Page 53 of You Will Never Be Me

Again, that feeling of the floor giving way under me, so familiar now, washes over me. I have to focus to keep myself on my feet.

“Anyway, Meredith didn’t even hold it against her. I was like, ‘You should do something about it,’ and she said, ‘No, I’m happy for her. I’m just sad about our friendship.’ That’s how sweet Meredith was.”

I want to scream. Rage bubbles and froths, and I want to grab Tanya’s stupid face and shriek the truth at her—that Meredith diddo something about it. She did a lot. She did everything. And that’s precisely why we’re all in this mess right now.

“And when Meredith went missing, Aspen couldn’t pounce on that news story fast enough,” Tanya snorts. “I stayed silent because I thought like, well, you know what? The more eyes we get on this story, the more likely someone will find Meredith, so I let Aspen capitalize on it all she wanted. But now we know that Meredith’s dead. And I can’t keep watching this bitch fake-cry all over TikTok. Y’all deserve the truth. So here it is. Aspen is a fake-ass bitch. And I bet that she knows more about Meredith’s death than she’s letting on.” With that, the video ends.

The silence in the room is so thick it has its own presence. My eyes are glued to Liv’s phone, but I can sense her stare on me. When I finally meet her eyes, she actually takes a small step back.

“This is crazy,” I hear myself saying.

Liv nods. “Yeah, totally.”

“It’s pathetic. She thinks she needs to get in on the story, and this is the only angle she can find.” My voice rings in the silence, too loud. Too shrill. In the playpen, Sabine and Rain stop playing and look up at us, surprised.

Liv is quiet, chewing on her bottom lip.

“What?” I say, and even I hear the raw anger in my voice.

“Well…” Liv winces. “I mean, obviously I don’t believe Tanya. She’s totally full of shit, especially about you dropping Meredith because you got big.”

“Yeah, I didn’t ‘drop’ Meredith,” I say. “She dropped me. She was the one who completely freaked out at me and then blocked my number. And all because I got more followers than she had. I only ever wanted what was best for Mer. I can’t believe this is how Tanya’s spinning it.”

“Well, yeah, except, um…you know, it’s true that you and Mer weren’t exactly talking anymore when she disappeared,” Liv mumbles.

“Yeah, so?”

Liv sighs. “I think it might look weird to people. Because we’ve been posting all this stuff about how you guys were best friends.”

I rub the palms of my hands against my forehead with a groan. “Obviously, I wasn’t going to air out my fight with Meredith. Because it didn’t matter! We were best friends. Best friends fight; that’s normal. I didn’t want to distract from the fact that she was missing. I was only ever trying to help.”

“No, I totally get it,” Liv says. “I’m just saying, that’s how some people might take it.”

I know she’s right. I want to fight Liv on this, because she’s the only person around, but I know there’s no use. Liv doesn’t control how others are going to perceive me. But maybe Liv can help stanch the damage. If there is any damage to be fixed, that is. With luck, people will see Tanya for the attention-hungry fraud that she is and stick up for me. But when I open up TikTok, I see that I’m being way too optimistic. The first video that shows up on my FYP is from another influencer ranting about how fake I am, and how they should look into the GoFundMe page that I’d set up for Clara and Luca because she’s willing to bet money that I really set it up for myself.

“Unbelievable,” I mutter. “We need to post something now. A response to show that we’re on the right side here.”

Liv nods hesitantly. “What will you say?”

“I don’t know, just shoot the video. It’s better if it comes from the heart.”

Instead of lifting up her phone as I expected, Liv continuesstanding there, chewing her lip. “I don’t know, Aspen. I think this time you need to pause and really think about what to say.”

“You were the one harping about being hashtag authentic this whole—” The doorbell rings then, the sound slicing through the air like a scythe. We both jump. Who the hell could it be? I walk to the front door and open it, and light explodes in my face. Cameras flashing, blinding me. I stand there, blinking owlishly, my mind short-circuiting.

“Aspen!” a reporter calls out. “Can you say a few words about Meredith’s death?”

“I—what?” I heard his question perfectly clearly, of course I did, but my mind is refusing to comprehend what the hell is happening. The thing with social media fame is that there is a clear divide between social media and mainstream news media. The paps rarely ever follow people like us, not unless we’ve got fifty million followers. Or, as it turns out, unless someone in our circle is found brutally murdered.

“Do you have any responses to Tanya Dylan’s claims about you and Meredith being sworn enemies?” another reporter shouts.

“We weren’t sworn enemies,” I snap back without thinking. Immediately, the knot of reporters shouts out another barrage of questions.Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m about to retreat back into the sanctuary of the house when I see a familiar car pulling up on the curb. The doors open and my heart sinks. It’s Detective Garza and Detective Clarke. The reporters swing their cameras around and click away as the two cops walk up the driveway. Oh my god, how must this all look right now? Cops coming to my house? I must appear innocent. I mustn’t look scared, even though everything inside me is shrieking in pure terror. I summon up a smile, and the cameras flash away at me. Belatedly, Irealize how wrong it looks, smiling at a time like this, and quickly drop it, but it’s too late. I’m now the psycho who stands at the door and smiles as cops come to question her about her best friend’s murder.

“Hi, Mrs.Palmer,” Detective Garza says. “Sorry to disturb you. Can we come in?”

I can only nod and step aside. The last thing I see as I close the door is the crowd of unforgiving lenses trained at my face, the shutters clicking away. I lock the door and take in the blessed silence of the house, trying my best to grasp at any semblance of calm. The detectives stand before me, and Liv is right behind them, carrying Rain.

“Uh, I just remembered I have a lot of errands to run,” Liv says. I think she’s trying to smile, but it comes off more as a grimace. “I’m just gonna—sorry, ’scuse me, Detectives.” She slides past them. “See you!” She scoots past me and is out through the door in less than five seconds.

---