Chapter 12: Every Monday

Willem turned on the dome light, and I unfolded the page.

It was written in Mallory's handwriting, the round loops I had known since the first week of college.

There were no headings and no apologies at the top.

"Ginny,

"If Willem gave you this, I told him to when I said now.

"It means you saw the screen at Diane's, and you hate me.

"Good. I needed you to.

"Four days after Edgar put the ring on your finger, he came to my dorm room.

"You were at your mother's. He said he'd made a mistake. He said it was me, not you.

"I said no.

"He came back the next Monday, and the one after that.

"Every Monday for ten years, Ginny, he has asked me to be his Friday.

"He says it by text and in the street. He says it in your kitchen while you're in the bathroom.

"He says it at Thanksgiving with your mother in the next room.

"I told you once. Year four, on your birthday, in the stairwell of that bar.

"You said I was jealous. You said I had always wanted what you had.

"You didn't speak to me for six months.

"I understood. You loved him. Nobody gets argued out of that.

"So I did the only thing I could. I took a new man every week.

"He was a name for Edgar to be jealous of, and a reason I was never alone with him.

"He was why you never wondered about the coat I kept on near your fiancé.

"I started recording Edgar in year five. Everything is on the drive.