SPIN

by K. J. Farnham

  When we get downstairs, Mrs. Kemp is sitting at the kitchen table. Her head is down, and she’s sobbing. Delaney is patting her back.

  “Mom.” Shaina rushes to her allowing Delaney to step back.

  I pat my bag and nod toward the front door. I feel bad for Mrs. Kemp because there’s nothing we can do or say to make her feel better, but I ask anyway, “Is there something we can do to help?”

  “No, you guys just go,” Shaina says as she cranes her neck in an attempt to look our direction while she hugs her mom’s shoulders.

  We retrieve our coats quickly and rush outside. Mrs. Kemp’s crying can still be heard from the porch, but by the time we step off the Kemps’ property, their house looks perfectly normal in the dim dusk lighting.

  “So, two things. Why didn’t you warn me that Shaina was bringing water up for me? And why was Mrs. Kemp crying?”

  “Hey,” she throws her hands up in the air. “It all happened so fast. Shaina walked in. Mrs. Kemp tossed the water to her and asked her to bring it to you. Then she immediately dropped a serving platter into my hands and started piling beef and potatoes and other junk from the slow cooker onto it.”

  We stop and wait for a red light. “Yeah, well, she walked in while I was digging around in Jenna’s closet. I made up the stupidest excuse. And what about Mrs. Kemp? Did the food not turn out?”

  “That’s not funny, Keeley.”

  “I know, that was a dumb thing to say . . . So, what made Mrs. Kemp snap? Why was she crying?”

  “I’m not one-hundred percent sure. All I know is she got a call from the police, but I have no idea what they said to her. When she hung up, she started crying. That’s pretty much when you and Shaina walked in.”

  As soon as we get to the privacy of my room, I remove my backpack and retrieve Jenna’s diary. Then we sit on my bed, and I start reading the entries aloud.

  October 2, 2017

  Dear Diary,

  School was so-so today. I felt so tired in first period that I kept dozing off. You know, when your head bobs a few times and it wakes you up? Finally, I asked if I could stand at the back of the room for a few minutes to get my blood pumping. That worked . . .

  “Skip ahead. This entry doesn’t say much of anything,” Delaney says.

  So, we skip to an entry on the fourth, then to an entry on the eighth. Then we jump ahead a couple pages to the twelfth but still don’t find much of anything.

  “What the heck? She didn’t mention anything about any of us or about homecoming. She doesn’t even say anything about Leighton in here. What kind of diary is this? Go to the last entry. When was it written?” Delaney sounds equally as confused as I am.

  October 25, 2017

  Dear Diary,

  I’m so tired. And I miss my friends. I think it might be time for me to tell everyone the truth.

  ~Jenna

  Delaney and I look at each other, more confused than ever.

  “The truth?” I say, shaking my head.

  Delaney shrugs. “I don’t understand the point of keeping a diary like this. It’s just a bunch of unimportant stuff. I mean, except for this last entry. But no one will know what it means.”

  “Unless Leighton knows about a secret she was keeping,” I say.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the chat room was the secret. Maybe she met someone in there and ran off with him. Maybe the rumors about her running away are true.” Delaney sighs. “Well, this was a waste of time.”

  “At least we know she misses us.”

  My phone vibrates. “It’s Leighton,” I say to Delaney as I open the text.

  Leighton: Did you get the diary?

  “When did you give her your number?”

  “Right after school. She stopped at my locker at the end of the day so we could exchange. I guess maybe she does really care about Jenna. She wants to know if we got the diary.”

  Keeley: Yeah, it’s useless. Looked for her old ones too but couldn’t find them.

  “Hey girls?” my mom says, knocking.

  “Yeah?”

  She opens the door when I respond. “How was school today? I heard Detective Collins was there interviewing kids?”

  Delaney and I both nod, and my mom sighs, probably because she has no idea what else to say. None of us do.

  “Delaney are you joining us for dinner tonight?” she finally asks. “Wait, don’t you usually have cheer practice on Monday nights?”

  “Um,” Delaney looks at me, and I widen my eyes at her because we both know she’s terrible under pressure, “not tonight I don’t.”

  “Oh, okay, well we have plenty of taco fixings if you’d like to eat with us.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Simon.”

  “So, what are you girls doing?” I snatch Jenna’s diary off the bed when my mom glances at it, piquing her curiosity. “What’s that?”

  “It’s . . .”

  “It’s Jenna’s diary,” Delaney says, making my jaw drop.

  “What?” my mom exclaims. “Why on earth do you have her diary and how did you get it?”

  “Really, Delaney?” I say, ignoring my mom for now.

  “What? There’s nothing in it, so what does it matter?”

  “I don’t care if there’s nothing in it. How did you get it?” my mom asks, closing the distance between us and outstretching her hand until I hand it to her. “How did you get it?”

  “We went over to the Kemps’ house after school today.”

  “Oh, so Bonnie knows you have it?”

  I shake my head.

  “All right, let’s go. You girls are going to return this, and you’re going to apologize for taking it without permission. How do you know the police won’t need to see this?”

