This is Our Story

by Ashley Elston

  But how?

  It’s not the first time I’ve been here trying to figure it out, and it won’t be the last.

  Grant held his secrets close, but secrets can’t stay hidden forever.

  OCTOBER 1, 11:49 P.M.

  KATE: Reagan is making me watch old Halloween movies for inspiration for our costumes and we watched Children of the Corn and I’m pretty sure I’ll never sleep again.

  GRANT SHEP: Malachai!!

  KATE: That’s so wrong

  I’ve been to Pat’s every night for three nights in a row with no luck. I’m not sure why I keep coming back.

  Tonight, I’m early. There’s a chance they’ve moved their regular meeting time, and the only person who would know that is Pat.

  Once I park my car behind the bushes, I make my way over to his cooking trailer. He’s busy, just like he is every other time I’ve been here. He sees me coming and raises the hand that’s holding a spatula in a wave.

  I wave back and step up onto the back of the trailer.

  “How’s it cooking?” I ask.

  He smiles and says, “Can’t complain. You and your mama want some dinner?”

  “It’s just me tonight. She’s working late and Mr. Stone had some food delivered.”

  He grabs a Styrofoam to-go box but I stop him. “If I’m not in the way, I’ll eat here. Better than eating at home alone.”

  He nods. “I’m happy for the company.” Pat loads up a paper plate with fish and fries and hands it to me. “There’s some bottled water in the ice chest over there.”

  I grab the water and wedge myself in a corner of the trailer, hoping to stay out of his way.

  Pat turns to the line of customers.

  “Two large orders to go, please,” a man says. Pat takes the money, then starts filling the order.

  I watch him work as I drag a piece of fried fish through his special sauce. He glances at me, just as I take a bite, and says, “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

  I swallow hard and choke slightly on my food. When I finally stop coughing, I say, “Am I that obvious?”

  He gives me a look like, Do you think I’m that stupid?

  I nod to the other side of the parking lot. “Checking to see if those boys are still meeting here.”

  Pat stops what he’s doing and turns to face me. “You got no business being out here with the likes of them.”

  “Mr. Stone has the River Point case. He’s okay with me watching them.”

  He cocks one eyebrow up. “Is your mama okay with that?”

  I nod and hope to God he doesn’t call my bluff. He watches me for a few seconds, then turns back to the fryer. “Are they still meeting out here?” I ask, completely ignoring what he just said.

  Pat glances over to their usual place, then goes back to work. “Yeah, not as much though. That redhead must like it out here, ’cause he’s been back a few times, but he’s tending to a different sort of business.”

  I drop the rest of the uneaten fish on the plate. “What sort of business?”

  Pat lets out a deep laugh and shakes his head. “Not the good kind.”

  Last time I saw any of them here, it was Logan and those two guys behind these buildings. I think back to his interview and the mention of gambling. “He’s a bookie, right? Is that what he’s doing out here?”

  This surprises Pat, and he glances at me quickly before handing off the order to the man in line and taking another order from the woman behind him.

  He’s about to answer me, but his attention focuses on something else. “Well, it looks like you’re in luck,” he says in a dry voice.

  I pivot around just as Logan’s Tahoe pulls into the parking lot.

  “I do need a to-go box,” I say, grabbing one off the counter and dumping the rest of my food inside. “Thanks, Pat!” I say, then turn to leave, but his hand on my arm stops me.

  “If that one is meeting with his other friends, not the rich ones, you need to stay right here.”

  His hand drops away and I stay where I am, practically vibrating with the need to leave. No matter who Logan meets with, I want a picture of it, but I left my camera in the car.

  Pat goes back to work, but I know he’s watching me. I’m anxious, waiting to see who will pull up next—the other River Point Boys or the two guys I saw Logan with last week.

  When John Michael’s BMW pulls in, I let out a sigh of relief.

