Cross My Heart

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

I rub my scar through my shirt. Trace the seam of skin where they sealed up Daphne’s heart. Behind my closed eyes, images strobe: Morgan’s hands, his touch like a whisper; Morgan’s hands, clenching into bone; a bathroom with his and hers sinks; a bathroom with nothing to slip on, except for blood.

I’ve called out of work again, and if anyone’s reaching out about dress orders or appointments, I won’t be able to help them. I’ve turned off my phone—easier, that way, to ignore the messages I’ve left unanswered. For weeks, I’ve wanted nothing more than for Morgan’s name to pop up on my screen, but right now, the sight of it makes me uneasy.

My mother’s managing the store in my absence. She left a few hours ago, just after she stood above my bed, taking my temperature, counting my pulse. Both numbers were normal, but worry welled in her eyes until I assured her that my heart felt fine, that I didn’t need Dad to “come up and sit with me,” that it was just my meds again, wreaking havoc on my system.

I don’t like to lie to her. But the truth is too confusing: No, Mom, it’s not the cyclosporine unsettling my stomach. It’s a famous author and the books on my bed.

Daphne’s books. Anatomy of Night and The Quiet House.

I picked them up after work yesterday, having received a voicemail that my order had arrived at Burnham Bookshop—and not a moment too soon. The Open Vein episode had made me so eager to read them that, hours after watching the podcast, I resorted to the next closest thing: reader reviews. I sprawled on my bed—Morgan so fresh in my memory, I could feel the stunning squeeze of his hand—and lost myself to comments that were mostly complimentary.

Haunting imagery.

This is poetry that grabs you by the throat.

Not enough people are obsessed with Daphne Whittaker.

But there was one review that stood out from the rest: Daphne Whittaker was my writing professor, but I’ve only just now read her work. For a long time, I couldn’t stop thinking about how troubled she seemed, right before she died. She was distracted in class, looked like she hadn’t been sleeping. Now I see through her gut-wrenching poems how much trauma she had in her past. How much darkness she had at home. It’s a wonder, really, she ever slept at all.

When I read those words, my eyes felt stiff and gritty, as if I were the sleepless one. It rang too close to something Piper said to me in the library, something I’d dismissed as paranoia: You didn’t see her, those last couple weeks before she died. She was really… scared.

Of what, though? What kept her up at night? Or perhaps more accurately: Who?

Those questions were still whirring through me last night, especially as the owner at Burnham Bookshop rang up Daphne’s collections for me. I stared at their covers, wondering what truths they’d reveal, what “darkness at home” they’d bring to light.

“Oh, wait,” the owner said, pausing as she bagged my books. “I think we still have a couple of—” She crouched behind the counter, then reemerged with a postcard. “You’ll want one of these. It’s Daphne Whittaker’s final poem.”

I snapped to attention, the sentence tingling along my spine. “Oh. Wow—”

“Well, I guess I don’t know that for sure. But when she gave it to me for the postcards, she said it was ‘one of her latest.’ We made these to promote the reading she was scheduled to do here, last May. But then of course she died and, well, that was all she wrote.” The woman winced at her own words. “Absolutely no pun intended.”

It haunted me on the drive home: the idea that Daphne’s “latest” work had become her last; the fact that she assumed she’d keep creating, that “latest” would be an ever-changing thing. That’s why, back in my apartment, I left the postcard in the shopping bag, choosing instead to begin with her earlier collection, published—I did some quick math—two years into her marriage to Morgan. Still, I read only the first stanza of the first poem in Anatomy of Night before I needed to set the book aside. The title was “Aubade”—a word I had to google: a poem written at the arrival of dawn—and at the fourth line, my breath caught.

The light cuts into me, still serrated

with darkness, and I have to write it down—

the way the sun seeps like someone else’s blood—

because words are how I dress my wounds.

Hair prickled on my neck. I was certain I’d seen that line before—or something close to it. I combed through DonorConnect to be sure, and yes: there, in Morgan’s third message. Words are how we heal our wounds. I’d even parroted it back to him in my response, praising him for writing it. Except he hadn’t. He’d changed the pronouns, swapped out dress for heal , but otherwise, it was Daphne’s. And a lesser version at that, because Morgan’s missed the wordplay, missed the point entirely: the double meaning of dress —both a way to treat her wounds and a way to cover them up, make them presentable to the public.

