by Angel Lawson
I lean forward, seeing a shine in her eyes, and sensing that we were getting to the crux of the story.
“I crept downstairs and carefully opened the front door. I’m this close to calling out their names when I hear that clanking sound again, followed by a long hiss. Then I see it.”
“See what?” But I have an idea.
“In bright red spray paint, the words 'Fuck You' were scrawled across the front of the garage.” She blinks rapidly. “I look over and see them cackling with laughter—followed by a deeper, familiar voice. Finn. He’d been in on it, too."
“Wow,” I say, fighting back a wave of sheer anger. “Kenley, that’s really awful. And Finn…are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“I never saw the painting,” I tell her. “Never heard a thing about this.”
“I went to bed, and I guess my father got up, cleaned and painted it before nine a.m. No one ever mentioned it again. It was like it never happened.”
“Except it did, and you knew exactly who did it.”
“It was like a punch in the gut. They were my friends—Rose was my best friend. I felt so dumb, but my mom, when she noticed I wasn’t rushing out to meet them like I’d done every other day this summer. I didn’t give her details, but she encouraged me to try to work it out. And I really didn’t have much choice. I had no other friends. Rose and I were so wound up in one another that without her, I had nothing.” She uses the sleeve of her shirt to wipe her eyes. I want to tell her that she had more than Rose, that she had me, but the truth is that after this happened our group fell apart, and she and I barely spoke anymore. Rose and Finn pretty much ignored me, too.
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I sucked it up and went to the pool. We went every day and sat in the same seats by the diving boards. They were already there, but not in our normal spots. They were by the lifeguard stand, where the upperclassmen hang out, wearing new, matching bikinis. Even from across the pool I could hear Juliette telling some wild story about being at Rich’s house the night before. Rose saw me, blinked, and looked past me like I never existed. I’d been officially cut out.”
We sit across from one another in silence, me hating myself for not having the nerve to get up and comfort her. I didn’t do it then and I’m still scared to do it now.
“I don’t blame you for never speaking to either of them again.”
“Yeah, some days I agree. Other days I miss her so much that it hurts just like it did back then.” She swallows and whispers, “What if she’s really gone?”
I start to move—standing to sit next to her on the couch. I may not have comforted her then, but it’s time to man up and do it now.
Except I never get the chance.
Because right when I stand the cottage door opens, the hinges whining from disuse. My heart jumps in my chest, startled, and Kenley’s jaw drops.
I don’t know who either of us would have expected out in that little cottage in the woods, but it certainly wasn’t who peeked their heads through the door.
10
Ezra
I blink twice trying to reconcile what I’m seeing. Never in a million years would I have thought Kenley and Ozzy would be in the cottage. From the flash of guilt that flickers across Oz’s face, I wonder if we interrupted something. Were they about to hook up? Had they already hooked up? I notice Kenley’s red eyes and nose. Nah, she’s too freaked out about Rose.
Join the club.
“What are you doing here?” Ozzy asks, he shoots an accusing look at Holloway. Kenley doesn’t even look at him.
“Things are getting tense back at school,” I reply. “We thought we’d lay low for a while until things calmed down.”
I step into the cottage. It’s such a weird place, but I’ve used it consistently through the years. First, because Rose and I would use it to meet up; later, as a place to hide out when I needed a break.
Finn hesitates in the doorway, well aware of the hostility coming his way. I sit in one of the armchairs and nod for Finn to come inside. With a set, tense jaw, he does.
Soon we’re sitting across from one another, room quiet. One thing runs through my mind and something tells me it’s on their minds as well. The last time we were all together like this, alone, was in this very cottage, smoking the weed I found in my brother’s room. The only difference is that Rose isn’t here, and none of us are really friends anymore.
Finn shifts next to me, the leather on his letterman’s jacket creaking as he shifts uncomfortably. I reach into my pocket and pull out a baggie. There’s already a rolled joint inside.
“You’re kidding,” Kenley says. “You think now is the right time to get high?”
“KK, now is the perfect time to get high.” I pull out my lighter. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a little bit on edge.”
“Did you just call me KK?” she asks.
I shrug. The old nickname slipped right off my tongue. I thumb the lighter, igniting the flame, then hold it to the end of the joint while I take a long, needy drag. The burn feels good. I hold it out to Finn.
To my surprise, he takes it.
Across from me, Kenley watches Finn take a drag. Her expression is less accusatory than what she’d given me, but that makes sense. She’s been in love with Holloway since we were kids, which sucks for the rest of us, because Kenley Keene is a catch. Pretty, sexy, and smart.
Finn holds out the joint, and to my surprise Ozzy takes it without the slightest bit of hesitation. I can’t help but smirk. Oz is a fucking enigma. He wears that stupid cap all the time and always has his nose in a damn book. Rose would be pissed he was here, which makes it even funnier.
