We went outside to get some air, and I flirted the way I’d seen you flirting: a tip of the head, a quirk of the lips. A gaze held and released. An inviting laugh. A touch on the arm. Why not? It was Halloween. You’re not supposed to go as yourself.
When people asked what I was dressed as, I changed the answer each time—Tinker Bell, the Tooth Fairy, a dragonfly, a mosquito—but in truth my costume was you. I was the Summer Camp Slayer, but before. Before things turned bloody. Before it went bad. When it was still all glitter and charm and the magic of make-believe.
Your trial starts in two days (or tomorrow, technically, since it’s currently 2 a.m.) but you’re already being tried in the court of public opinion. It’s not unanimous—I’m still voting not guilty—but All the World’s a Jury and they’re pretty convinced by the evidence.
It’s hearsay, mostly. The stories. The lies. Speculation on the part of those who knew you, or sort of did. (Emma, in particular, will not shut up. She still wants a slice of your spotlight. Nitin, like me, hasn’t made a single public comment. Jackson, of course, isn’t talking.) But your DNA was all over him—your skin cells under his fingernails—too much to wash away in the lake. Some say that’s the sign of a struggle, that the DNA got there when he was fighting you off. That the cops should have checked you for scratches.
I know you had scratches.
I can picture it so clearly: the two of you in the midnight dark, his hands running up and down your arms and back, all over your tingling skin. His nails raking gently, then digging in, as his kisses, too, varied in intensity. Some scratches were featherlight, and others harder, like the ones I gave Ian as we kissed outside the party tonight, experimenting. How far was too far?
My nails sank in and Ian pulled away. “Whoa there, tiger.”
“Meow,” I said, though cats don’t have wings or glitter cheekbones. He came back for another kiss and my fingers roamed more lightly. Teasing. It was cold out, but his mouth was warm.
Was that what it was like being Jackson, kissing you? I don’t think so because I didn’t feel fireworks.
Remember the Fourth of July?
It was only the end of the second week, but already we’d been at Camp Cavanick forever. Life before felt impossibly far away and irrelevant. There was no reason to even think of an after. Six more weeks of perfect summer stretched before us.
We sat on the grassy hill, facing the lake, our abandoned paper plates at our sides. Other campers were all around us, but distant. Tossing a Frisbee in the last remnants of dusk; confiding secrets by the campfire; lounging in groups or pairs on the hillside like us.
When the sky was almost black, the first fireworks went off with a boom and crackle that echoed across the water. Everyone hushed. You slapped a mosquito on your leg and leaned your head against my shoulder. We watched. I’d never gotten the big deal about fireworks before, but these ones felt magical. Spectacular. I remember thinking, This is really my life, and being glad of it.
“Have you ever been in love?” you asked.
“Like, in love in love?” I asked.
You lifted your head and my shoulder felt cold. “Yeah.”
I had never even been kissed. “I don’t think so.” You waited, so I went on. “I was kind of in love with my fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Henry,” I said. You smiled. “And I had an embarrassingly huge crush on my brother’s friend Jascha for a while, but I’m not sure either of those counts. Have you?”
The glow of the next firework reflected off your face. “No. I thought I was, last spring. This girl Jasmine I went out with for a while. She was in my homeroom. We hooked up at the Valentine’s dance. But now I think it wasn’t love, exactly. I liked her a lot, but there weren’t any fireworks. More like . . . fireflies. We kind of flickered in and out, until it stayed out. There was never any huge, like, passion.”
“Oh,” I said.
You shifted. “What did you like about Jascha?”
I thought about it. “He was kind. Much kinder than anyone else I know. Just . . . thoughtful.”
He must have known about my crush on him, and it clearly wasn’t mutual, but he was always sweet to me anyway, right up until he left for college. I haven’t seen him since. “What did you like about Jasmine?”
“She smelled good.” I laughed. You shrugged. “Pheromones, I guess. But mostly I liked how much she liked me.”
