Influenced Eva Robinson (polar express read aloud .TXT) 📖

hands and leaned closer, pinning her with his gaze. “Was there anything going on between you and Adam?”

A pit opened in her stomach. “What? Like an affair? No, he’s boring. Is this about the fight he and Arabella had at Stella’s house? It was honestly over nothing. She thought my leg was too close to his. Then she dumped a drink on him. Some people are really uptight about physical contact. Puritans, really.”

Now, a few memories were returning to her from the night before. She’d been sitting on Daniel’s lap.

Another dramatic scene…

Her mind whirled, and Michael’s gaze was drilling into her skull, like he could see right into her thoughts. She threaded her fingers into her hair, wishing she’d prepared better for this—at least thrown out the coke. “I don’t understand. Do you think he killed her?”

“We’re just looking for the full picture.”

You need to leave. “I don’t have any information. The last time I saw Arabella was at that party. And nothing happened. Maybe he was having an affair with one of his students? It wasn’t me. Or maybe he wanted her to stop throwing drinks on him. I don’t have any answers for you.”

She was playing this wrong, coming off desperate, but it was too hard to think clearly.

Light glinted in his eyes, and he didn’t make a move to leave. He was just staring at her, waiting for her to say more. Finally, he asked, “Do you know of anyone she had any conflicts with? Enemies?”

Rowan shook her head. “I mean, she could get angry at Adam. She was a bit possessive, I think.”

“Possessive?” Michael asked.

Rowan’s head fell into her hands. Michael went on and on, pressing her with questions about Arabella, looking for every angle, every detail of her life. She struggled to concentrate, and kept asking him to repeat his questions. Half her mind was on the real mystery of what the hell she had done last night. Because she was certain it was terrible.

“Rowan?”

Her head snapped up. “Yes.”

“Adam described her as struggling mentally. Did you see any signs of unusual behavior? Mental instability?”

Rowan narrowed her eyes. “No. Unless being dramatic sometimes is a mental illness. But she was sharp as anything. Look, I didn’t know her that well. Someone accused me last night of not being that upset she’s dead, and I guess I’m not. I wanted to be like her. Smart, beautiful, doing something important with her life. But she wasn’t someone I’d ever call if I were upset. She was a little remote, like a perfect statue. I think she was a perfectionist. That’s my impression of her. Perfectionism. And that’s why we weren’t close—because obviously…” She gestured at the clothes littering her floor, the musty towels. “Obviously I am not a type A personality. But because she’s a perfectionist, if my knee accidentally touched Adam’s, she couldn’t handle it. It was black and white with her. Either Adam loved her, or he didn’t. And if he smiled at me too long, it meant he didn’t love her, and the world was terrible.”

“He pays a lot of attention to your photos.”

“Does he? Well, he might be a creep, I don’t know. A lot of people pay attention to my photos. Some people are just bored and on Instagram all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“So you weren’t trying to get his attention with what you posted last night?”

Her mouth felt watery, and she wanted to be sick in the sink again.

She had no idea what she’d posted last night, but his tone suggested she might regret it.

Twenty-Four

Rowan had never felt more desperate to find her phone. Her head fell into her hands, and she focused all her attention on trying to not throw up all over the marble island.

A few days ago, she’d found an entirely new way to binge on self-loathing. TOI.com, which stood for “Twats on Instagram.” She had her own dedicated thread, only a few months old but already hundreds of pages long.

While “body snarking” was discouraged on Reddit, there were no rules on TOI.com. And they were mean.

She’s 28, and all she has going for her is her looks. But she’s already not as pretty as she once was. Too many fillers. That’s what happens when you live off booze and coke and have to fill yourself with plastic. What will she have left when she looks like a cheap inflatable doll? Enjoy your back alley BJs, Rowan!

Oh YUCK!! She looks nasty.

Friend of a friend who went to Harvard with her told me she’s BFFs with a frat-boy rapist, and she blames his victims for dressing wrong. She made one of them burst into tears by calling her “white trash.”

I was in the same year as her at Harvard. She slept with one of the professors for an A and was also banging a 16-year-old. So gross.

The comments were a combination of real gossip (her coke habit) and invented stories (the frat boy, the sexual exploits). She wondered if the Victorian clown person was on there.

And whatever she had posted last night, she was sure they were already feasting on her shame on the blog.

“What do you mean ‘what I posted last night’?” Her mind thudded. “Last night is a bit of a blur.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

She shot a nervous glance at the coke. “Haven’t you ever had so much to drink that you can’t remember things? It happens.”

“How often do you have these blackouts?” he asked.

“Not often. Look, I can’t help you.”

He folded his hands on the table. “Before you posted that photo last night, you posted another from a party. It was you and a woman with makeup just like yours. Who was she?”

“Hannah? What does she have to do with anything?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. I was just curious. You only ever posted a photo of one other woman on your feed before—Arabella. And now it seems like you have a…” He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know.”

He let the sentence hang, but she heard