I closed the book, crawled into bed, tried to sleep away the strange feeling inside me. But my thoughts throbbed like a heartbeat, snippets of Morgan and Daphne together pulsing behind my eyelids. It had been two days since I’d watched their Open Vein interview, but the truth of what I’d seen kept brightening, clarifying, like a photo in a darkroom left to develop. Several times, Morgan had interrupted Daphne, slicing through her sentences. And what was it he said about her poetry? He claimed to read “the greats” while also saying he’d have nothing to offer in critiquing Daphne’s work. The line had seemed self-deprecating at the time, like Morgan simply didn’t know enough to be of any help. But maybe there was a hint of criticism, too, the reminder that Daphne wasn’t one of “the greats” herself and the implication that she never would be. So maybe Piper was right; maybe Morgan had belittled Daphne’s work.

Then maybe he stole her words anyway. Passed them off to me as his own.

When I woke this morning, it was to another message from Morgan. An apology this time, an attempt to nudge me from my silence. I haven’t been able to answer him. Not the past few hours, nor the past few days. It’s become too complicated, keeping track of who I am to him. He has no idea the woman on DonorConnect knows so much—the grit of his voice, the grip of his gaze, the strength of his hands. He can’t fathom that I’ve been stuck in bed, pinned between wanting him and wondering what he’s capable of, this man who, in just a few weeks, I’ve let so close to me.

Now I open Anatomy of Night again, turn past the page that stopped me before, and immerse myself in Daphne’s voice, the words of the woman who knew Morgan best.

Most of the poems circle her sister’s death. There are so many references to blood that the whole book feels spattered with it. It’s there in the poem about the roads in her neighborhood, the night she ran from her house in bare feet: There must have been something sharp on those streets to account for the blood on my heels. It’s there, too, when she writes about the home her sister died in, imagining there was no bullet, no man with a gun, but that the house simply swallowed her instead. For anyone else, that would be its own kind of nightmare , she acknowledges, but it’s the dream I cling to, to keep from smelling your blood.

In a poem called “Roadkill,” the blood appears as drops like too-shiny rubies on the grille of his car . But this one isn’t about her sister. A date derailed , Daphne writes, and him in the driver’s seat, still buckled in . She describes a fox on the road, all wound and fur, the glimpse of a rib cage. Beneath his tires: the tip of a tail. She crouches over the animal, half of her knowing it’s dead, the other half hoping, hoping— Back in the car , she continues, his hands were steady on the wheel .

I jerk my eyes from the page. This is the second time I’ve heard this story—the roadkill on Morgan’s first date with Daphne. In his messages, he shared it as an example of how Daphne was “so undeniably good ,” crying for an animal she hadn’t even known. Except, in Morgan’s version, it wasn’t him who’d struck the fox; it was “some driver.”

Why lie? Accidents happen all the time.

Then again, I’ve done this, too, with Morgan—slanted my own stories so they find me in a better light. So maybe it’s flattering, in a way? He wants me to see him as his best self, even if it’s fictional.

I finish the poem, returning to the line where I left off.

Back in the car, his hands were steady on the wheel.

It’s only now, years later, I wish I’d seen it as a warning.

I pull back from the page. A warning about what, exactly? That Morgan didn’t care enough about the animal to get out of the car and try to help it? Or—the thought slithers in—that he could hurt something and his hands wouldn’t so much as shake?

I whip to the next page, searching for more about Morgan. There’s another poem about Daphne’s sister before the final one called “Second Date.” He didn’t flinch , it begins, when I told him about you . Other men had, she says, the story of her sister’s murder causing them to shrink away from her, clamp their hands around coffee mugs, force sips after their sorrys. They ended up treating her like a stranger, even when she waited months to tell them, even after one had said he loved her. But Morgan was different. Daphne doesn’t use his name, of course, but I remember this, too, from his messages, that she told him the story on their second date, that that was when he realized what he was most drawn to in a woman was the darkness she’d survived.

Daphne describes Morgan as leaning forward instead of back, his hands reaching instead of retreating. She writes how his eyes creased with concern, the folds of skin reminding her of pages in a book, a place to keep her story safe. It’s a love poem, I realize, a sharp departure from “Roadkill,” where she wondered if his composure hinted at cruelty. Here, he’s supportive. Solid. Drinking in her trauma and never once grimacing at the taste.

He’s been like that with me, too. Adamant that I’m not too much. That my history isn’t either. He’s not like Brad, whose lip curled as I cried on his front steps. Who, in our final days, would not even let me slip my hand into his as we crossed an icy parking lot. You’ll get cold , he said, tucking my hand into my own coat pocket, disguising his rejection as care.

I glance at my phone, think of the messages still waiting for me there, proof that Morgan has seen so much of me already—and only wants me closer.

Dog-earing the poem, I smile at the man I recognize in Daphne’s words, then read its final stanza.

