Charlie stares at the plate of French fries, which glisten with grease. The sight of them makes her stomach do a sickly flip. Across from her, Josh tucks his napkin into his shirt collar like he’s a farmer at a picnic. He grabs his utensils—a fork and a surprisingly sharp steak knife—and looks at the food on his plate. A circle of meat smothered with gravy, creamed corn, and a clump of gray stuff that Charlie assumes is supposed to be mashed potatoes. Josh lowers the fork but keeps the knife in hand.

“Something’s been bugging me,” he says. “Outside, when you were on the phone, talking to your friend.”

“Boyfriend,” Charlie says, hoping those three extra letters make a difference. She thinks they might. They mean there’s someone out there who seriously cares about her. Someone who’ll be angry if something should happen to her.

Josh nods. “Boyfriend. Right. When you were talking to him, were you using some sort of code?”

Charlie picks up a French fry and takes a nervous bite. She washes it down with still-too-hot tea. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. ‘Things took a detour’? No one talks that way. In the movies, maybe, but not in real life.”

Charlie should have known how ridiculous she sounded on the phone. Because he’s right. No one talks that way and Josh saw right through it, which is why he now stares at her across the table, a steak knife still gripped in his fist. He holds it with the blade aimed her way, the light glinting off its tip, letting her see how sharp it is, how easy it would be to sink into her flesh.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she says, which is the truth. She’s not sure if Josh wants an explanation, an apology, or simply a reason to shove that knife into her heart.

“You don’t need to say anything. I just think it would be nice to admit it.”

“Admit what?”

Josh reaches across the table, grabs one of her fries, and pops it into his mouth. “That you’re still scared of me.”

Charlie scans the diner, hoping to see Marge or the cook or even a couple of other patrons come inside. But it’s still just her and Josh.

And the knife.

That sharp, glinting extension of his hand.

Josh catches her looking at it and says, “You shouldn’t be scared, is what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not going to hurt you, Charlie. We’re friends, right? Or at least friendly.”

He lowers the knife, as if to prove his friendliness. It doesn’t make Charlie feel any better. Nothing about the situation has changed. They’re still alone, and Josh is still the Campus Killer.

“Listen,” he says. “I think it’s best if we don’t do this anymore. I think that maybe, once I’m done eating, you should stay here.”

Charlie does a little headshake, thinking she misheard him. “What?”

“You should stay here. I get back in the car, drive off, and you find another way to get home.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.” Josh leans back in the booth, his hands up and palms open, like a magician showing there are no more tricks up his sleeve. “I mean, I don’t like the thought of just ditching you here. But you clearly don’t trust me. And while I’m hurt by that, I also understand that you’ve been through some hard times. Your friend being killed and all that. It would make anyone suspicious. I’m happy to have taken you this far. Now it’s time for us to part ways.”

Charlie sits in utter silence, not moving, not even blinking.

He’s lying.

She can’t help but think that.

He isn’t really offering to simply go away and leave her alone, no questions asked. That doesn’t make any sense, therefore it must be false.

On the flip side, she wonders if maybe he’s being serious. That, through some small miracle she’ll never understand, Josh really is letting her go. Maybe he’s decided she’s not worth the risk or the effort. Or that he’s bored with toying with her. Or that he’s taking pity on her.

“So you’re letting me go? Just like that?”

“Letting you go makes it sound like I’ve been holding you hostage,” Josh says. “That’s never been the case. I didn’t force you into my car. You got in all on your own.”

Charlie doesn’t see it that way. Yes, she eagerly accepted a ride from Josh, but only because she was desperate to get away and he told all the right lies. And he continued to lie so she’d stay in the car long after she suspected who he was and what he’d done. So even though she was far from forced into his Grand Am, she was definitely deceived into it.

Part of her thinks she’s still being deceived. That, instead of a movie in her mind, this is Josh toying with her some more. Getting her hopes up and then enjoying her crushed reaction when he snatches it all away.

