The Last Time You Shushed Me

From the back cover

On the first day of our three-person trip to the Cascades, my fiancé Graham’s childhood best friend, Meredith, laid down the ground rule: whenever they were discussing plans, I wasn't allowed to interrupt.

When I asked why the hell not, she pressed a manicured index finger against her lips. "Shh. The adults are figuring things out. Just listen for now."

That night, when I discovered the lock on our cabin door was broken, she shushed me.

At two in the morning, a drunk stranger rattled the handle and tried to force his way inside. Graham moved me to a different room and spent hours holding me, whispering soothing promises, while still urging me not to hold it against Meredith for "just trying to keep the mood light."

On the second day, when I told Graham the brakes on our rental SUV felt loose, she shushed me again.

An hour later, the car skidded inches from a sheer mountain drop-off. Graham instinctively shielded me with his arm, but the second the tires screeched to a halt, he jumped out to comfort Meredith, who was sobbing in the backseat.

On the final day, Meredith snatched my phone out of my hands and tossed it over the edge of the ravine.

Inside that phone was the only surviving voice memo my mother had recorded before she died.

When I screamed at her, Meredith simply brought that slender finger to her lips once more.

"Shh. Your mother was completely unhinged at the end, Iris. Are you going to lose your mind, too?"

Graham’s face finally hardened. He ordered her to apologize.

He spent two hours down in the brush helping me look for it. But the moment Meredith whimpered that her ankle was aching, he bent down, let her climb onto his back, and carried her back to the lodge.

I stayed in that ravine until midnight, searching on my hands and knees in the pitch-black cold, only to retrieve a handful of shattered glass and circuit boards.

When I limped back to the cabin, I heard Meredith’s melodic laugh filtering through the door. "Look at how she acted today. With a m