You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

PART VI
BEA

NOVEMBER, FOUR MONTHS AFTER BLANCHE
Eddie didn’t hes­i­tate today.
He came right in and sat down next to me, his thigh touch­ing mine. When he said, “Are you okay
up here?” I could smell the mint on his breath.
For some rea­son, that made it eas­i­er. Know­ing he’d brushed his teeth before com­ing to see me,
that he was expecting—hoping?—for this.
But then I’d got­ten ready, too. I don’t have much in the way of make­up in here, but I’d tak­en a
show­er, pinched my cheeks to put some col­or in them, brushed my hair. It was a lit­tle longer now,
clos­er to how it looked when we first met, and I fig­ured that could only help with what I need­ed to
do.
Ever since that last vis­it, when the look on his face changed as soon as I men­tioned Hawaii, I’d
known we would end up here, that the eas­i­est and best way of keep­ing myself alive, remind­ing him
that he need­ed me, was through the one thing that had nev­er let us down.
Sex.
But it’s one thing to con­sid­er seduc­ing the man who mur­dered your best friend, the man who’s
keep­ing you locked up, the man you thought you knew, the man you mar­ried.
It’s anoth­er thing to go through with it.
I took his hand in mine, feel­ing the cal­lus­es on his palms, remem­ber­ing that I’d always liked that
about him, how he worked with his hands, how he wasn’t like the Tripp Ingra­hams of the world with
their soft, pale fin­gers.
He was beau­ti­ful.
He always had been.
I focused on that, tak­ing a deep breath as I let my fin­gers run over his knuck­les.
I couldn’t think about those hands on Blanche, couldn’t think about them pulling me into this room.
Instead, I thought of all the times I’d want­ed those hands on me, the times I’d thought I’d die if he
didn’t touch me.
It had been like that, right from the start.
“Bea, what are you doing?” he mur­mured as I leaned clos­er, let­ting my lips brush the shell of his
ear.
“I miss you,” I answered, and real­ized all at once that it was true.
I did miss him.
Not the Eddie who killed Blanche. I didn’t know that Eddie. But the Eddie from before, the one
who had swept me off my feet with his easy smiles, his charm, the way he’d known exact­ly what I
want­ed before I knew it myself.
I focused on those ear­ly days now. Before we moved here, before things went dark­er than I knew
they could.
“Do you remem­ber that first night in Hawaii?” I asked him, ris­ing up from the bed to stand in front
of him, my hands on his shoul­ders.
His own hands eas­i­ly came to rest on my waist, almost like a reflex.
“I invit­ed myself to your room,” he said as I slid my hands from his shoul­ders, down his chest,
mov­ing even clos­er so that he had to open his legs to let me step between them. “You said you
weren’t that kind of girl.”
The cor­ner of his mouth kicked up a lit­tle at that, a dim­ple deep­en­ing, and I leaned down to kiss
that spot, feel­ing him suck in his breath.
“I wasn’t,” I said. “Until you.”
Then I kissed him.
This part was so much eas­i­er than I thought it would be, maybe because kiss­ing Eddie had always
been one of my favorite things.
Or maybe because as I re-cre­at­ed that first night for us, it was easy for me to slip into it, too. I
want­ed Eddie to for­get where we were, what had hap­pened, what he’d done, but I was doing it, too.
For­get­ting.
Slip­ping.
His mouth under mine made that so easy, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him in,
my fin­gers in his hai—
“No, no, Jesus, Bea, this is fucked up.”
Eddie pushed me away, his breath com­ing fast.
I stepped back from the bed as he stood up, near­ly stum­bling in his haste to get to his feet.
His face was red, his eyes almost glassy as he raked a hand through his hair.
“We can’t,” Eddie said, and my heart sank.
“I shouldn’t have come today,” he con­tin­ued, mov­ing past me. “I don’t know what the fuck I was
think­ing, I don’t know—”
I reached for him before he could walk out, and he stopped, look­ing down at my fin­gers loose­ly
cuff­ing his wrist. The ener­gy in the room shift­ed, tight­ened, and sharp­ened.
Mov­ing toward him, I cupped his face in my hand and he didn’t turn away.
“It’s okay,” I told him, my voice soft. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” he protest­ed, but he didn’t move, and I leaned in.
“If you real­ly don’t want to, we don’t have to,” I said, keep­ing my voice steady. “But I want to. I
want you to under­stand that. I want this, Eddie. I want you.”
And I did.
I hon­est­ly did.
Which was maybe the worst part of all of it.
There was no hold­ing back when I kissed him this time, no ten­ta­tive test­ing of lips and tongue. I
kissed him like I had that very first night, and he gave in, like I’d known he would.
It was amaz­ing, real­ly, how easy it was. How quick­ly our bod­ies remem­bered each oth­er.
You love me, I told him with every kiss, every touch, every gasp.
Remem­ber that you love me, that what we have is good and right and worth some­thing.
Remem­ber you’re mine.
But in try­ing to make him remem­ber all that, I’m remem­ber­ing, too.
How good he feels. How much I loved him.
Read­er, I fucked him.
And when it was over and we lay in the bed, sweat still stick­ing his skin to mine, some­thing about
the qui­et made me reach out, trac­ing my fin­ger over his heart. “You know that I still love you,” I said,
my voice bare­ly above a whis­per. “You know I’d nev­er do any­thing to hurt you.”
I want­ed him to hear what I was try­ing to say. If you let me out, I’ll nev­er tell what hap­pened.
We’ll fig­ure it out.
But it was the wrong thing to say.
Eddie sighed heav­i­ly, pulling away from me and reach­ing for his clothes, still in a pile beside the
bed.
I could see in the stiff­ness of his move­ments that I’d pushed too far. He’d heard what I was say­ing,
and he didn’t like it.
And when he walked out with­out anoth­er word, I won­dered if I was going to have to start all over
again.