I felt sad for Jasmine then, and weirdly a little triumphant.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think there was a Jasmine. Am I right?
Everyone you’ve ever made out with—or allegedly made out with, because no way could your mouth have been that busy—has emerged from the woodwork since the news about Jackson broke. Clearly some of those guys, if not all of them, made it up for the attention, or they’re confusing their own fantasies with reality. Your supposed sexual history is a topic of national discussion. But there has been no mention of Jasmine.
I’ve scoured every photo I can find of you, and of parties you might have attended, searched the accounts of everyone you were friends or friendly or acquainted with in the spring of last year. There doesn’t seem to have been a girlfriend. There doesn’t seem to be anyone at your school named Jasmine. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why you would have lied about it. Lied to me.
Maybe Jasmine was a nickname you gave her, like Randy. But my gut says that isn’t it.
Maybe someday, when this is over, I’ll get to hear an explanation. Maybe you’ll offer me one that’s real.
A week or so after the Fourth, you found fireworks with Jackson. I don’t know how it felt when you kissed him, but I know the rest was plenty explosive. I guess that’s what you wanted, and I guess I should have known—you’d straight-up told me so, hadn’t you? But I didn’t understand it in that moment. I thought you meant something else.
Me kissing Ian tonight wasn’t like you kissing Jackson. It was closer to me kissing you—or to you kissing me, to be more accurate—but without the audience. And with less shitty motivations. Still, I was using him with those kisses, just like you tried to use me.
I don’t think he minded.
You know what it felt like when you kissed me the first time? It felt like falling. Not in a good way. It felt like we’d been gliding along, flying high, and you shoved me out of the airplane with no warning, no parachute, just a gentle laugh and a slip of tongue. Your lips were soft on mine, but what I felt was my insides plummeting.
Still, I kissed you back. By then I was so accustomed to going along with your performances, I had no way to react besides playing along. Nitin looked away and Jackson basically salivated—which was the purpose, wasn’t it. You kissed me in front of Jackson, for Jackson, to prove some point that had nothing to do with me. I had always been your sidekick and coconspirator, but in that moment I was only your prop.
You knew it was a mistake. You were extra good to me in the days after, extra present in a way you mostly hadn’t been since thoughts of Jackson had hijacked your brain. You never apologized with words, but I forgave you. It was a quick, thoughtless moment, and friends forgive each other those all the time. No harm done.
The second time was more confusing. It wasn’t in front of Jackson. We had no audience, but still, I felt heavily aware of your awareness of him. The audience was implied, though not present.
That kiss lingered longer, and I felt it and tasted it. I wasn’t falling. But it ended with a thud.
Did you feel it too? I pulled away and you opened your eyes and they seemed to brim over with questions. I shook my head and tried to answer one. “I just feel like that isn’t what you want,” I said. You’d kissed me, yet somehow I was the one left explaining. “You shouldn’t kiss me unless you mean it,” I added. I wasn’t sure I wanted you to kiss me even then.
It hadn’t occurred to either of us to think about me.
“Who says I don’t mean it?” you asked, and I was quiet, because you’d made it worse. You grew flirtatious, defensive. “Can’t it
just mean kissing is fun?” Like how you would have said it to anyone. Anyone who didn’t matter.
This wasn’t what I’d thought our friendship was about.
“Don’t do this.” I was honest with you, and I wanted you to be honest back. “Don’t use me for revenge, or as bait to lure him back to you. Don’t pull me into it like that. It isn’t fair.”
I felt the motion of the dock on the tiny, lapping waves, and focused on the lake’s unsteady rhythms. My vision blurred and I did not look at your face.
“I’m sorry,” you said. “You’re right. I won’t do it again.”
I didn’t move.
“I’ve been a shitty friend. You deserve better.”
I lunged and squeezed you in the tightest hug, but was the wetness on our cheeks from your tears or mine? I’m not certain. You squeezed back and we laughed, like that tornado of emotions was funny. Was there any disappointment mixed into your relief? It’s a blur for me. I don’t know what I felt.