I told him your eyes were open—

shutterless lenses, stuck on the ceiling.

When someone finally closed them,

their gloves were specked with red.

I even mentioned the blood beneath your nails,

how they think you might have reached

for the bullet inside you, tried to tweeze it out

with your fingers. And even then,

even then,

his face didn’t flinch. He paid our bill

and kissed your name off my lips.

With the first collection finished, I snatch up Daphne’s second, published two years later. Right away, there’s a shift in tone, startling as a clap of thunder. The opening lines are an accusation: Smiling swindler, blue-eyed betrayer, you tore my voice from my throat.

Fury leaps from the page. She describes herself as thrashing against the theft , and that image reminds me of the woman Morgan portrayed in his messages. Daphne’s wild moods, the books she threw across rooms. Morgan said he didn’t understand the source of her behavior—but in the poem, she confronts him.

What you call inspiration

feels like invasion.

I lay my case at your feet,

body so broken without a voice

that I’m already kneeling,

already bent to beg.

But you sit at your desk

like it’s a judge’s chambers,

and you offer no mercy.

You tell me my case was flawed

from the start: “There’s no copyright

on trauma.”

I squint at that ending, taken aback. It’s such a cold response. Maybe even cruel. Instinctively, I rub my chest, as if trying to soothe the heart that once endured it.

My college professor once said of poetry, There’s the truth, which is what literally happened. And then there’s the Truth—what emotionally happened. So much of poetry exists in that capital T. So it’s possible Morgan didn’t actually say it—that cold, cruel thing—but at the very least, Daphne’s showing me how she felt. She’s hinting at him stealing her story, her words, even if only to title a story of his own.

Diving deeper into the book, I find that, for a while, the poems avoid any mention of Morgan, returning instead to Daphne’s childhood. But where Anatomy of Night dissected her sister’s death, The Quiet House tackles the aftermath, the years in which Daphne found herself—suddenly—an only child. There are images of loneliness and alienation: In my room, I hum half a harmony, while downstairs, my parents play the wordless scrape of forks against plates . Images of guilt: I’ll bury my toes in soil, bolt my feet to the floor. I’ll never—Do you hear me? I will never—run anywhere again. She describes the distance that widened between her and her parents: I want to say the silence spread through the house like carbon monoxide, a toxin in every breath. But I think the silence saved us. Because when they did speak, grief mangled her parents’ words into blame. They asked why she ran so far that night, instead of just next door. Why she didn’t scream for the nearest neighbor, didn’t pick up a phone. They asked question after question—poker-sharp, iron-hot—until they burned her to the bone.

My scar stings, a phantom sizzle of Daphne’s pain. But I’m struck, too, by the familiarity in the words—or maybe my mind’s just looking for patterns. Connections between Daphne’s life and Morgan’s stories. Still, I can’t help but think of Chaos for the Fly , Morgan’s best book, in my opinion. In that one, the protagonist’s sister died in an accident when they were teens, but when new evidence comes to light that points to murder instead, the woman’s parents become convinced that one daughter killed the other. Locking the protagonist in her sister’s old bedroom, they devise increasingly twisted ways to push her toward a confession.

My stomach swirls at the similarities. The woman’s isolation. The parents’ pointed fingers. The murder of her sister as a kid. It’s possible the plot was not inspired— what you call inspiration feels like invasion —by Daphne’s past, but how could it not trigger her?

I read on in Daphne’s book, those themes of seclusion and blame bleeding through every page. It’s not until the final lines of the final poem that I find another reference to Morgan, after Daphne recounts driving herself to college, her parents not even home to see her off.

And years later, I find someone to love

the parts of me you couldn’t. The parts

as dark as too-deep water. The pitch-black

ocean of my memories, and even

the monsters beneath.

I’ll never let you go , he swears.

A siren’s call I gladly crash against.

I pause on those last few lines, and I understand the pull of that promise. I fell hard for forever , used it to forgive almost anything. I ignored the change in Brad’s voice, his awe sawed down into something abrasive. I dismissed the barbs in his words: Can’t I just sleep alone for one goddamn night? I still toured the venue, still bought the dress, still would have stood at that altar, smiling. But unlike Daphne, I didn’t have the family trauma—all that loss and loneliness and rejection—to drill a need for permanence deep in the core of me. All I had were the wedding portraits on my parents’ hutch, and the empty space where mine was meant to go. The Instagram posts from college friends, every month a new engagement. The brides at work who all had someone to go home to. So I get why Daphne clung to Morgan, even when she saw his work as “theft,” as a violation. It comes down to a simple truth: it’s easier, sometimes, to be miserable in love than it is to be alone.