  “Honestly, there’s nothing important in it,” Delaney says.

  My mom looks from Delaney to me, undeterred. “Up. Both of you. Let’s go.”

  “Keeley, Delaney, you’re back.” Mrs. Kemp pulls the door open wide, and we file inside.

  “Hi, Bonnie,” my mom says, giving Mrs. Kemp a hug as soon as she’s inside.

  “What’ going on? Wait, did you—”

  We all shake our heads, so she doesn’t finish her question.

  “Bonnie, the girls have something to return to you.”

  My mom nods me forward, so I pull Jenna’s diary from my bag and hand it to Mrs. Kemp.

  “Where did you . . .” Her eyes light up with recognition. “You girls took Jenna’s diary earlier? Why?”

  “Because we thought maybe there was something in it to give us a clue. Something to help us find her,” I say, glancing over at Delaney. “But it’s—”

  “Useless,” Mrs. Kemp says, finishing my sentence. “Joseph looked at it on Saturday. I just couldn’t bring myself to, though,” she says, shaking her head. “Not after I betrayed her trust and read an entry in it the night of homecoming. I’m sure she told you girls about that.”

  “Actually no,” I say, confused. “She never mentioned it. Then again, homecoming was the last time either of us talked to Jenna.”

  “Oh, I . . .” Mrs. Kemp’s eyes become cloudy, and she winces. “I didn’t know. She even told me the two of you would be where she was going most nights when she went out. After that night, I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I just wanted her to feel like I trusted her, and I wanted her to trust me again. I screwed up,” she says, covering her face with her hands. “I screwed up so bad.”

  “Oh, Bonnie.” My mom puts an arm around Mrs. Kemp and leads her into the living room where they take a seat on the couch. Delaney and I follow and sit too.

  “Mrs. Kemp?” I ask. She looks up and dries her face with a tissue my mom has handed her. “You said you read an entry in her diary on the night of homecoming but based on the dates in the one we just returned to you, it couldn’t have been that one. Do you know where the one you read is?”

  “Jenna . . .” Mrs. Kemp says, shaking her head and looking up at the ceiling as if trying to contain more tears, “. . . threw it a
way that night. She was so angry with me. But I only looked because she’d broken curfew and you girls were already home asleep and . . . I wondered if maybe she’d gotten back together with Dustin and didn’t tell me. It was wrong, and I’ll always regret breaking her trust like that.”

  I sigh, frustrated that the plan to get useful information from Jenna’s diaries has fizzled.

  “Girls?” Mrs. Kemp asks, her tone nasally, “have either of you ever heard of ChillChat.com?”

  Delaney and I look at each other, and we both nod. Delaney answers, “Leighton told us Jenna was supposed to meet someone she was chatting with on there. They were supposed to meet on Friday night, but Jenna canceled.”

  Mrs. Kemp’s face goes pale. “I wasn’t aware of that . . . But, Detective Collins called today—while you girls were here actually—to let us know that they’ve tracked down a man named Jacob Bickers. Jenna had been chatting with him on that site. I wonder if he’s the man she was supposed to meet.”

  “Oh, God,” my mom whispers, clasping her hands together the way she does when she’s nervous. Delaney stares at the floor with her mouth agape, and my heart begins to race. None of us say it, but this could either be a good thing or a bad thing. Good because maybe this Jacob guy knows where Jenna might be. Bad because maybe he had something to do with her disappearance. Or maybe he knows nothing, and we’re all tensed up for no reason.

  “Do you know if they’ve interviewed him yet?” my mom asks.

  Mrs. Kemp shakes her head. “The police stated he wasn’t available today but has agreed to go in first thing tomorrow morning.” She lowers her face into her hands, and her body shudders. My mom places a hand on her back, and I rush to sit on the other side of her. “I have a really bad feeling about this,” she says through her hands. “I don’t know what will be worse—if he knows where she is or if he doesn’t. This is all my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t been so hard on her after she started dating Dustin, and maybe if I hadn’t invaded her privacy . . .”

  “No one is to blame, Bonnie,” my mom says.

  I can’t help but think she’s wrong.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Monday, September 25, 2017

  Four Weeks Before Jenna’s Disappearance

  September 25, 2017

  Dear Diary,

  I may have had the most miserable day of my life today.