That was only five days before the end.
I disentangled from Ian tonight when Dina came to find me, and dismissed him with a quick “See you in math.” My lips felt numb from overuse.
I stumbled a little as we walked inside. Dina caught me by the arm. “Have you been drinking?” they asked.
I straightened their bow tie. “No.” I hiccupped. “Only punch.”
They looked at me with concern, and like they weren’t sure if I was kidding.
“What?” I said, then “. . . Oh,” as I realized my mistake.
“Wait. What did you think Booooooozy Poison Punch meant?” they asked.
“I thought they were just . . . words. Halloween words. You know . . . boo. Poison.”
You would have laughed, but for some reason Dina apologized. I guess they felt responsible. They made me drink two cups of water and eat some saltines they found in a cabinet before guiding me out to their car.
“Come on, let’s get you home safe. Or do you want to come over so your parents don’t see you? My dad wouldn’t care.”
I assured them my parents never see me anyway.
I don’t know why I haven’t told you about Dina before. I guess I didn’t want you to think you’re being replaced, because you’re not. But it’s not only that. (Obviously not. I do understand you don’t read these letters before I delete them. I’m not that far gone.) My life at school and at home, when I’m not writing to you or reading about you online, feels so separate from you and us and camp. That gets truer every day, and I can’t lie: It’s a relief. It’s a relief that there’s another normal. That, with time, my brain has found things to think about other than you.
It’s a relief, but I also hate it. I hate it because it feels like abandonment. Betrayal.
You don’t get to move on from Camp Cavanick yet. It feels unfair sometimes that I do—like just by the fact of my life moving forward, against my will, I am somehow being disloyal to you. “Survivor’s guilt,” Dr. Rita calls it. That sounds like an oversimplification to me, but whatever.
Despite the guilt, I think you’d be proud of me (if also jealous). A party. The dancing. My first drinks. My first drunkenness. A sort-of friend. My first kisses with someone who isn’t you.
This little fairy had an eventful Halloween.
Trick or treat?
Love,
Kayla
November 2
Maplewash County Post-Gazette
THE JURY HEARD OPENING STATEMENTS MONDAY IN the trial of Elaine Baxter, the sixteen-year-old who stands accused of killing her sometimes boyfriend, Jackson Winter, at the teen camp where they met last summer.
Prosecutor Marsha Davis told jurors she expected witnesses would describe Elaine Baxter, known as “Lainie,” as “behaving erratically” in the days leading up to the morning of August 14, when Jackson Winter’s body was recovered from Jaspertown Lake along Camp Cavanick property, hours after he apparently suffered a fatal blow to the head. “Over the course of this trial, a picture will unfold,” Davis claimed, of Baxter as a “charismatic, beautiful, and seemingly fun-loving teenager” who is “deeply troubled and deceitful” beneath her appealing surface.
The prosecution promised to establish a pattern of Baxter’s alleged “untrustworthy” behavior and submit “relevant evidence” that she has “a disturbing history of elaborate deceptions,” “lying for fun,” and “obsessive, jealous behavior exhibited toward Jackson Winter before his death.”
Davis ended her opening statement by telling jurors they would hear testimony that Baxter’s own initial statements given to police officers the morning after Winter’s body was found, were “by her own later admission, fully misleading and untrue,” and “clearly reveal that, that morning, Elaine Baxter had something significant to hide.”
Baxter’s defense attorney, Michael Desir, told jurors that the prosecution’s case “is built on rumors and speculation.” He urged jurors to pay close attention to the “actual facts and real evidence,” and predicted the state would be “flailing” in its efforts to establish a reasonable motive for the alleged attack.
Desir acknowledged the defendant wasn’t always “a perfect angel or even an ideal girlfriend,” and that she sometimes “made things up out of regular teenage boredom” and “the normal and healthy adolescent temptation to push boundaries, and see what one can get away with.” But that doesn’t, he insisted, make her a murderer.
