A Lesson in Vengeance

by Victoria Lee

Alex will never be this old.

And then, at last, I manage to push the words past my throat: “Just their daughters?” Ellis glances back. She’s taken off the pince-nez; the frames dangle from one idle hand. “It takes one to know one.”

I shake my head, an odd smile twisting at my mouth. “I don’t know. I’d rather wait until after I’ve graduated. It seems like such a cliché, doesn’t it? Lesbians at a girls’ school.” “Hey now. I happen to like that cliché.” I laugh. “I bet you do.”

“I don’t understand,” she says again. “Alex didn’t die on a mountain. She died here, at school. She drowned.”

“Like this, see? Even with you fighting back…you’ll be unconscious in thirty seconds. Within another minute, you’d be dead. Just like Tamsyn Penhaligon.” She’s going to kill me.

“There,” she murmurs. “There…You’re okay. Did you think I was going to hurt you? I would never hurt you. You’re safe.”

I’m glad you stayed with me. I’m glad you stayed.

“You’re brave, Felicity,” she says. “You’re the bravest person I know.” And then she kisses me.

We fall asleep together, Ellis’s arm thrown over my stomach and my face tilted in against her shoulder. And for once it is so easy to forget I’ve ever known anyone else.

No one understands Ellis Haley like I do. No one ever will.

For Felicity. I did it all for you.