The books finished, I reach for the postcard still inside the bag from Burnham Bookshop. I’ve saved it for the end, this poem the owner said was one of Daphne’s last. On one side are event details—Daphne’s reading was going to be held at the community center, hosted by the bookstore. On the other is the poem, printed in spindly handwriting, and shorter than most of her work at only a single stanza.

You’ve robbed me again and again.

Siphoned my love. My likeness.

You won’t stop until there’s nothing left.

Until my body is drained of blood,

my clothes decomposed,

my skin peeled from bones.

And on my finger, the one token

you didn’t take, my wedding ring—

taunting me from inside the grave.

A shiver ripples through me.

I gape at the card until it blurs. Then I blink it back to focus and narrow in on the title: “Pre-Mortem.”

Before Death.

Too many thoughts compete in my head. I try to tally the poem’s references—Morgan poaching her past, stealing her “likeness” for his stories; Morgan on the podcast: even when we’re dead and buried, our skeletons will be wearing these rings . But above it all, I hear Piper: You didn’t see her, those last couple weeks before she died. She was really… scared .

Was this her fear? That she’d end up “drained of blood”? The image comes back to me: the master bathroom, all that bone-white tile glistening red. The shine as thick as shellac.

But she couldn’t have known, despite the poem’s title, despite any fear Piper gleaned from her, that she was only weeks from death.

Unless her fear was that Morgan would hurt her. More than just emotionally.

I think of the podcast video, his hand on her knee, how he gripped her so hard she jolted—but his face didn’t flinch.

I shake my head, an ache building in my temples. It could easily be a metaphor; when she wrote of her buried, rotting body, she could have meant it not as truth, but Truth—that Morgan had stolen so much of her story she felt stripped of her identity.

Still, it’s disturbing, how several of the poems she wrote about him lean more sinister than sweet. At the very least, it’s shown me there are sides of him he’s been careful to conceal from me. Or sides I’ve simply missed—me and my “Rosie-colored glasses.”

Then again, if Brad were a writer, he wouldn’t paint me pretty either.

I turn on my phone to access DonorConnect. As I reread Morgan’s messages—as carefully as I did Daphne’s poems, looking for phrases that might open to additional interpretations—I see them again, the little lies he told: about “some driver” who killed the fox on his first date with Daphne, about the line of hers he passed off as his own, about his complete confusion over her outbursts.

Then there’s something else that unnerves me—a sentence I’ve returned to even before today: I’ve never been able to listen to music while I write . In trying to square the discrepancy between his need for “complete silence” and his alibi to police that his music was cranked too loud to hear Daphne’s fall, I guessed it was a trauma response, that he needed silence to write only after she died. But now I see I’d forgotten an important word in that sentence: never . So total and absolute. Encompassing of all times.

Which means Morgan’s alibi might be another lie.

Even still, his messages are packed with reminders of why it’s so easy to fall for him: his sense of humor; his warmth and vulnerability; his generous—even Rosie-colored—view of me. You’ve been inspiring me lately… I think you’re remarkable… These are balms that, for so long, I haven’t believed I deserved. And after showing him more of myself than I ever dared reveal to a man this early, he gave me only reassurances in response: You are not too much… I promise you, your trust has not been misplaced…

Don’t I owe him—or even myself—the chance to prove that’s true? I close my eyes, see his hand near my heart, his fingers almost grazing my scar, and it’s not apprehension I feel; it’s affection, for a man who’d touched so tenderly the places others scraped raw.

And if he’s hidden things from me, if he’s tilted the truth— Well. Come on. Haven’t I done that, too?

I scroll through my phone, reviewing the rest of Morgan’s messages. I’ve been ignoring him the last couple days, left him thinking he moved too fast. But maybe we haven’t moved fast enough. Maybe we’ve both been so cautious we forgot to be honest.

There’s still time. My heart’s still ticking, for now, but my future won’t wait forever.

As I rip back my blankets, Daphne’s books and “Pre-Mortem” poem tumble to the floor, as if reminding me that, without her, I’d have no future at all. I stare at her words on the postcard— you won’t stop until there’s nothing left —and I know I owe her this too. If there’s even the slimmest possibility it was Morgan she was afraid of those weeks before she died, I need to know that. For her and for me. I won’t be the blinking, blindsided lamb in white, sacrificed at an altar again.

I step over the books on my way to the shower. Because it’s time I ask him everything. No circling the subject. No skirting around Daphne’s name. It’s time I reveal to Morgan the woman he’s been messaging—and find out the man he really is.