like they were on the verge of collapse, and I’d overworked my salivary glands to produce just enough saliva to keep my parched throat satisfied. I’d pushed myself. Hard. Usually, I’d celebrate such a feat with a green smoothie and a nice, long bath, happy that I’d gone above and beyond my four-mile average. But then Ariana called, and her shrill hello drained all the feel-good endorphins out of my body.

So, instead of taking myself to the fridge where I’d usually reach for the arrangement of greens in my vegetable drawer, I went straight to the pantry cabinet and pulled out a box of organic kale chips. I grabbed the butane lighter off the stove top and walked into the study.

My clothes, damp with sweat, felt like a conductor for the cool air in the room, and my body involuntarily shivered. I opened the box of kale chips and pulled out a shiny, aluminium fresh bag. The bag deflated as my thumb instinctively flicked open the plastic clip clamp. I unrolled the bag and plunged my hand in. The freeze-dried kale crumbled into tiny little pieces before I felt the familiar smooth texture of plastic I was looking for at the bottom of the bag. A whiff of sour cream and onion escaped, the odour enveloping the space in front of me; my stomach let out a low growl. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to light up the joint hidden in the red tube I held in my kale-speckled hand.

I shook out the poorly rolled joint, closed my mouth around the short, white filter, and grabbed the lighter. I walked out to the balcony and crouched down into the corner, looping my finger around the trigger of the lighter. A bright blue flame shot out. I inhaled deeply and greedily, impatient to see an ember sizzle at the tip of the joint. After a few breaths, an orange glow circled around the tip of the joint, and my body immediately relaxed, knowing that in a few moments’ time, my imploding mind would be calm like the quiet ocean below me. I turned my body around so that my back was against the wall. To my side was the glass panel railing which showed off the dazzling blue hue of the Atlantic Ocean. With newfound calmness, I let my mind drift back to twelve hours ago, when Ariana came back into my life.

It was what we Miamians called the ‘perfect’ day. The sun was out and smiling down on South Beach through wisps of clouds that looked like vanilla cotton candy against the clear, blue sky. Herring gulls fluttered low across the beach, their screech piercing, yet crucial to the identity of South Beach. Sitting on the floor of my balcony and listening to the waves and breeze that completed the soundtrack of the beach, I had grappled with the stress of taking my interior design company public. It really wasn’t much different than today. Except instead of smoking a joint, I’d decided to conquer my stress with productivity. So, I’d given myself five minutes to wallow, then forced myself off the floor and out the door, having decided to do my weekly grocery shopping at Whole Foods.

At Whole Foods, I’d roamed up and down the produce area, looking for ingredients for a vegan lasagne I wanted to make. It was from some health guru’s newly published cookbook. Apparently, this magical lasagne full of antioxidants and a rainbow of vegetables was meant to help with clearer thinking. I’d almost gotten everything for the dish, but the one thing I couldn’t find was yellow zucchini—the most important component, as it served as the ‘pasta’ sheet of the dish. There were at least two other women, wearing matching athleisure wear, circling the area slowly, like they, too, were looking for zucchinis. Their carts looked identical to mine. Unsurprising, for South Beach, really. It was all the rage at the moment.

Out of the corner of my eye, I’d spotted an enthused blonde girl skipping towards us in her deep green Whole Foods apron. Her eager eyes screamed, I’ll be there to help you in a moment! The athleisure ladies and I turned to face her, to confirm that, yes, we most definitely needed her help. Knowing that she was heading our way to help us, I turned my attention away to pick a plum out of the wooden crate in front of me. Christian loved plums.

Just as I’d placed the plums in my cart, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Thinking it was the peppy blonde girl who was there to assist me in locating the elusive zucchini, I turned around with a small, apologetic smile, the one that said, I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but can you help me? but when I turned around, the first thing I saw was the crown of someone with black hair. I stepped back immediately to adjust and refocus my gaze on the woman in front of me. Straight black hair fell on either side of her bare shoulders, covering the thin straps of her ribbed grey tank top. The left corner of her lip curled up into a smile, and she flipped her hair back over her right shoulder. Under the pendant light directly above us, her fair skin looked a sickly shade of pale. It took me a few seconds to put together the pieces that made up the person in front of me—the face, the outfit, the demeanour. When our eyes locked, I knew without a doubt that it really was Ariana Callum standing in front of me. Unlike the look of utter horror I must have had on my face, Ariana was at ease and smiling. She looked genuinely happy to see me.

