Nothing will ever be the same again, Dei thought to herself as she glared at her old friend through her tears. It had been several days since it happened, but her grief still felt like it was tearing her heart apart from the inside out.
She’d come back early from her work trip and thought she’d surprise her husband, Brennan, by arriving unannounced with dinner from their favorite restaurant. Everything had seemed normal—but that was her fault, wasn’t it? If only she’d told him her plane arrived early. If only she had talked to him. If only. But when she got home…
Dei had told her story to the police several times: she’d been gone for a few months on a business trip. To stay connected, she and Bren called almost daily at first—talking about their days, how her trip was going, how he was getting a promotion soon, and how much they missed one another—but as time went by, their calls grew further and further apart. It wasn’t because of any disagreement, though—their lives just got in the way.
That was why Dei hadn’t thought much about how different Bren seemed toward the end. She just thought he was just more stressed due to the higher demands of his new position. So, of course, why not try to cheer up her dear husband by pleasantly surprising him and coming home early with an expensive dinner for them to eat together?
That had been her reasoning, at least, for not calling after her plane touched down or as she drove home. That’s why she had no idea what was coming when she came home and found his dead body. That’s why she screamed when she saw Lorelei, her childhood friend, over it. That’s why, when her neighbors called the police, they’d arrived to find Dei fighting Lorelei for her life.
That’s why Dei couldn’t stop crying, and why, now, Dei glared at her childhood friend through the one-way mirror as though it could bring her husband back.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” a man’s voice said, pulling Dei out of her thoughts. She jolted, looking over at him sharply. The officer gave her a sad, reassuring smile as he continued, “we have enough evidence already. Her DNA was all over—ah… well…”
Face twisting, Dei turned her head away, hiding it behind her hand. He didn’t have to explain it to her; the image was seared into her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it. Choking back a sob and doing her best to bottle up her grief, Dei forced herself to look up at the officer with her shoulders set back and jaw clenched.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. I want to talk to her—I want to hear what she has to say!” she snapped at him.
The officer visibly tensed, shock displayed on his face.
Dei realized with a jolt that she’d come off too strong. Her face twisting from grief, she buried it in her hands again as she sobbed.
“I’m—I’m sorry, sir. I just—please,” she begged.
She felt weight on her shoulder as the officer placed his hand there.
“Okay, okay, just… take some time to calm down, alright? Get yourself together. Try to get your thoughts in order so you can ask her what you need and do your best not to let her get to you, okay?” he asked awkwardly. He clearly didn’t know how to console a grieving wife.
Gasping for her breath, Dei nodded.
“O-okay, I—okay, I will,” she promised.
Although she still hid her face behind her hand, she could still see the officer nodding out of the corner of her eye. Finally, he turned away to attend to whatever else he had to do as a part of this whole mess. It felt like a weight off her shoulders to not have someone watching her anymore.
Letting out a shaky sigh, Dei slowly lifted her head and let herself cry quietly. She carefully wiped away her black, mascara-stained tears as her eyes trailed the room to find Lorelei behind the one-way mirror.
Lorelei sat alone in that room, her only company the chair she sat on, a table, and the empty chair on the other side of it. Her wrists were handcuffed to the table in front of her and her face was hidden, buried inside her arms and shielded by a curtain of her hair.
Dei’s heart raced as she stared at her old friend.
Scenes from that night played in her head—the door flying open as Dei burst into the room, the looks of horror on Bren and Lorelei’s faces, and the fight that followed the discovery.
Dei didn’t even notice her face twisting into a snarl as the memories went through her mind or her eyes narrowed on Lorelei. After everything… I trusted you, she thought accusingly. But Dei simply forced herself to take deep breaths and recollected herself, trying to prepare for her meeting with Lorelei. If only she could get her tears to work with her.
“I’m ready,” Dei finally announced, her voice slightly uneven. As she turned to face the officers, she steeled herself, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw back in an attempt to look stronger than she felt. Dei’s eyes burned from her crying and she knew she looked like a mess, but the deputy gave her a very businesslike nod and stepped forward, moving to the door to Lorelei’s room.