“What teenager hasn’t at some point found themself the subject of cruel, untrue rumors they’d be hard-pressed to disprove?” Desir asked, while reminding jurors, “We are trying this case in a court of law, not a high school hallway or an internet bubble.” He ended his opening statement by saying, “The state must be held to a higher standard of proof. When pressed for real evidence, for hard facts that add up, their case will fall short—and you, the jury, will surely find the obvious choice is to acquit.”
Jackson Winter’s family sat quietly in the center of the courtroom throughout the opening statements. Their focus, a spokesman said later, was “on the enormous loss of their beloved son Jackson, who can never be returned to them, and their hope for the deliverance of justice.”
Davis is set to begin presenting her case against Baxter when the trial resumes on Tuesday.
Camper and Counselor Interviews, Statements, and Posts
August 14–November 24
“I heard Lainie’s lawyer wants Lainie to cry on the witness stand, so the jury will feel sorry for the poor pretty white girl.”
“I heard the reason Lainie won’t testify is if they put her on the stand, they can ask her under oath about all the other lies she told. Her lawyer doesn’t want to open her up to that line of questioning.”
“I heard when Jackson’s body was found, Kayla begged Lainie not to speak to the police without a lawyer present.”
“I heard the cops interviewed Kayla for over an hour that morning, and when her parents found out she’d been questioned with no supervision, they gave the camp director hell for letting that happen.”
“I heard when Lainie got arrested, Kayla’s lawyer had to stop her from confessing she killed him. The lawyer tried to scare her by saying false confessions are illegal, but she said ‘good’ because that way they’d be locked up together.”
“I heard someone in Lainie’s cabin saw her come back covered in blood, but Kayla burned Lainie’s sheets and clothing to cover it up before anyone could find them.”
“I heard someone in Emma’s cabin noticed Emma’s bed was empty after midnight.”
“I heard the blood on Lainie’s hoodie was from a nosebleed, not from Jackson. People will believe anything if it proves what they already think is true. It’s so ridiculous. She didn’t do it.”
“I heard Kayla wouldn’t tell the cops anything, and she still thinks Lainie is innocent.”
“I heard Nitin told the cops he feels responsible for Jackson’s death because he told Kayla some secret she must have told Lainie, one he didn’t know Lainie didn’t
know already.”
“I heard Lainie, Kayla, Nitin, and Jackson had a four-way orgy on the dock one night.”
“I heard Lainie kissed Kayla in front of Jackson to make him jealous, and when he didn’t seem to care, she totally lost it.”
“I heard Kayla and Lainie made out one time, and when Jackson found out, he got violent and Lainie got scared.”
“I heard Nitin stopped hanging out with them toward the end because he knew something like this was coming.”
“I heard Nitin got grilled for, like, two extra hours, just because his skin is brown.”
“I heard Jackson was blackmailing Chef Beverly, and she paid up because she couldn’t afford to lose another job.”
“I heard there was a weird guy passing through town—a skeezy drunk no one knew—and he was bragging about how he killed some kid at the camp. The police didn’t bother to find him because they’d already decided to peg it on Lainie.”
“I heard the defense will be calling Emma to the stand and demanding to know where she was during the murder.”
“I heard Lainie was going to tell the girlfriend everything, so Jackson threatened her and she killed him in self-defense.”
“I heard the first coroner’s report said Jackson got the head injury from diving, but they got scared by the media coverage and changed it to say someone killed him.”
“I heard she wanted to plead not guilty by reason of self-defense, but the lawyer said she had to just say not guilty.”
November 5
Dear Lainie,
I’ve been thinking a lot about the fourth rule of crime: It Doesn’t Matter What’s True. It Only Matters What People Think Is True.
I wonder if you still believe that.
I wonder if you ever believed it, or if it’s one of those things you said because it sounded good in the moment, then went with it because why not. You did have a habit of making shit up to amuse yourself, we both know. Though when I tried to argue this one, you made a convincing case.
Nobody Knows But You Page 9