She stood up. Smoothed her shirt. Walked to the bedroom door.
The third tape. A woman with short dark hair, freckles. She didn’t wait for the question.
Marcus appeared in the doorway. He was holding a six-pack of ginger beer. He smiled—that sweet, crinkly-eyed smile she had fallen for.
“Starling?” he called. “I got that ginger beer you like.” Girlfriend Tapes
And more like a countdown.
Not a number. Not a name. Just that.
The woman laughed. “You first.”
The tape flickered, jumped. Then the same living room, but different. The auburn-haired woman was crying. Her lip was split. The camera trembled.
It started, as most bad ideas do, with a locked drawer in a shared apartment.
She looked at the drawer. The remaining tapes. Four, five, six. Each one a woman who had loved him. Each one a woman who had tried to leave. She stood up
GIRLFRIEND TAPES.
The first tape was dated seven years ago. She slid it into the vintage player he kept under the TV. Static hissed, then resolved into a grainy image of a living room she didn’t recognize. A young woman with auburn hair sat on a floral couch, reading a book. She looked up, smiled at the camera—at Marcus, behind it.
Inside wasn't money, or drugs, or another woman’s earring. It was a row of old VHS tapes, the plastic shells yellowed with age. Each one had a label, written in Marcus’s neat, architect’s handwriting. The third tape