by TE Carter
When they get to the other girl, the one who seems too strong to be here, she shrugs. “I tried to tell someone. Nobody believed me.”
“We believe you,” Thompson says. “I didn’t get your name, though.”
“Taylor. I filed a report. They told me they’d call me. That was a year ago. Nobody’s calling.”
Thompson sighs, frustrated that Taylor’s here. Frustrated there are seven girls plus me plus however many didn’t come. Didn’t see the website. Didn’t see it on the news. She’s frustrated that it takes so long for anyone to listen.
“Do you remember the officer’s name? I can—”
Taylor cuts her off. “I’m not from here. I came up here to meet him. I met him online and came to see him. I thought he was sweet. When I told them that after I reported it, they rolled their eyes. I knew they weren’t calling. It was my fault that I came up here.”
“I wish I was as brave as all of you,” Hannah whispers. That’s what it is. A whisper. She’s almost missed as she speaks.
The other girls all look at one another, but no one has anything to say in response.
“I wish I could have come forward. Could have told someone. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t do anything. You’re all so much stronger than me.”
“It’s not that,” Gretchen says. “Everyone has their own—”
“No, you are,” Hannah argues. “All of you. And Ellie. I admire Ellie so much.”
Thompson looks to Beth, who shifts in her seat. “Why do you admire Ellie?” she asks.
“Because she got away. I wish I got away, too,” Hannah replies. She pulls her sleeves up and there are red lines screaming from her pale skin. “I can’t get free of it.”
Beth reaches out and takes Hannah’s hand. “You need someone else to help you, Hannah. We’re not qualified—”
“I don’t know who else to ask. Who to tell. You’re all so much braver than I am. Than I was. I wish I was like Ellie. She wouldn’t let them win. She’s not ruined like I am.”
“No,” Julia says. “No, you’re wrong. I know how you feel, but you’re wrong. Ellie’s dead. She’s dead, Hannah.”
“I know,” Hannah says.
Thompson leans into the circle. “Hannah … Ellie wouldn’t want this for you. No one wants this for you. I know she can’t tell us what she thinks or what she would want, but I can tell you this. If I asked Ellie’s dad, do you think he’d say he was glad? That Ellie was brave? That there was a victory there?”
Hannah shakes her head. “I don’t know. I just can’t get away from it.”
“You can,” Kailey says. “We all can.”
“No one will ever love me now.” Hannah starts to cry. Taylor joins her. Abby just nods.
“Do you all think that?” Thompson asks.
Gretchen shrugs. “What do you think?”
“Someone will love each and every one of you,” Thompson argues. “I promise you they will. You’re all young. I know it seems impossible today, but someone will love you and will care and will hurt for you in the way you’re hurting now. They’ll want to make that pain stop.”
“Your parents love you,” Beth says to Hannah.
“They don’t care,” she says.
Thompson shakes her head. “No. No, that’s not true. I don’t know what they’ve said or done to make you think they don’t care. I don’t even know if they’re any good at being your parents. Maybe they are and maybe they’re not. But I can absolutely tell you this. No matter what they’re like, no matter what you think you’ve done, you deserve to be alive. Someone wants you to be alive.”
I do, I think. I want every single one of these girls to be alive. Not because I don’t want to share my space with them, but because I do. Because I want to come here, too, and feel like I belong somewhere. I want to remember living—in all the beautiful parts, but also in all the pain. I want them to live because I want Caleb and Noah to fail. They can’t have everything. Not if these girls are still here.
“He still…” Hannah says. “Nothing’s changed for him. Nothing will change. He’ll probably be allowed to get away with it. Even his girlfriend…”
Officer Thompson shifts in her seat and I can see how she’s trying to decide what the right thing to do is here. Should she tell Hannah what she knows about Gina Lynn? Should she let Hannah be angry?
“Sometimes,” Thompson says, “things aren’t always what they seem. I think Gina Lynn might surprise you.”
I watch Hannah remember. All the times she saw Gina Lynn at school. Saw them kissing. Saw the way Caleb smiled and passed her in the hall, knowing what he’d done. All the times she was forced to relive it. To remember.
Hannah connects Gina Lynn with everything Caleb is.
“No,” Hannah says.
“Maybe—” Beth starts.
“No,” Hannah says again, more forcefully this time. A word she’s given up hope on, but not here. She needs the word to mean something here. “I can’t find a way to understand. Not with her. He was her boyfriend.”
“He was Ellie’s boyfriend, too,” Gretchen says.
“I understand how you’re all feeling right now,” Beth interrupts, “but neither Officer Thompson or I is a therapist. Perhaps we can—”
“Seriously. Shut the fuck up, Beth,” Gretchen says.
“Well, this wasn’t what I’d had in mind,” Officer Thompson says, but nobody moves. They hate that they need to be here, but they do. They need to be a part of it and they wait. Wait for it to feel better because they’re here. It doesn’t happen, of course.
“We should keep doing this,” Kailey says. “I want to. Even if … well, regardless of what happens with the trial.”
“Me, too,” a few of the girls reply.
“What about us?” Gretchen asks. “What happens to me and Kailey? What’s going to happen if they’re found guilty? Nobody’s checked on our cases in a while.”
“It’s just that … with Ellie,” Thompson explains, “it’s a bigger case and they—”
“We aren’t going to be remembered,” Gretchen says. “If we’re lucky, they’ll tack on a couple of years because there were other charges. If we’re lucky.”
“We’re not,” Kailey whispers, and that shuts down the conversation for a while.
The guilt of being the reason they can’t find safety, of preventing them from having their own stories heard, makes me get up. I go upstairs, into the church.