A patch of heat forms on the back of her neck. An angry prickle. It matches her mood. Having been gaslit all night, she’s nothing if not prickly. As for anger, Charlie can feel it spreading just as quickly as the warm spot on her neck.

She’s tired of being lied to.

Tired of being deceived.

Tired of being so fucking sad all the time.

Tired of feeling guilty and confused and living a life so pathetic that she has to make imaginary movies in her head just to be able to cope.

Charlie’s so tired that she’s tempted to tell Josh she knows everything. She’s struck with an overwhelming urge to shatter the good-guy facade he’s created and watch the pieces fall away, revealing the monster behind the mask. She almost does it, too. Her jaw unclenches and her tongue loosens, ready to unleash the truth.

But then Marge appears, coming through the swinging door with a pot of coffee. “Let me top that off for you, handsome,” she says, even though Josh hasn’t taken more than a few sips.

She fills the cup to the brim and pulls back, her elbow moving across the table. Charlie watches its progress, the elbow as sharp and spindly as the knife discarded next to Josh’s plate. It keeps moving, even after it hits Charlie’s teacup.

The rest is as quick as it is inevitable.

Elbow moving.

Teacup sliding.

Both not stopping until the cup is knocked off the table and the tea spills over Charlie’s red coat.

Charlie leaps from her seat, dripping tea that, while no longer scalding, is still hot enough to sting through her wet clothes. Marge backs away, aghast, one age-spotted hand to her mouth while the other continues to grip the coffeepot.

“Aw, shit,” she says. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

Charlie slides out of the booth, pressing her napkin to the front of the coat.

“It’s fine,” she says, more relieved than angry. Marge’s accident gives her a chance to get up, to get away from Josh, to regroup. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Marge points to a small alcove next to the swinging door. “Right there, hon.”

Charlie makes a beeline toward it, the napkin still pressed to her coat even though it’s now so soaked that tea squishes between her fingers. Inside the alcove, she sees two doors, one marked guys and the other, disconcertingly, dolls. She pushes the door open and rushes inside, not bothering to take one last look at Josh.

Even though this is the perfect time for him to, as he put it, part ways, Charlie has a feeling he’s not going anywhere.

When she returns from the bathroom, he’ll still be waiting for her.

INT. DINER—NIGHT

Marge swore she wasn’t going to intervene, even though she sensed trouble the moment they entered the diner. It was clear from their body language that something wasn’t right with the two of them. The girl in the red coat looked scared and the man she was with looked surly. Never a good combo in Marge’s experience.

Yet she held her tongue, which has gotten her in trouble more often than not. She only speaks up when she’s truly concerned, like when that other couple left still three sheets to the wind. They didn’t listen to her—people their age never do—but she had to say something, even if it was just to keep her conscience clean. She offered advice. They ignored her. Whatever happens after that isn’t her concern.

And these two were none of her business. They looked to Marge like a couple that just had a fight in the car and needed to stop somewhere to decompress. She sees it all the time.

Concern didn’t truly set in until she took the surly-looking man’s order.

“What’s your blue-plate special?”

Marge was watching the girl when he said it, thinking about how she looked like a hostage and how much that fact worried her. Then the girl went to the pay phone and he followed her out, like some kind of stalker, afraid that his prey was going to run away. Yet another reason for concern.

After that, Marge knew she absolutely had to do something, even though she knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t help herself. Standing back and doing nothing just isn’t in her nature.

So she grabbed a fresh pot of coffee, flexing her elbow in the process. They were pointy, her elbows. Marge knew it because she’d been told so her entire marriage. Howard, bless his dearly departed heart, always complained that she elbowed him in her sleep. “Damn, Marge,” he used to say, “do you use a pencil sharpener on those things before you go to bed?”

She can only imagine what he’d say now that the cancer has whittled her down to nothing but skin and bones.