Pearl cut her off sharply. “That’s not true! You were the one who grabbed the pendant and dropped it yourself!”
She turned to Quincy, tears glistening in her eyes. “Quincy, who do you believe—me or her?”
His gaze darkened, as if looking right through Alannah. After a long silence, he turned to Pearl and finally said, “Of course, I believe you.”
When he turned back to Alannah, he coldly urged, “Alannah, start.”
A bitter smile twisted Alannah’s lips. Without the slightest hesitation, she raised her hand and struck herself.
She slapped herself again and again.
After ten slaps, blood seeped from the corner of her mouth. Her voice was so faint it was almost inaudible. “There. Are you satisfied now?”
Quincy’s eyes flickered with guilt. His lips parted slightly, but in the end, he said nothing.
Pearl, satisfied at last, tugged him by the arm and led him away.
During Alannah’s stay in the hospital, Quincy never came to see her.
Through Pearl’s Facebook posts, Alannah saw him smiling beside her—at an amusement park, beneath the stars, watching sunrises and sunsets. He was doing all the things Alannah once wanted to do with him, the things he had once dismissed as childish.