And so I let go.
And I hit the ground running.
—
AS I ENTERED THE SCHOOL’S lit but empty hallway, I heard cheers from the gym, followed by the herdlike sound of feet pounding back and forth.
This time I didn’t knock before entering the bathroom. This time I didn’t care if I startled some guy into hastily buttoning his fly, didn’t care if someone saw me enter.
It was empty, though, and that did make it easier, not having to deal with someone asking me questions, asking me to explain. Running here, I’d worried that Mrs. Hayes might have arranged to have another layer or two of paint applied after our conversation, rendering the graffiti invisible. Fortunately, that had not happened. It was still there, obvious when you knew where to look.
ANNA CUTTER IS A WHORE.
This time, it felt different. Seeing it. The whole room, in fact, felt different, although nothing had changed—the same musty air, the same red brick that this time I left along the side of the wall. It felt different because this time I didn’t feel like I was alone. This time, in my mind, Mr. Matthews stood beside me, his arms folded. I saw him reach out and lightly touch the ink, still drying. And then I heard him say it again: I don’t think by the end the two of them were that close.
I’d thought those words were nothing more than an attempt to make me feel better, but when I compared the writing to the letters in the notebook, I knew he’d been right. By the end, they weren’t close at all.
Because now I knew who Anna had sent the second selfie to.
And I suspected that I also knew why someone might have two flasks, why there’d been no toxicology report.
Because, like the police chief said, parents protect their children.
So on my way out, I stooped down and picked up the brick.
I’m buttoning my dress now. Dabbing on some lavender perfume. It’s overkill, maybe, but it feels right somehow, treating this like a first date. A new beginning.
Lily should be arriving soon. She’ll drop me off before she heads to the party at the quarry.
I wonder if I should tell her. Not tonight, but soon.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s too late for me to try to be a good friend.
THE BRICK WENT THROUGH THE car window more easily than I expected.
I braced myself for an alarm to start blaring, for someone to rush over and ask what the hell I was doing.
No alarm went off. There were no footsteps. Perhaps, for once, things would go my way.
I extracted the brick and set it down on the asphalt. Then, belatedly, I wrapped my sleeve around my hand as I reached back inside to unlock the door, grazing the glass. Blood began to seep from my knuckles.
I found the first flask almost immediately, nestled inside the glove box. The second proved much harder to locate. It took me a good few minutes before I managed to find it, shoved elbow-deep beneath the front seat. I set it beside the other one on the hood of the car. They were almost identical, distinguished only by a large red dot on the side of the one from beneath the seat. I uncapped them both and put them, one at a time, up to my nose. One of them smelled like alcohol. The other, the flask with the red dot, smelled like nothing at all. Mixed with a drink, there would have been no way for Anna to detect it.
Nick was her destination, I thought, but this happened before she got there.
I recapped both flasks, holding them tightly in the crook of my arm.
“What are you doing?”
I swung around, hoping it might be anyone other than who it sounded like. But my luck had run out. Because there he was. Charlie. Staring at his shattered car window.
I didn’t really know what to say, so I looked around the parking lot. It was dark and quiet and we appeared to be very much alone.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the court?” I asked.
“I got fouled out,” he said. “Asshole coach had it in for me. Then I checked my phone and found an alert about someone breaking into my car. Thought I should check it out. Definitely didn’t expect to find you.” His tone was curiously neutral, and I noticed that his posture was looser than normal, almost like he was swaying. He may not have been drunk, exactly, but he certainly wasn’t sober.
“I thought you didn’t drink before games.”
“The game is over. Over for me, anyway. So I helped myself to some of Trent’s water bottle o’ vodka—made sitting on the bench a little easier.” He took a step closer, and the hoodie he’d pulled over his basketball jersey swung open. Right in the center of his jersey was a huge number five. Another piece slotted in.
“Power forward, number five,” I said. “PF5.”
His eyebrows flicked up before he managed to pull them down again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“It’s how you entered your number in Anna’s phone.”
He frowned. “I thought her phone was broken. That’s what my da—” Then he stopped short. But not short enough.
“That’s what your dad told you?” I filled in.
He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. “It’s a small town, and people talk, Jess. I’m sure I’m not the only person who heard about the dead girl’s crushed phone.”
The dead girl.
“You were sleeping with her,” I said. “The least you could do is use her name.”
He began to shake his head, but I cut him off.
“Don’t deny it. I know you guys were together.”
“How?” he asked. Not like he was admitting it—more like he was testing me, preparing to disprove my claim.
All the threads, all the things that got me here felt too convoluted, too tenuous. So I
