“So, Haley and Jenna, you two can pair up then. Sound good?” Mrs. Holbarth asked. But both girls knew it wasn’t a question she wanted them to answer.
Haley pulled an empty desk next to Jenna’s with a huff. “This sucks,” she said under her breath.
Jenna glared at her but didn’t care enough to respond. She had enough going on without worrying about their feud that had started in eighth grade.
After a few minutes of working on the writing exercise, Jenna began to relax and figured as long as they stuck to only talking about the assignment things would be fine. But there were other things Haley wanted to talk about.
“So, I heard you had fun after homecoming.”
Jenna knew there was no way she’d make it through the day without having to hear what people knew about homecoming night, but of all people, Haley was the worst to hear it from. “Who did you hear that from?”
Haley smiled. “I don’t remember to be honest because I heard about it in a group text on Sunday.” She shook her head. “Poor Dustin. I’m glad he at least had Delaney to lean on while you were at that party.”
The mention of Dustin infuriated Jenna, making it impossible for her to keep her cool. “What are you talking about?” she hissed.
“Oh, you don’t know?” Haley asked, genuinely surprised.
Jenna clenched her teeth and glanced around the room. Even though everyone appeared to be working, she was certain they were all listening in on her conversation with Haley.
“Corbin had a little too much to drink and passed out pretty early, so Delaney ended up talking to Dustin the whole night. I guess he even drove her home.” She shrugged. “I figured you heard about it already. I mean, they are two of your closest friends, right?”
Jenna felt like slapping the smug expression off Haley’s face. Instead, she didn’t even give her nemesis the satisfaction of a response, which squashed the topic.
By the time lunch rolled around, Jenna was eager to talk to Keeley. Leighton suggested maybe it would be better for her to wait until after school, but Jenna was done waiting. Comforted by the fact that Leighton was watching from across the cafeteria, Jenna approached her usual lunch table. She scanned for only two people: Dustin and Keeley. Dustin wasn’t among them. Wide eyes, whispers, and a gasp or two greeted her when she got there, but she didn’t bother addressing anyone except Keeley.
“Hey, can we please talk?” Jenna asked, crouching down next to Keeley.
Keeley looked over at Jenna, her eyes appearing darker than usual due to the circles around her eyes. Jenna instantly recognized the effects of excessive crying. “I guess so.”
“How about somewhere private?”
As Keeley slid out of her seat, Delaney said, “I’ll save your spot.” Then she looked at Jenna, but Jenna couldn’t bear to meet her gaze.
Jenna led Keeley across the cafeteria and took a seat near Leighton.
“I thought you wanted privacy?” Keeley asked, staring hard at Leighton.
Leighton nodded at her and said, “Hey.” But Keeley just shook her head and sat down next to Jenna, turning her back away from Leighton.
“Keeley, I’m so sorry for not going home with you on Saturday night. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Jenna knew her last statement wasn’t true, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
“Yeah? Why are you sorry? Because of what you ended up doing after I left? Because you were late getting home? Or because someone from our school happened to be there, and now everyone knows what you did?”
“I . . .” Jenna wanted to know so badly who from Briarwood was there that night, but she knew it wasn’t the time to ask. “I’m sorry about all of it, but I’m especially sorry for telling you to leave without me. Not because any of the other stuff that happened after you left, but because I know it probably upset you.”
“Okay,” Keeley said, shaking her head. Jenna knew it didn’t mean she was forgiven, but it was something.
“Keeley, I need to ask you something else.”
“What?”
“Do you know what Dustin knows? And what happened between him and Delaney?”
Keeley scoffed. “Jenna, everyone knows everything. If you didn’t want people to talk about how you stripped down to your bra and underwear in front of a bunch of people you don’t even know, then maybe you shouldn’t have done it. And if you didn’t want people talking about what you did with that guy, then you shouldn’t have done that either. And as for Delaney and Dustin, I think you and Delaney should talk about it . . . or you and Dustin . . . or maybe all three of you.” With that, Keeley stood and was about to leave, but then she turned back and said, “I just . . . I just need some time to cool off. And maybe you need some time to figure out what’s going on with you.”
But at that point, Jenna was barely listening to Keeley. She was too overwhelmed with her feelings of embarrassment and abandonment. First Dustin had abandoned her, and now Keeley was about to as well.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Leighton said with disdain. “Those are some friends you’ve got.” When Jenna didn’t respond, she tried again. “Screw them.” Still, Jenna sat there unresponsive, staring after Keeley.
Chapter Forty-One
Keeley
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Five Days After Jenna’s Disappearance
“Leighton. What are you doing here?”
“Hey, I need to talk to you.”
I step to the side and hold the door open wide for her to come in.
“Keeley?” my mom calls. “Who is it?” I hear her footstep approaching so I don’t answer just yet. When she rounds the corner from the living room, she pauses. “Oh,” she says pleasantly.