He finishes and skips over Kenley, whose big blue eyes are about to bug out of her head. Oz holds the joint, now half the size, back out to me. I’m about to take it when small, slim fingers snatch it out of the air. She doesn’t look at any of us, just down at the joint, but the three of us, me, Finn and Oz, we share a glance. Over the last few years, while Rose and Juliette drifted into partying and flirting with bad behavior, Kenley stuck to the straight and narrow.
Today, things are different.
Today everything changes, and you can feel it settle over the room like the haze from the burning weed. It’s obvious when the good girl across from me wraps her pink lips around the end of the joint and takes a long drag.
I swear something in my belly twitches, seeing her like that.
Until she coughs so hard I’m shocked her guts didn’t dislodge.
She grins sheepishly and hands the joint back to me, our fingers grazing and a flicker of comradery passing through us, passing through all of us.
I take another drag, wanting to hold onto it while it lasts.
11
Kenley
“Do you really think she’s gone?” I ask, once the cannabis loosens my tongue. That’s why I smoked it. Being with Ozzy is one thing. Although we’re not close, there’s no bad blood. But sitting in tight quarters with Finn and Ezra, I needed something to get through the moment.
My question is directed at Finn. He’s the one that would know. His sharp jaw tenses and he stares at his knees. He hasn’t spoken a word since he and Ezra arrived.
“The real question,” Ezra says with a dark chuckle, “is do you think she jumped off the bridge?”
“Shut up,” Ozzy mutters, glancing between me and Finn.
“It’s a fair question,” Ezra says. “Her car was found on the bridge. It wouldn’t be the first suicide from that location.”
Everyone knows the story of Skip Carson, who came back from two tours in Afghanistan and leapt off the bridge.
“Why would she do that?” I ask. “She had everything going for her. Smart, popular, rich. In nine months she’d be out of here—at the school of her choice.”
Or at least, that’s how it appeared. Something nags at me, though. My last, unexpected interaction with her. She hadn’t been any of those things.
“Popular
ity doesn’t mean you don’t have problems,” Ezra says. “I mean, her life looked pretty fucking shallow to me. Maybe she peaked too soon and realized nothing for her would get better after high school.”
He smashes the tiny end of the joint, extinguishing it with his fingers, and tossing it in the ashtray.
“What do you think?” Ozzy asks Finn.
I don’t expect him to answer, but he exhales and runs that hand through his hair. “I think she took off.”
“Without you?” I blurt.
Our eyes meet. There’s hurt in the vibrant green.
“She’d been going through something lately—what, I don’t really know. She’d become distant, and although we’d always agreed to go to the university together, she started talking about getting away—like far away. She kept bragging, some money stashed that her parents didn’t know about.”
Ezra, Ozzy, and I gape at Finn. It’s the most I’ve heard him speak in a long time, and the information? Well, it’s a little shocking.
“Did you tell the police all that?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I figured if she really wanted the hell out of Thistle Cove that badly, I’d let her get a head start.”
There’s a mix of bitterness and sadness in his voice and he leans back in his seat, obviously done talking.
Ozzy tugs at his cap.
“I’m with Finn, she bolted. I think this whole thing is just about creating drama. Everyone is all riled up and talking about her and in a few days, she’ll reemerge with some fantastical story about how she flew to Paris and forgot to tell everyone.”
“Harsh, but possible,” Ezra says.
“It wouldn’t be the first time she’s pulled a prank.” He glances at me. “Really, I just think Rose is too selfish to take her own life. Where’s the fun in that? But having the whole town wondering where you are? Disrupting the school year? What better way to make a splash.” He winces. “Sorry, wrong word choice.”
He has a point. I absorb the information, trying to process everything.
I’m deep in thought when Ezra kicks the toe of my shoe with his. “What about you, KK, she was your bestie, what do you think?”
Finn’s eyes flick up, curious. My cheeks heat, either from the weed or the attention. Probably due to the former, I say something I never normally would.
“I think that it’s possible that Rose didn’t run away and she didn’t jump.”
“Then what?” Finn asks, speaking to me directly for the first time.
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Maybe she was pushed.”
“What?” Ozzy asks. “Why?”
I don’t tell them what she said to me that night at the pool. The way she looked at me. “Because Rose was the kind of person all the other girls wanted to be, and all the boys wanted to possess. She was also the kind of person that could never be owned.”
“What are you talking about, Kenley?” Finn asks, his face turning pale.
I shrug, feeling hot, like I’ve said too much. “I don’t know. You asked what I thought and that’s it. I don’t have a reason.” Just a feeling. “Believe it or not.”
It doesn’t matter what I think, it never has, and Finn jumps up and rushes to the door.
Ozzy gives me an accusing look. I’d said that to hurt Finn. The way he’d hurt me.
And it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would.
12
Finn
My stomach churns, and I scramble to the cottage door, pushing it open. Outside, I vomit into the bushes until the contents of my stomach are gone.
I hear footsteps on the staircase.