  “I’ll be fine, Pat. Really, I promise,” I say, then jump down from the trailer before he can stop me a second time. I wind my way around to where my car is hidden. Once inside, I pull my camera out of the bag and get ready.

  I take a few pics of the two of them. Their vehicles are close enough that John Michael can hand Logan something across the short distance. It’s a big Ziploc bag. I zoom in close and see an assortment of pills and rolled joints inside. Logan sees the contents and smiles.

  Within a few more minutes, the other two boys arrive.

  And it doesn’t take long before there’s trouble. Henry says something and Shep is on him. Shep hits Henry squarely on the face, knocking him to the ground. Logan pushes Shep, but John Michael pulls Logan off of him. And then Henry’s up, but it’s not long before they collide and fall to ground in a huge clump of bodies. I snap away, although I can’t tell who is hitting who anymore.

  I widen the angle and almost drop my camera when I see Pat running at them, spatula still in his hand.

  Pat hits Henry on the back of the head with the spatula, then starts pulling the boys apart, yelling at them and pointing toward their cars. He stands over them, and the boys are right to look scared. Pat can be very intimidating when he wants to be.

  One by one they skulk off to their vehicles. The boys pull out of the parking lot, Shep last in line, but just before he turns onto the street, he spots me.

  Oh crap.

  It’s easy to see his every move since his Jeep is wide open. He hesitates for a second or so, seemingly looking back at Pat, but then drives away.

  I drop my head back against the seat. Pat’s in the lot, pointing for me to go, too. I nod, giving him a thumbs-up, and he walks out of view, back to his cooking trailer and the customers he abandoned.

  I crank Mom’s car. Or try to.

  But nothing happens.

  Oh God, no.

  I try several more times before deciding I’m going to have to ask Pat for help. Now I feel really terrible. I can’t see his trailer from here, but I can see the line of customers that is almost to the street.

  A knock on the window has me jumping in my seat.

  I scream as my hands fly to my chest.

  Shep’s there next to my car.

  “You scared me to death!” I say loud enough for him to hear me with my window raised.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Sounds like your battery is dead.”

  I open the door and step out. I look behind my car and see his Jeep not far away. He pulled in the same way I do when I want to make sure Pat doesn’t see me.

  It’s weird seeing him here, right in front of me, rather than watching him through my lens.

  “Why did you come back?” I ask.

  “I wanted to talk to you.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Really, I wanted to find out what you’re doing out here.” He nods to my camera. “Taking pictures of us?”

  I suddenly feel like the biggest creeper.

  “I…was…uh…”

  Shep shakes his head and moves in a tight circle, then stops abruptly. “Did you get what you wanted? Will your boss like the shot of me punching Henry?”

  My mouth opens, but no words come out. I’m completely speechless. I can feel the blood rushing to my face.

  Shep watches me a few more seconds, then turns back toward his Jeep. I think he’s leaving, until he pulls around and stops with his bumper just a few inches away from mine.

  He pops his hood and then brushes past me to open my door so he can do the same for my car. Then he fishes out a set of jumper cables
from the back of his Jeep. Once everything is hooked up, he sits in the driver’s seat of my car. It takes a few minutes until he’s able to get it cranked.

  “Let it run a few minutes,” he says when he gets out of my car.

  “Thank you,” I mumble. I feel awful.

  He stops just inches from me and his hand wraps around mine. “It was real, wasn’t it? What we had. We both felt it, didn’t we?”

  My breath shudders out of me. I stand there, concentrating on that single point where we are connected and think about how closely his thoughts echo my own.

  “I thought so,” I answer.

  “The only thing that’s different is my name,” he says. His hand squeezes mine gently.

  I swallow hard and find it difficult to look at him.

  Then his hand drops mine. “But it’s more than that for you, isn’t it?”

  I don’t answer, just kick a few rocks on the ground between us.

  “Do you think I shot Grant?”

  Gnawing on my bottom lip, I finally look at him and say, “You said you didn’t.”