“Understood. You can ask whatever questions you want, Mrs. Mallory, but please remember to keep your distance from Ms. Cherith, alright?” he asked, glancing at her as she met him at the door.
Dei gave him a slight nod. The deputy’s eyes lingered on hers for a long moment before he finally turned to unlock the door. When his eyes finally left hers, Dei swallowed hard, but she quickly collected herself before he opened the door and turned to face her again. Without looking back, Dei stepped into the room.
Her heart pounded harder each step she took. Each footstep felt more forceful than the last, but she was certain she wasn’t stomping—she checked.
All she could hear was the roar of her blood pounding through her ears.
But Dei smoothly pulled a chair out from her side of the table and swiftly sat in it, staring hard at Lorelei at the other end.
When Dei had first stepped inside, Lorelei had just started stirring. Her eyes were unfocused at first—as she drew her head from her arms—but quickly went wide as she processed Dei was there. Without another moment of hesitation, Lorelei sat back in her chair, face twisting.
“Dei,” Lorelei started, but Dei didn’t let her finish.
“No. Don’t! You! Dare,” Dei spat back, glaring at her old friend and gripping the table in front of her.
Lorelei flinched, but her innocent act didn’t last long—her face quickly crumpled before twisting into an angry, devastated look that matched Dei’s.
“No! Don’t you!” she shot back, her shoulders going high and fingers curling into fists, “I know I—”
“You know what you did!” Dei interrupted, almost shrieking, “you knew what you were doing from the moment you started that! You knew what it’d mean! You knew what it’d do to us! But you did it anyway!!—”
A hand landed on Dei’s shoulder. Eyes flying wide, Dei tensed and looked over her shoulder to see its owner.
It was the deputy, whose eyes were now narrowed on hers. Suspicious. He didn’t even have to speak, though.
Taking a deep breath and shrugging, Dei turned to face Lorelei again, struggling to recompose herself. Anger once again leaked into her voice, but this time she kept it even.
“After everything you’ve done, you expect me to help you? To take your side? No. You knew what you were doing, and you did it anyway. So I’m not helping you, Lorie. I’m not lying—” Dei couldn’t help a twisted smile as she said that, and Lorelei’s eyes flew wide in realization “—for you. Especially not to the police. Not after what you’ve done to me. To us. So goodbye, Lorie,” she said before quickly rising to her feet, spinning on her heel, and moving to march out of the room.
Both the deputy and Lorelei’s protests started at the same time.
“Wait, you—”
“NO! YOU CAN’T—”
Dei closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe as she stepped out.
“I can’t do this any longer,” she breathed tonelessly.
The rest of the day was a hazy blur. The deputy had rushed out of the room after her, closing the door against Lorelei’s shrieks of protest, and Dei collapsed to the floor crying.
After explaining herself—the grief she felt, how close she’d been to both Lorelei and Bren, and how it hurt too much to talk to Lorelei now—Dei was quickly ushered away and forgiven for the scene she caused.
Then, she was guided from the room, out into the arms of her waiting parents, and given time to calm herself down. She cried for another several minutes, lamenting her lost husband and friendship to her parents, before she finally recollected herself again.
Dei was then pulled away by the deputy, brought to another interrogation room where the detective of her husband’s murder case sat. This next line of questioning was all a formality, she was promised. She would just have to answer a few more questions, then would go over a transcript of her previous statements and confirm they were all true.
Her eyes now skimmed over the paper, reading over the statement she’d given to the police. She’d said that Lorelei had killed her husband and that she, Dei, had found Lorelei over his body.
Dei saw herself throwing open the door, bursting inside to see Lorelei and Bren in her bed.
‘She screamed in horror at the sight?’ Dei didn’t remember either of them screaming, but it worked.
‘Lorelei attacked her to prevent her from incriminating her?’ Dei remembered how she grabbed the empty flower vase, shattered it against the wall, and used it as a weapon against the two.
Lorelei sure did fight her, but she wasn’t the first one to.
Wiping away her tears, Dei finally looked up at the two men. The deputy watched her with his sharp, perceptive eyes.
“I swear to God, this is true,” Deianira Mallory said, stifling a bitter smile.
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