“Mom, this is Leighton.” I look at Leighton, who’s already stepping forward to shake my mom’s hand. “Leighton, this is my mom.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Leighton.” My mom smiles at her and then at me. “Keeley, I forgot we need olive oil and parmesan. I’m going to run to the store. Do you need anything?”
“No, thanks.”
“Bye, girls.”
“Bye, nice to meet you,” Leighton says.
“Come on,” I say to her. “My dad is in his office working, so we can talk in my room.”
When we walk into my room, Leighton looks around as she sets her backpack on my bed. “Nice room.”
“Thanks. Hey, what was that commotion at lunch about?”
“Oh, that Haley girl likes to talk a lot of smack about people, so I was just setting her straight.”
“Well, what did she say?” I ask, knowing just how right Leighton is about Haley.
Leighton shakes her head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Pft. Yeah, I do.”
She sighs. “Fine. I overheard her talking about Jenna and the night of homecoming . . .”
Maybe she’s right, maybe I don’t want to know.
“. . .She said something about the guy from Glendale and called Jenna something not so nice. So, suddenly I wasn’t thirsty for my Coke anymore, and I needed a place to pour it.”
Despite what a sour memory the night of homecoming is for me, I can’t help but laugh at Leighton’s choice of words. She laughs too.
“So, what’s up? What did you need to talk to me about?”
Leighton’s expression turns grave, and she grabs her backpack. “I found something.”
“What?” I’m not sure I want to know what she has.
Leighton walks over to my desk and places her backpack on top. Then she unzips it and pulls out a bag that looks familiar. It takes me a second to realize it’s Jenna’s. I watch as Leighton raises the flap of the pink and gray bag and unzips it. I feel like I might pass out wondering what’s inside. I’m confused for a second when Leighton pulls out Jenna’s ratty old Briarwood hoodie, but then I see what’s still inside the bag. Jenna’s diaries.
“Where did you get those?”
“Jenna brought this bag to my house the first time s
he slept over and left it there. I reminded her about it a couple times, but she asked if she could just leave it there in case she slept over again.”
“Did you read them?”
“Parts,” Leighton says, glancing at the floor.
“Well, is there anything revealing in them?”
“Yes . . . but—”
“Then maybe we should give them to Mrs. Kemp. Because maybe the police can—”
“Keeley,” Leighton says, shaking her head vehemently. “You need to read them first.” She lifts the stack of journals and holds them out to me.
“Why?” I ask, carefully taking Jenna’s diaries and transferring them to my bed. “Just tell me what you read.”
“I can’t. I promised Jenna I wouldn’t, and I’m not breaking the promise. So I need you to read them and see for yourself.”
“Wait, so you knew about whatever it is before you read them?”
“Yeah.” Leighton starts pacing my room.
“I don’t understand,” I say taking a seat on my bed next to the diaries. What would Jenna share with Leighton, someone she’d only known for a couple months, that she wouldn’t share with me or Delaney?
“Just read some of the entries,” she pleads. “Just pick one and start reading. Trust me, you’ll understand.”
“Okay,” I say, splaying the diaries out in a line across the width of my bed. I open each one to see when they start then put them in chronological order. Leighton glances at me every few seconds as she continues to pace. “Are you sure this is all of them?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because the last one ended in June, so where’s the one . . .” Suddenly, I remember where the next one in line is. “Never mind.”
“Why never mind? Leighton asks.
“Because Mrs. Kemp said Jenna threw it away the night of homecoming when they got into a huge argument.”
“That sucks,” Leighton says with a sigh. “So, are you going to read or what?”
I nod, grab the most recent diary which appears to cover our sophomore year, and place it in my lap. Leighton takes a seat at my desk and pulls out her Chromebook.
I read a few entries and become anxious because I still don’t know what Leighton wants me to see so bad. So far, it’s all normal stuff like how excited Jenna was about cross country, how annoying her little sister could be, how lucky she was that a guy like Dustin liked her, how happy she was when I gave her a photo album for her birthday, and details about her runs. But then I read something weird about how she’s not like other girls when it comes to liking guys . . . about how she was never like us.
October 5, 2016
Dear Diary,
I wonder if I’ll ever be interested in guys the way “normal” girls are. Ever. He took that from me. And now I’m afraid that I’m scarred for life and doomed to never be able to have a relationship because of everything that happened. (All those things that my nightmares have been made of for years.) I’m not saying I don’t think a certain guy is cute. I just feel like it wouldn’t be fair to him to try to be more than friends.
Do you think I’ll ever be normal?
~Jenna
He took that from me. I read the line at least ten times. He took what from her? Her ability to be interested in guys? And who is she talking about? I read the entry to Leighton and ask, “What do you think she’s talking about?”
“Just keep reading,” she says.
So I do. I reread this same entry a few more times and obsess over the part about Jenna wondering if she’s scarred for life and doomed to never be able to have a relationship because of everything that happened. I read this part at least twenty times. At some point, my brain wanders back to seventh grade when I clearly remember being into guys. Delaney and I must have been the most boy-crazy girls in our grade. I thought Jenna was too. She talked all about who liked who and helped us write stupid love letters. She even wrote a few herself. Was it all an act? Was she pretending to be interested? It makes me wonder how well we know Jenna.