  “That’s not an answer,” he says.

  I push away from him and pace next to my car. “I don’t know what to believe. All of you are saying you didn’t do it, but one of you is lying.” I stop, and he’s watching me, his eyes glued to mine. “Do you think it was an accident?” I say.

  His face changes instantly. He’s pissed. “Of course it was an accident. You think one of my friends killed Grant on purpose?” He takes a few quick strides closer and I instinctively shrink back. “Do you think I killed him on purpose?”

  His face is hard and his shoulders tense. I don’t want to believe that the boy I texted could do something like that. But I’m not sure who Shep is. I’m not sure of anything anymore.

  Shep must see this struggle on my face, because his shoulders droop and he squeezes his eyes shut. He spins away from me, removes the jumper cables from both cars, and puts them back in his Jeep. He slams the hood of my car shut, then his. But instead of leaving, he moves closer to me again. This time I lock my knees and hold my ground.

  “You can’t trust me because you got played by Grant. And now all you want is justice for Grant…even if that means thinking the worst about me…that I would kill one of my best friends. Why?” He steps forward, closing the distance between us, and brings my hand to his chest, holding it there. I can feel his heart pounding against my palm. His head dips toward mine. “You didn’t know Grant. He wasn’t the one you talked to all night long for weeks. That was me. He wasn’t the one waiting to see you that night. That was me.”

  He inches closer.

  “He wasn’t the one who texted you every night just before he went to sleep. That was me.”

  Another small step.

  “He wasn’t the one who texted you when he first woke up. That was me.”

  I feel shaky. And confused. “I know,” I whisper.

  “Do you?”

  We’re so close. I swallow hard and search his face, my eyes landing on his lips. My heart is beating as fast as his. I can’t answer. I can barely think.

  “I didn’t shoot him,” he whispers. “By accident or on purpose. I don’t know who did. If I knew, I’d be first in line to tell your boss. We want the same thing, Kate. Me and you—we’re on the same side.”

  He walks away quickly, hops in his Jeep, and is gone within seconds. I crumple against the side of my car, trying to process everything that just happened.

  That was not the same Shep I’ve seen at school or in that police interview. That felt like the boy I talked to in those texts.

  The boy I fell for.

  The boy I would believe.

  The girl with the camera is going to be a problem.

  SEPTEMBER 29, 4:29 P.M.

  KATE: We had lots of parents in today complaining about the seniors at your school. Apparently, all the cars in the juniors’ parking lot had all the air let out of their tires.

  GRANT SHEP: Uh, I have no comment.

  KATE: Y’all are terrible

  GRANT SHEP: ☺

  The next day at school, I feel the River Point Boys’ eyes on me. I’m not surprised or unnerved by Shep’s gaze, because he has sought me out in every crowd since he got here, but I’m on the other boys’ radar even more than before and it’s making me tense.

  I knew walking into English that it would be the hardest class to get through. Something shifted between Shep and me last night, and I don’t know what it is, or what to do about it.

  I wait until the bell is about to ring before I slip into class. John Michael and Henry throw a glance my way, but Shep tracks me from the second I pass through the door. Henry’s left cheek seems a little redder than the right one, and John Michael’s bottom lip looks a bit puffy, but Shep escaped yesterday’s brawl unmarked.

  Just as Mr. Stevens is about to start his lecture, the fire alarm shrieks through the room and we all wince at the loud, shrill sound.

  “Okay, class. Quickly, but orderly, let’s make our way outside.”

  We’ve done this drill before, so there is no rush among the students to get outside. The hallways are packed, the entire student body moving in a single force toward the nearest exit, backpacks and purses bouncing between bodies like pinballs. We are all pressed together, so I hardly notice the hand that brushes against me. It’s only when it lingers, there on the small of my back, that it catches my attention. It’s got to be Shep’s.

  But then my heart drops when I spot him several people away, in front of me. He glances back at me, giving me a searching look before disappearing in the crowd.

