“Yeah?” Lilia tilted her head.
Amelia nodded, her eyes flickering up to meet Lilia’s. “I wanted to say thank you. For . . . you know, being there for Willow. She always spoke so highly of you.”
Lilia’s chest tightened, and she forced herself to smile. “She was a good friend. My best friend, really.”
The two sat in silence for a moment, the weight of unspoken words hanging in the air between them. Lilia studied Amelia, noticing how the new hair color seemed to bring out the sharpness in her features, making her look even more like Willow. The resemblance was uncanny, and it was unsettling, as if Willow’s ghost was sitting right in front of her.
“I like your new hair,” Lilia said softly, trying to lighten the mood. “It suits you.”
Amelia blushed slightly, a shy smile tugging at her lips. “Thanks. I just felt like it was time for a change.” She looked down, then added, almost as an afterthought, “It’s strange, though. Every time I look in the mirror, I see her.”
She nodded, understanding the sentiment all too well. “The world feels different without her,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Amelia nodded, and her eyes misting over. “Lifeless,” she agreed. “Everything feels . . . hollow.”
There was another silence, thicker this time, filled with the weight of their shared grief. Lilia glanced out the window, watching the rain begin to splatter against the glass, each drop chasing after the other.
“I’m sorry,” Amelia said, suddenly breaking the silence. “For how my parents acted at the funeral. They were just . . . I don’t know, they didn’t know how to cope.”
“It’s okay,” she replied. The Montgomerys had been distant, as if their grief had erected a barrier between them and everyone else. But, now seeing Amelia’s sincerity, she felt a pang of sympathy for the family torn apart by loss.
She hesitated, then asked what’s been gnawing at her ever since Willow died. “Amelia, do you think someone wanted to hurt Willow? Did she ever tell you anything?”
Amelia’s expression darkened, and for a moment, Lilia thought she wouldn’t answer. But then she bit her lip and nodded.
“Actually, there was something. A couple of weeks before she disappeared, she got this letter in the mail. It really freaked her out.”
Lilia frowned. “What did it say?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Amelia admitted, “but she took it to the police. They brushed it off, said it was probably just someone trying to rattle her because of our dad’s reelection campaign.”
“Do you have any idea who might’ve sent it?”
Amelia hesitated, then looked away, her voice barely audible when she finally spoke. “For a while, Willow thought it was you.”
Lilia’s breath caught in her throat, and she let out a startled laugh, certain she misheard. “Willow thought I sent it? Why would she think that? I would never do something like that to her.”
“She always said you were jealous of her and Augustus,” Amelia said quietly, still not meeting her gaze. “I guess she thought it was only a matter of time before you let your frustrations out.”
She felt like the ground dropped out from under her. “Did she tell you that? Why would she?—”
Before she could even finish, Amelia glanced at the clock and scrambled to gather her things. “Oh shit, I’m late for class. I’m sorry, Lilia. We should talk soon though, okay?”
Lilia could only nod as Amelia rushed off, leaving her alone with the storm brewing outside and the even darker one now swirling around inside her. The idea that Willow could have thought she was capable of sending a threatening message was absurd. She could never, would never. Willow was her friend—she could never hurt her.
She slumped back against her chair, her mind spinning. What had Willow really thought of her?
Willow was an enigma. She always held them at arm’s length, constantly ready and more than capable of disposing of them when they no longer suited her. She made sure that they always knew that as well. Willow seemed to know everything about them, but they knew nothing, not really, about her at all.
A flash of memory cut through the confusion. It had been a few weeks before the lake house party, in one of the many arguments she and Willow back then. Lilia had known about the cheating, about the lies, and she had confronted Willow, her voice low and shaking with anger she could no longer hold back.
“You’re going to break his heart, Willow!” Lilia yelled after her in a fit of rage. “You need to tell him the truth!”
Willow spun on her heels. “Why do you even care, Lilia? It’s not like he’s yours.” She taunted, “But that’s what you want, isn’t it? What you’ve always wanted. Do you honestly think Idon’t see the way that you look at him? He’s mine, and he always will be.”
Lilia remembered the sting of those words, the way that Willow’s eyes had flashed with something darker than she had ever seen before. And now, sitting alone in the coffee shop, she wondered just how much more there was to her friend that she never saw.
The rain outside grew heavier, the drops pelting against the window like stones. As she watched the world blur into a wash of gray, Lilia couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d only just begun to uncover the truth about the girl she thought she knew.
