Page 86 of The Last Time I Lied

“Like the three of you but also very, very different.”

“Where did they go?” Krystal asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Yet I would have gone with them. It’s one of the few things I’m certain of. That, despite Vivian’s hurtful betrayal with Theo, I still wanted her approval. And had she asked, I would have willingly followed, marching behind them into the darkness.

“But that’s not the whole story,” I say. “There’s more. Things no one but me knows.”

Seeing Vivian again has messed with my emotions. I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to confess. Instead, I say, “Two Truths and a Lie. Let’s play.”

I slip off the trunk, joining them. It’s a sudden, ungainly slump that makes the three of them recoil when I hit the floor. Even Miranda, who I thought was the bravest of the group.

“One: I have been to the Louvre. Twice. Two: Fifteen years ago, three of my friends left this cabin. No one saw them again.”

I pause, hesitant to speak aloud something I’ve avoided saying for fifteen years. But no matter how much I want to stay silent, guilt compels me to keep talking.

“Three: Right before they left, I said something. Something I regret. Something that’s haunted me ever since.”

I hope you never come back.

The memory of that moment arrives without warning. It feels like a sharpened sword swooping toward me, slicing me open, exposing my cold heart.

“I told them I hoped they’d never come back,” I say. “Right to Vivian’s face. It was the last thing I ever said to her.”

Tears burn the corners of my eyes—grief and guilt bubbling out of me.

“That doesn’t mean what happened to them is your fault,” Miranda says. “Those were words, Emma. You didn’t make them disappear.”

Sasha nods. “It’s not your fault they didn’t come back.”

I stare at the floor, avoiding their sympathy. I don’t deserve it. Not when there’s still more to confess. Still more I’ve kept hidden from everyone.

“But theydidcome back.” A tear slips out, rolls down my cheek. “Later that night. Only they couldn’t get back into the cabin.”

“Why?” Miranda asks.

I know I should stop. I’ve already said too much. But there’s no turning back now. I’m tired of omitting things, which is practically the same as lying. I want to speak the truth. Maybe that’s what might finally heal me.

“Because I locked the door behind them.”

Miranda sucks in air. A muted gasp. Trying to hide her shock.

“You locked them out?”

I nod, another tear falling. It traces the path of the first, deviating only when it reaches my mouth. I taste it on my lips. Salty. Bitter.

“And I refused to let them back in. Even after they knocked. And jiggled the doorknob. And pleaded with me to let them in.”

I look to the cabin door, picturing it the way it appeared that night. Pale in the darkness, dusted with moonlight, doorknob rattling back and forth. I hear the sharp rapping on the wood and someone calling my name on the other side.

Emma.

It was Vivian.

Come on, Em. Let me in.

I shrank into my bottom bunk, squeezing myself into the corner. I pulled the covers to my chin and huddled beneath them, trying to will away the sound coming from the other side of the door.

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