Chapter 3

Tiffany must have heard something, a scuff of my shoe, a sharp intake of breath. The phone call ended abruptly. A moment later, she stepped out of the library, her face pale with panic when she saw me standing there.

"Sarah! I... I didn't see you," she stammered, her eyes wide.

For a second, I just stared at her, the ugliness of her words still ringing in my ears. A part of me, the part that had been raised to be polite and avoid conflict, wanted to pretend I hadn't heard anything. But I couldn't. I had to protect Ethan.

"I heard you, Tiffany," I said quietly.

Her panic shifted instantly into a calculated performance. Tears welled up in her eyes. "Oh, Sarah, please, you misunderstood. My mother... she's very sick, and she worries. I was just trying to sound strong for her. I would never... I think of you and Ethan as my only friends."

She grabbed my hand, her own hand trembling. "Please, don't tell Ethan. He'll think I'm just some gold-digger. He'll kick me out. I have nowhere else to go. My mother will die without the money for her treatment."

Her desperation felt real. I was torn. What if I had misunderstood? What if she was just a scared girl trying to survive? My instinct for compassion, honed by years of being the one in need, warred with the cold certainty of what I had heard.

"I... I won't say anything," I finally relented. "But if you hurt him, Tiffany, I swear..."

She threw her arms around me, sobbing with relief. "Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. You're the kindest person I know."

The next day, she proved just how manipulative she was. She invited me for a walk by the lake on the Reed estate, saying she wanted to apologize properly. I was hesitant, but I went, still hoping my initial judgment was wrong.

We were standing on the edge of the wooden dock. She was telling me another sad story about her childhood when she suddenly "tripped," her arms flailing wildly. She grabbed onto me, and her momentum pulled us both into the cold water.

I came up sputtering, my head hitting the dock with a painful thud. Tiffany, however, was screaming, a high-pitched, terrified sound that carried across the property. By the time Ethan and his father came running, she was putting on an Oscar-worthy performance, coughing weakly and pretending to be half-drowned.

They pulled us out. I was dazed, a large lump already forming on my head. Tiffany was immediately wrapped in a blanket, shivering in Ethan's arms.

"She pushed me," Tiffany whispered, tears streaming down her face. "I don't know why. She just... pushed me in."

"What?" I stared at her in disbelief. "No, I didn't! You tripped and pulled me in with you!"

Ethan turned to me, his face a mask of fury and disappointment. "Pushed her? Sarah, what is wrong with you?"

"I didn't!" I yelled, my voice raw with shock and betrayal. "She's lying! Ethan, you have to believe me!"

"Believe you?" he sneered. "Tiffany can barely swim! She could have drowned! All I see is you, perfectly fine, and her, terrified and soaking wet. Why would she lie about something like this?"

"Because she's not who you think she is! I heard her on the phone! She's using you, using all of us!" My words tumbled out in a frantic rush, but I could see in his eyes that I was losing.

He wasn't listening. He was looking at Tiffany with pity and at me with disgust. "You're just jealous, Sarah. You've been jealous since she got here. I can't believe you'd stoop this low."

It was useless. Tiffany had been playing a long game, subtly planting seeds of doubt about me for weeks. She'd told Mrs. Reed that I seemed "unhappy" and "possessive" of Ethan. She' d "accidentally" let it slip to Mr. Reed that I was worried about her "distracting" Ethan from his responsibilities. She had woven a web of lies so skillfully that my truth sounded like the ravings of a jealous shrew.

She had made herself appear so fragile, so innocent, that any attack on her seemed cruel and unwarranted. Ethan, who had always seen himself as a protector of the weak, had fallen for it completely. He saw a damsel in distress, not a predator in disguise.

I felt a profound sense of injustice. I was the one who had been wronged, but I was the one being punished. I vowed then and there that I would find a way to prove what she was.

But every attempt I made backfired. I tried to show Ethan inconsistencies in her stories, but he accused me of being obsessive. I tried to find proof of her lies, but she was always one step ahead, covering her tracks perfectly. The more I tried to expose her, the more I looked like the villain, and the more Ethan pulled away from me and closer to her.