None of the entries I read next raise any red flags. Jenna wrote about things like which shoes she wore to go running, how far she went, and which course she took. If I was with her, she wrote about how trying to match my stride made her run faster one day but slower the next. She wrote about how she felt while she was running, what she thought about while running, what the temperature was, and what she ate before and after. Even after reading all of it, I wouldn’t say she’s obsessed, but I would say she’s in love with routine and recordkeeping. She also mentioned conversations I remember having at the merry-go-round. This was around the time when we talked about the order in which we’d get our licenses and what colleges we’d apply to. Of course, we all planned to apply to the same places and would only agree to go somewhere that all of us could go. The only requests Jenna had was that it couldn’t be Northwestern because that’s where her dad went and that she wanted to go somewhere at least an hour away from home.
Frustrated, I grab the diary from when we were twelve and going into middle school and open it to a random page.
August 25, 2013
Dear Diary,
I have the best friends ever. They’ve been such an important part of my life ever since we met in kindergarten. Remember when we were The Three Little Pigs for Halloween? Now that I think about it, we always wore costumes that went together. Three peas in a pod, The Three Stooges, The Three Blind Mice—anything you can think of that comes in threes. I wonder if my mom and dad remember calling us a three-ring circus. Haha. Anyway, I haven’t written in almost a week, so I figured I’d pop in and write something.
This year is going to be great. I can’t believe we’re going into middle school!
This entry makes me feel horrible, and I wonder if Leighton is playing some prank on me. Then I flip the page to an entry that sends chills down my spine and turns my entire world upside down.
August 30, 2013
Dear Diary,
What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my parents? Why would they leave me alone with him?
You’re right. It’s not their fault. Maybe it’s my fault. But what am I supposed to do?
“What?” I whisper, glancing over at Leighton. She stops typing and turns in my desk chair to face me. I return my attention to the entry.
I thought it was over and sometimes I even thought I dreamed it all. Or nightmared it. (Is that a word? It should be.) I thought maybe all the memories were fake. My teachers always say I have a great imagination. Or maybe I’ve watched too many movies on the Lifetime channel with my mom. I always pray, asking God to make sure it doesn’t happen again or to erase the thoughts from my head. I’m starting to think he can’t hear me.
I glance up at Leighton again, my brow creased. She stands and walks over to stand beside me while I continue reading.
I can only remember bits and pieces from this time, just like all the other times. After, it’s always like I was a stranger, watching from outside. (So maybe it is all in my head? I can’t figure it out.) I jumped when he knocked and said he’d picked up a DVD copy of Pitch Perfect and would I like to watch it. I thought, “say no . . . tell him you’re sick. Whatever you do don’t let him in!” But he came in before I had a chance to move, and then my brain screamed at me to get out! Leave the room! Then I realized I’m old enough now to leave the house too. But where would I go? I don’t remember what I said to him as I rushed past him to get out of my room. His smell makes me sick, and I’m scared I’ll never get it out of my nose. Even shoving cotton balls up my nostrils doesn’t work. I still smell him. I could smell him following me. But there’s never any way for me to escape.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” I whisper, fearful of what’s coming next. Leighton sits next to me but stares across the room.
When we first sat down, he acted normal and I thought maybe since he’s a grown-up now he wouldn’t touch me. He asked questions. How’s school? Are you still running a lot? Have you taught Lulu any new tri
cks? I started thinking maybe he wanted to forget too, and I answered his questions. Then the movie started, but after a few minutes, he asked more questions. Questions that made me feel sick because I knew he was the same. Have I been on a date yet? Do I have a crush on anyone? Have I gotten my period yet? That’s when I thought talking to him might make him think I’m okay with everything he’s done to me. So I told myself to go back to my room. To run. Close the door. Push something in front of it so he can’t get in. Just don’t talk to him. Don’t even look at him. And I was about to run. But then he asked about Shaina. She was at a sleepover, so I knew she was safe. But I still felt like I had to protect her, to make him not think about her. So I froze like all the other times.
Like all the other times. I read it again, and tears well up in my eyes. I don’t know if I can stomach this anymore. Then I think about how Jenna must have felt, and I press on.
I can hear his voice right now like he’s next to me whispering in my ear, but I don’t know what he’s saying because I try not to listen. I can feel his clammy hands on my face and neck. And I can feel him petting my hair like I’m a dog. Sometimes he does it too hard and rips out strands of my hair. I think this is what crazy people feel like.
The next thing I remember is staring at the TV and the sound of water running in the bathroom. When he came back, he grabbed the package of Twizzlers off the coffee table and sat down next to me. Then he restarted the movie. I didn’t really watch, because I couldn’t see anything. It was like when you close your eyes and all you can see is black, except my eyes were wide open. I think my brain was rebooting or something, sort of like at school when a computer freezes, and you have to turn it off and then back on to unfreeze it. I wish my brain could restart like that.
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