  I spin around quickly, colliding with everyone around me. Faces I know surround me; girls and guys I’ve been in school with for years all look at me with some confusion.

  By the time I get outside to the front lawn of the school, I’ve convinced myself I imagined it.

  It’s cold outside, and general mumbles of annoyance ripple through the crowd until the piercing wail of the sirens drowns everyone out. Fire trucks don’t usually show up for drills, so confusion replaces the irritation.

  The principal meets the group of firemen and points them in a certain direction; they rush into the school. The crowd is quiet as truck after truck arrives. I try to find Reagan in the crowd, or Mignon or Alexis or really any of my friends, but I don’t see them. They were all probably in the media arts room on the other side of campus when the alarm went off.

  We all get restless as we wait. If there is a fire, will they just release us for the day? As it is, I only have one more class until I leave for work, and it’s almost time for it to start.

  I scan the crowd until I find Shep in a group with the other River Point Boys off to the side. Anyone watching them now wouldn’t know anything was wrong. They stand almost shoulder to shoulder in a circle, heads bent in quiet conversation.

  I shiver from the cold, or maybe from the memory of Shep’s quiet words in the parking lot last night, and shove my hands into the pockets of my jacket.

  My fingers slide against something there, wrap around it, my mind trying to identify what it is, to remember what I put there.

  I pull it out and the ground tilts. I stumble into the girl next to me, who grabs my arm to steady me.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  I nod and turn away from her. I move through the crowd, away from the school, with the single purpose of finding somewhere to sit down, or collapse, or just freak the hell out.

  Once I get to the edge of the crowd, I lean against a tree and slide down until I’m sitting on the ground. I pull my hand back out of my pocket and stare at the picture.

  It’s Shep and me, last night in the parking lot across from Pat’s. We’re standing just inches apart in front of our cars with my hand on his chest. The photo is grainy, like it was taken from far away with a shitty zoom lens, but there is no mistaking who is in the image.

  But the worst part is what is written in red at the bottom:

  Ca
n we all hope for special treatment from the DA’s office?

  I stand quickly, shoving the picture back in my pocket.

  Shep wasn’t the only one who spotted me last night. And he wasn’t the only one who came back to check on what I was doing there. One of the other River Point Boys took this picture of us.

  Shep glances my way and it must be obvious I’m freaked-out. He takes a step in my direction, but I shake my head, hard. He stops, worry all over his face.

  We stare at each other across the distance, me trying to tell him to go back, get away from me, and him searching for what’s got me panicked.

  The announcement from the PA jars us both, drawing our attention back to the school.

  “False alarm. Please make your way in an orderly fashion back to the class you were in before the alarm. You can gather your things, then proceed to your next class.”

  I can’t go back to English. Not yet. Before Shep turns his attention back to me, I slip into the crowd, finding Mr. Stevens.

  “I’ve already got my things. Can I go to the media arts room from here?”

  He waves me off and I sprint away from Shep and the other River Point Boys.

  TRANSCRIPT OF THE OCTOBER 8 INTERVIEW AT ST. BARTHOLOMEW HIGH SCHOOL OF PHOEBE CAGE BY DETECTIVE PIERCE, WITH BODY LANGUAGE COMMENTARY BY KATE MARINO

  DET. PIERCE: Phoebe, were you at the party at River Point the night before Grant Perkins died?

  PHOEBE: Maybe.

  KATE: Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest and there is a scowl on her face. She really looks like she doesn’t want to be here.

  DET. PIERCE: Well, I’ve got about a dozen pics of you there that night. I called your parents, asked them if I could talk to you. They gave me their permission. Maybe I need to show them the pictures I found of you there, too. Do you think they’ll like to see the image of you sitting on that boy’s lap with his hands—

  PHOEBE: Okay, okay. What do you want to know?

  DET. PIERCE: I want to hear about any fights or anything strange going on. Did you witness the altercation between Henry and Grant?