Short story: The Halo Effect, by Hannah Petuha

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Short story: The Halo Effect, by Hannah Petuha

I first met Neve at a house party in Mount Maunganui. She was tall, blonde and tanned. An influencer typecast. She wore a string of pearls and a shell necklace that sat around her collarbones, and a silk dress that barely passed her crotch. Her hair was in tight curls—I couldn’t figure out if they were natural or artificially crisp—and her lips were an iridescent shade of gloss that glimmered like the surface of a tide pool, so of course when sh…