Ariana had responded with a light-hearted laugh to my reaction and placed her hand lightly on my forearm; she said it looked like I’d seen a ghost. Her fingers felt eerily cold, and I wondered if she was, in fact, a ghost. That thought was debunked the moment one of the athleisure ladies pushed the cart around Ariana to avoid her. Ariana let the woman pass before she continued speaking to me. She’d said she was happy to see me and wondered when she was going to run into me. I’d nodded in amazement as she went on about how good it was to be back in Miami, all the while tussling with the fact that Ariana was standing in front of me—talking—and very much alive. She’d ended the conversation by asking me for my number and said we should ‘do lunch’ tomorrow, like it was the most normal thing in the world. All I could offer was a nod, my limbs reduced to jelly. It took me a few minutes before I found the strength to move again. Too emotional and distracted to drive, I’d had to call Christian to pick me up.

I’d replayed that interaction in my head a hundred times last night, running through the fleeting conversation Ariana and I shared at Whole Foods. Beyond the easy words that we exchanged, I’d scrutinised every single thing about her. The barely noticeable blonde roots that almost disconnected her black mane from her head. The scatter of freckles along her cheekbones and bridge of her nose, which she no longer bothered to cover with foundation. The way her lips pursed when she wasn’t talking or smiling, like she’d wanted to say more but didn’t know how to begin. Every time I thought about Ariana, I inevitably found the memory I’d spent years trying to bury: the image of her in a white dress, covered in blood.

I’d huddled my body close to Christian’s muscular arm and forced myself to sleep, but in the darkness of the bedroom, fear simmered in my body, as my eyes stayed trained to the door, anticipating… something.

I took a drag of the dwindling joint in my hand. I held it in as long as I could, a cough creeping up my throat. When I could no longer suppress the cough, I exhaled upwards, watching the plume of smoke spread out as it floated upwards with the breeze.

My life, so seemingly perfect up to this point, was enjoyed by the grace of a decade-long lie.

2

Ariana

Then

A splinter chafed the edge of my cheek as I pressed my ear against the wooden door. The wood, stale and sour-smelling, had a perpetual dampness to it, giving the surface a comfortable softness. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the stifled sounds coming from the other side of the door. The pitter-patter of busy footsteps had died down to distant echoes. Still, I stood with my ear against the door, listening for any signs of my classmates lingering in the halls outside. Just in case.

After a minute or two, the remnants of voices and footsteps made way for silence. The only sound I heard came from the breaths I took. I promptly moved away from the door. My hands dropped down to either side of my torso, finding the sleeves of the boiler suit. The skin on my forearm tingled and itched against the rough fabric as I pushed one arm through a sleeve, then the other. Starting from the bottommost button just below my navel, I sealed myself into the suit, one satisfying smack of a button at a time. The ninety-something-degree temperature intensified, once my body was fully covered in the unappealing grey suit, causing a swell of heat along the nape of my neck. I gathered my hair to the base of my neck and looped the elastic band around several times, securing my hair into a tight ponytail. I drew in a long breath, filling my diaphragm to the brim and released my breath in one quick gush. I turned the knob and slowly backed the janitorial cart out of the closet and walked in the direction of my first stop: the boy’s bathroom.

The old cart moved slowly in a stilted manner, its weathered rubber wheels squeaking harshly over the linoleum floor. The cleaning products in the chute rattled every time the cart stopped, sending a metallic clash of noises echoing through the empty hallway. I held my breath each time, terrified that someone would come out of one of the classrooms and see me. Last month, I’d run into Crystal Gain just as I was leaving the janitorial closet my third week into the job. With nowhere to hide, I’d dipped my head down immediately, but not before I caught her giving me her holier-than-thou smirk that said everything she was thinking: I’m so much better than you. That was the day I really, truly realised my place in life. I was a piece of trailer trash whose family couldn’t even afford to put food on the table.