“I’m fine,” I say, wiping my mouth. “I think it was the weed. It’s not really my thing.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Kenley says. Fuck. Just hearing her voice makes it ten times more humiliating. Not that she’s done anything wrong. I’m the fucking asshole. “Here.”
The sound of a zipper rips through the quiet forest. I turn and see that she’s pulled a half-empty water bottle from her bag.
“Thanks,” I say, taking it from her. I wash out my mouth and spit it into the woods. When I look up again she’s holding out a tin of mints. I take a couple. “What else do you have in that magic bag, Hermione?”
That makes her laugh, and it’s nice to see a smile on her face, even if it’s brief.
“We did go through a hardcore Harry Potter phase, didn’t we?”
“Gryffindor forever.” I punch a fist halfheartedly in the air. “God, this sucks.”
“I know.”
“Rose…like I said, she’d been different lately. I was worried about her, but she started to cut me out.” I grimace. “I guess you’d know about that.”
She looks startled to hear me say it.
“Yeah, I guess I would.”
The strained tension that’s been between us for years instantly snaps back in place. I hate it, and I want to smash it, like I’ve wanted so many other times over the last three years.
“We fought sometimes,” I confess. “A few big ones lately. I did it on purpose, trying to get her so mad that maybe she’d explode and tell me what was really going on. She never did, or who knows, maybe she did, and I wasn’t listening.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but my phone buzzes loudly in my pocket. And hers must too, because she flinches at that very moment.
“Guys,” Ozzy calls from inside. “Did you get this?”
My stomach twists again as Kenley and I scramble for our phones, reading them at the same time.
Police to Hold Press Conference at 4 pm at Carter’s Bridge
Another text vibrates though a second later. It’s my mom.
Come home. Now.
I look up and meet her clear blue eyes. “I guess I can’t avoid this any longer.”
“Yeah,” she says, “I’m not sure any of us can.”
13
Kenley
Chief McMichael stands at a makeshift podium at the edge of the bridge. The bridge itself has been closed most of the day and behind him are a series of emergency vehicles. Fire, ambulance, police. One has K-9 written on the side. Others are marked as state agencies.
I’m with my parents, caught in the middle of the large group that has gathered to listen to the Chief update the community about Rose’s disappearance. Whispers spread through the group that there must be some kind of news for them to call us like this, but with so many emergency personnel around, it seems unlikely the search is over.
I spot Finn with his parents and a splotchy-faced Juliette. Ozzy is over by the side of the road and Ezra, if he’s here, is hidden.
“Kenley!”
I look around and see Alice’s head ducking and weaving through the crowd. She squeezes in next to me. “Where have you been? I was looking all over for you at school.”
Alice would be both hurt and angry to know we’d all met at the cottage—even if inadvertently. Luckily, the microphone squeals with feedback and Chief McMichael’s voice booms across the crowd.
“Thank you for coming,” he says, placing both hands on the podium. “As most of you know, today has been long and exhausting—and it’s not over yet. I’d like to update everyone with what we know. At seven-thirty-six last night we received a call to 911 services that a vehicle had been abandoned on the bridge. An officer was dispatched to the scene, where she found a 1968 VW Bug parked in the northbound lane. At that time, Officer Grace Miller checked the vehicle for occupants and found no one inside. The car was empty and there was no evidence of anyone at the scene. At that point she ran the plates, and it was determined the vehicle was registered to City Council member Brice Waller. We learned after contacting Mr. Waller that his daughter Rose drove this vehicle and that she hadn’t been seen that day.”
It’s a flurry of information. Had no one really seen her that day? Not even her parents for breakfast? Did that mean she took off the day before? But who drove the car to the bridge if it wasn’t her? So many questions.
/> “Officers have been tracking Rose’s social media, cell phone, and plan to continue interviewing family and classmates for any helpful information. Although we have not given up hope that maybe Rose is alive and well, a decision has been made to utilize state services and begin a search of the water. Tomorrow we will have a voluntary search for the banks of the waterway. If you’d like to join in the search, please meet here at seven a.m. Adults only. Students need to attend school, where counseling will be provided for any and all students.” He looks over at Mr. Waller and adds, “The family would like to make a statement.”
Brice Waller grabs the hand of his wife, Regina, and steps toward the microphone. He’s in a slate gray suit and a small campaign button is pinned to his lapel. Regina looks devastated, her face splotchy and red. She’s a beautiful woman, just like Rose. Tears prick at my eyes seeing her so upset. She must be terrified.
“Thank you for coming,” Mr. Waller says, his voice steady. “It’s reassuring to have so much support from the community we love so much. I can’t express how today has been the hardest day in my life.” He reaches for Regina’s hand. “Our life. Our beautiful and vibrant daughter has always been the cornerstone of our family. And we want to send a message to her, in case she’s listening: Rose, sweetheart, we love you. If you’re out there, please contact us. Contact your friends.” He glances into the crowd, smiling at Finn. “There are people here that just want you to be safe.”