Bea had put that moment with Eddie and Blanche out of her mind when she sees them at lunch in
the vil­lage.
She was sup­posed to be at the South­ern Manors offices in near­by Home­wood, but she’d want­ed
to drop by one of the Moun­tain Brook bou­tiques and see what was in the front win­dows.
Instead, she sees her hus­band and her best friend sit­ting at one of the café tables, laugh­ing
over sal­ads like they’re in a fuck­ing Cialis com­mer­cial, and the anger near­ly chokes her, shock­ing
in its force.
It isn’t just the two of them together—it’s that it’s so pub­lic, that any­one can see them, that
peo­ple will see them, and they’ll talk.
Peo­ple might even feel sor­ry for her.
She stands there on the side­walk under­neath an awning, shield­ed by her sun­glass­es, and in her
mind, Bea can see oth­er faces turned to her, oth­er expres­sions of pity with just a touch of
schaden­freude, and sud­den­ly her hands are shak­ing, and her feet are mov­ing and she’s cross­ing the
street to stand in front of their table, tak­ing a small, sav­age delight in the way they both flinch at
her bright greet­ing.
There are blue­prints on the table between them. Eddie’s con­tract­ing busi­ness (the busi­ness she
paid for, the one she gave him) is doing an addi­tion on Blanche’s house. It’s all inno­cent real­ly.
Just a friend­ly work­ing lunch to go over some details.
But it’s not just this lunch. It’s that ever since Blanche came up with this idea for Eddie to
ren­o­vate her house, Eddie has been there all the time.
Or Blanche has been at Bea’s house, sit­ting on the back deck with Eddie, drink­ing Bea’s wine
and show­ing Eddie some Pin­ter­est board of her “dream kitchen.”
And Eddie just smiles at her, indulges her.
Takes her out to lunch, appar­ent­ly.
“You embar­rassed me,” Eddie tells her lat­er, the two of them mak­ing din­ner in the kitchen
togeth­er, Bea on her third glass of wine, the stereo up just a lit­tle too loud. “Actu­al­ly,” he goes on,
“you embar­rassed your­self.”
Bea doesn’t answer because she knows that will infu­ri­ate him, and it does.
With a huff, Eddie toss­es the kitchen tow­el he’d had on his shoul­der to the counter and heads
out to the back deck, tak­ing her glass of wine with him.
They don’t talk about it again, but the next time Blanche and Bea have cof­fee, Blanche is all
apolo­gies and brit­tle smiles and then—
“You always over­re­act, Bea.”
Bea thinks about that for a long time, that tossed-off state­ment as Blanche scraped the
whipped cream off her cof­fee with a wood­en stir­rer, the slight bite in the words, the implied
judge­ment.
But two days lat­er, Bea picks up Eddie’s phone—he doesn’t pass­word lock it, wouldn’t even
think to, which is clas­sic Eddie—and sees the text.
It’s a self­ie of Blanche. Noth­ing sul­try or sexy, noth­ing tacky, but a shot of her face pulling an
exag­ger­at­ed frown.