  Walking through the doors this morning was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I felt like everyone’s eyes were on me, and most of them really were. Lunch was horrible with everyone trying to pretend nothing happened at the party on Saturday, but I knew it was the only thing on everyone’s mind. Dustin didn’t even sit with us today, so of course neither did Tommy. I’m not sure why they didn’t take Eli with them! (Corbin was fine—he was actually the only person who looked me in the eyes on purpose.) I wanted to get up and leave within the first few minutes, but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed by the fear of getting up and having people look at me, walking away from the table and having more people look at me, and then even more people would have been looking at me as I walked out the door. Then there’d be more people. It doesn’t matter if people were at the party or not, everyone has heard some version of me standing on the stairs and screaming at Dustin that night. Jenna Kemp, 2016 homecoming princess, has lost her mind. And I did—on Saturday night and then AGAIN today at lunch when I heard Delaney talking about babysitting for Stella again. I honestly can’t even remember how it all happened because I was so angry, but I told Delaney I couldn’t believe she would still babysit for them even after I asked her not to, and then while I was gathering my things to leave, I thanked Eli and Keeley for even bothering to ask me how I felt about them going to homecoming together or how I felt about them dating each other at all. Keeley and Delaney thought I was just drunk or high on Saturday night, none of them took me seriously. So, I made it clear and told them to STAY AWAY from my family. Made it real easy for them and everyone else in the cafeteria to understand. After I left, Dustin showed up out of nowhere, and the first thing out of his mouth was “What’s wrong with you?” I couldn’t help but think is it me or is it all of you? So I asked him back, “What’s wrong with you?” And he told me he’s tired of the roller coaster I’ve put him on and he’s tired of feeling like I don’t feel the same way about him as he does about me. When I tried to walk away, he grabbed my arm, and after what happened on Saturday night, I’m done. We’re done.

  Closed off. Scared. Dying inside. That’s how HE’S made me feel. And now nothing in my life is going right.

  ~Jenna

  You started out as my friend.

  You kept me safe and promised our fun times would never end.

  But then you changed and wanted more.

  I didn’t know any better, so I just laid there on the floor.

  It hurt more than any feeling I’ve ever known.

  Physically and emotionally broken, I’m all alone.

  I don’t want you near, yet here you are.

  But the pain is the same whether you’re near or far.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Leighton

  Monday, October 30, 2017

  Three Days After Jenna’s Disappearance

  Keeley: Yeah, it’s useless. Looked for her old ones too but couldn’t find them.

  Sighing, I fall back onto my pillow and place my phone face down on my chest. Even though I didn’t think it was a good idea for Keeley and Delaney to steal Jenna’s diary, I was hoping it would reveal something—anything that might help us figure out where she is.

  I’ve gotten to know Jenna pretty well over the past three weeks, and there are two things I know for sure.

  One, she’s tired of pretending to be something she isn’t. This is a direct quote from her and the reason why I’ve never tried to tell her what she should or shouldn’t do. Some people might say that’s being a bad friend, but I disagree. I just realized she didn’t need another person telling her who to be.

  Two, she wouldn’t run away like some idiots are saying she did. She’d just decided to expose what her sicko cousin did to her, so there’s no way. I feel like punching a wall when I wonder if Thomas, Jake B., or some other chat room guy had something to do with her disappearance. My hope is that my tip about Jenna using ChillChat will help the cops figure something out. But what kind of hope is that? What are the odds anything they’d find out would be good?

  For the first time since my dad ruined my life, I cry sad, hopeless tears. The kind of tears you cry when your dog dies or you lose a best friend. As I walk over to my dresser for a tissue, Jenna’s bag catches my eye. I’ve gotten so used to it hanging on the hook on my wall that it’s begun to blend in. She brought it here the first time she spent the night and hasn’t taken it home since. I reminded her about it once, but she asked if it was okay if she just left it here because all it has in it is a change of clothes and a toothbrush in case she sleeps over again. Only, now that I think about it, the bag has never moved, and I’ve never seen her touch it.

  I crumple the soggy tissue and toss it on my dresser, then I grab Jenna’s bag and sit down with it on my bed. Something is telling me to open it, but I’m struggling with the idea of invading her privacy. I contemplate for a few minutes, wondering if the fact that she hasn’t called or texted for three days is reason enough to defend going through her things. Finally, I flip open the flap and unzip the large canvas pouch. My shoulders drop when I look inside and see a Briarwood High sweatshirt. I reach inside and pull it out expecting to find more clothes underneath, but instead, I see a stack of notebooks like the one I’ve seen Jenna write in a few times. The moment I pull out the tattered stack, I realize what I’ve found.

  Jenna’s old diaries.

  I stare at the stack of Jenna’s private thoughts, and a flurry of questions run through my mind. What should I do with them? Should I give them to the police or Jenna’s parents? Should I tell Keeley and Delaney about them?

  Should I read them?<
br />
  Jenna said she’s been having nightmares about her cousin for years, so I’m guessing she wrote a lot about him and what he did to her. So, if I give them to Jenna’s parents, and they find out about Thomas, what if they don’t want to make what happened public? What if Mrs. Kemp wants to protect her nephew? What if they decide not to tell the police even though her cousin might have had something to do with her disappearance?

  I need to find out how much she’s written about what happened to her.

  Before I can change my mind, I open a random page of the diary on top of the stack.

  August 25, 2013

  Dear Diary,

  Today me and my friends went to the beach again. It was so much fun! We jumped off the end of the pier and made designs in the sand. Then Mom took us to get ice cream. I wish summer could last forever, and I hope I can be happy like this forever.

  ~Jenna

  The next couple of entries are similar. Jenna sounds like a normal twelve-year-old. I skim a lot of a really long entry because it’s all about her dog and all the tricks she can do. Just as I’m beginning to wonder if maybe Jenna didn’t mention anything about Thomas, I flip to the next entry.

  August 30, 2013