It wasn’t always like that, of course. Mum and I were getting by just fine when my father, Old Man Fred, was alive. We weren’t rolling around in cash, but neither Mum nor I had to work. Sure, we were poor and lived in the same trailer we lived in now, but Old Man Fred looked after us in his own warped way. He took on a series of under-the-table jobs to make sure that we were provided for, the most profitable of which was dealing meth and hillbilly heroin among the residents of our trailer park, Grove Park. During this time, Mim’s only job was to put food on the table, and mine was to be a quiet daughter—which I had no issue with. It wasn’t like I had much to say to Old Man Fred anyway. But of course, being the selfish, shady man that Old Man Fred was, he had to go and ruin our lives.

After some nudging by his trailer park ‘clients’ to join them at a crack at the pipe this summer, Old Man Fred got hooked to the one thing he said he’d never touch: crystal meth. He died with a meth pipe in his hands and shit in his pants. Mum and I knew it was an overdose before the autopsy report came out and confirmed it officially. Old Man Fred’s death not only revealed his secret penchant for smoking meth, but also drew the curtain back on the mountain of debt he’d amassed over the summer due to his inability to pay back his drug distributors for the meth he used for himself. To keep the debt collectors at bay (and me in school), Mum signed on to work double shifts at a nearby roadside diner, Rosita’s Kitchen, five days a week. Seeing Mum come home at five each morning, broken and exhausted for two straight months, I’d vowed to find some way to ease the pressure off her by finding a job. The janitorial role at school was the most lucrative one I’d found. I suppose no matter how poor a person was, they would still think twice before committing their days to cleaning up shit.

As I got closer to the bathrooms, the faint scent of faeces and bleach filled the recycled air. I’d never noticed the ever-present smell of shit in our school before, but now, someone could blindfold me and I could find my way to the bathroom—any bathroom—like I’d been left a trail of breadcrumbs. The perma-smell of sewer thickened as I turned the corner and on towards the science labs, where the bathrooms were located. I wondered if the school thought that the smell of chemicals, bleach, and dead frogs could blanket the stench of bodily excretions. If they did, they clearly underestimated the things that teenage bodies could produce.

I knocked on the door of the bathroom and waited several seconds for a response. When I didn’t hear anything, I opened the door, and called out, ‘Hello.’ Again, there was no response, but we were told we had to do it for liability purposes. Some girl named Anne Murray sued the school four months ago because a janitor walked in on her taking a shit. The girl was so mortified that she actually had her parents petition the janitor to be fired. She was a minor, after all, and argued that it was perverse for a man to see her with her panties down, on the shitter. Her dad also happened to be a sleazy, opportunistic attorney whose face is plastered on a billboard on South Dixie seeking ‘victims’ of accidents, which I was certain affected her response to the situation. Her embarrassment miraculously disappeared when she landed a settlement of fifty-thousand dollars. This, of course, was highly confidential. But confidentiality came second to popularity in Anne’s case, and almost immediately after her settlement, she initiated the whispers in school about how much she had earned from her misfortune, by treating the popular kids to tickets to a Miami Heat game. How I’d wished then that I was Anne Murray, wearing her Dwayne Wade jersey along with her squad of rent-a-friends. Instead, the closest I got was taking over the empty spot left by the disgraced janitor.

I fetched the grey pail from underneath the cleaning cart and angled it under the sink. The water trickled out of the tap slowly in a fine line, like a fountain display. Homestead Public High had recently implemented a series of cost-cutting measures, one of which was rationed usage of water. The lightweight pail steadily grew heavier as it filled with water. Once it was halfway full, I gripped the edges with both hands squatted down to the floor, lowering the pail onto the tiles. Then, I went back to the cart for the bottle of bleach. My eyes stung as soon as I uncapped the bottle. The piercing smell travelled up my nose and reached into my skull, its vaporous tentacles assaulting my senses with every inhale. I stepped back from the pail once I’d put enough bleach in, and placed the closed plastic bottle back in the lower compartment of the cart. With both hands, I sidled the mop out of the vertical mop holder. I clenched my jaw and took small breaths through gritted teeth as I plunged the mop into the pail, readying myself for another whiff of bleach.

The harsh smell of bleach and the reality of what I was doing faded somewhere between cleaning the scatter of piss puddles on the floor of the first bathroom stall and the lone dingle berry on the toilet seat of the second. I fell into a rhythm, taking pride in the visible difference I made to the sorry state of the bathroom. I took pride in what I was doing because I knew every afternoon of a job well done brought me a check at the end of each week.

The job got progressively