Father O’Connell left after letting the girls in. The early-evening light turns the mostly empty church into the innards of a kaleidoscope, the stories from the windows becoming shadow shows over the wood.
I think of Gina Lynn. How she looked at the diner. How she was in the bathroom at the courthouse, trying not to cry. She’ll never know I forgive her.
I imagine tears and wish I could cry for Gina Lynn. I wish that I could express the hurt I feel for the last girl I would have imagined forgiving. I feel the ache of understanding as I watch the day die from the windows up ahead.
chapter forty-seven
The trial is a phenomenon. It’s the biggest thing to happen in Hollow Oaks in maybe forever. They found DNA evidence to link both boys to my body. Something that might matter, although it’s all just news and noise. Stories. Lawyers talking and experts saying things like they’re writing an encyclopedia.
I should care more. Should go every day to hear the conversations, as late spring becomes summer and summer starts to die with the leaves. I should pay more attention, but I’m dead. Court isn’t what I miss. This is all here for the living. Instead, I spend time at home, trying to make it real, and I let the rest of them worry about these things.
I heard, through the news, sitting with my dad each evening and following the story with him from our couch, that Wayne Breward was arrested and charged as well. It turns out Gina Lynn wasn’t the only one who lied. But she was the only one who admitted it. Their father was charged with obstruction of justice. And then his DNA was also found on my bod
y. Since he helped them cover me up. Now he can’t buy Caleb and Noah a verdict. Now he’ll sit in prison himself for a time—an accessory, they called him—and he’ll finally know what it’s like to lose.
I’d stopped going to the courthouse, but I go today because they’re going to talk. Caleb and Noah are taking the stand today. I want to hear what they say. How they defend it. How Caleb pretends. I need to hear how he makes sense of it.
Nancy Breward sits on a bench outside the courtroom. With her husband in jail now, too, she’s all that’s left. Her face is thick with makeup, but she dabs at her eyes where she’s been crying. The beige mask peels. It sheds onto her tissue, leaving the yellowed markings of the old and the newer blue-black. So many shades of bruising with their own timeline. At least they’ll all have time to fade now. I wonder if she remembers the color of her own skin without them.
“Someone should be covering how three men can hurt so many women in one town,” Cassie tells Gus while he unpacks his equipment. “Why isn’t that the story?”
“People want this to be an anomaly,” he tells her. “We can handle monsters. We can’t handle our neighbors doing these things. We can’t believe these are the same people we see at Christmas parties and basketball games.”
“But they are their neighbors. Monsters, sure, but they live next door.”
Gus shrugs. “You can’t tell them that. That’s not what they want to hear. They want to know that those three men are something else. That it can’t happen again. That it won’t happen again.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course it’s going to happen again. Especially if we ignore what’s actually going on here,” Cassie says.
“Yup. It is. It’s absolutely absurd,” Gus agrees. “But you know what Gwen said. Get the story people want. You can’t change them.”
The courtroom fills as the day starts. People, mostly press, stand in rows along the back walls. Heat circulates through the room. They all tug at their clothes, and it’s only ten in the morning. By lunchtime, the lawyers will be desperate to get to their offices and take off their ties. Just to breathe in space.
It’s fall now, but it’s warm. An unexpected warm, the kind only late September brings. You expect it to be fall. It looks like autumn. But the weather doesn’t care.
I look at Nancy Breward again. She reapplies her lies to her face. I think of the bruises she’s hiding. It’s easy to make her a victim. It’s also easy to be angry at her for staying, for letting her sons grow up just like their father. I guess, though, when you love and hate the same person, your mind has trouble choosing.
I understand when they bring them out. Caleb sits beside Noah, both of them dressed like they’re on a job interview. Noah smiles at the jury, but Caleb’s somber. Sad. His mouth curls up awkwardly and he looks empty. He looks at the jury and then around the courtroom and I hate myself all over again. I hate myself because I hurt for him. I almost believe, for a moment, there was a mistake. That he’s here by accident.
I remember loving him when he looks like this. I remember kissing him a year ago. I remember feeling happy when he held me.
I wonder how many eternities you have to live through before you can let go of that part of yourself. How many times would I need to die to be able to separate Caleb before and after?
They start with Noah. Maybe because he’s older. Maybe because it’s easier to convince them that there’s no reason for him to be a part of this. I’m curious how he can defend himself. I didn’t even know him.
Adrien brings him to the stand and they chat like old friends. Noah is the boy you bring home for dinner. He’s charming and sweet and he laughs at the right times and looks serious when he should. I know what’s true, but even I start to wonder how it’s possible. How this could be true when he’s so clearly a nice guy. Just a regular guy whose life has been turned upside down because of me.
Finally, Adrien says my name. “How did you and Ellie Frias meet?” he asks.
“She was Caleb’s girlfriend.”
“But how did you actually meet?”
Noah looks around the courtroom. His girlfriend—I think her name is Leah—sits with Nancy. She smiles at him and I want to be sick.
“I didn’t really know her. I only met her once.”
“Did anything stand out? That one time you met her?” Adrien asks.
“She was … she was something.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“She was just wild. I don’t know. You’d really need to ask Caleb. I barely knew her.”
They chat about Noah’s college goals, about his basketball games and records. They talk about everything that’s not me, and I almost forget what this trial is even about. Adrien makes Noah human. A person who wouldn’t do these kinds of things. But he did, and no one remembers.
Until the DA comes up for the cross-examination. The DA, whose name I still don’t know, isn’t interested in playing games. He doesn’t care if anyone on the jury likes Noah.
“Tell us about Ellie Frias,” he says.
“Like I said, I didn’t really know her,” Noah replies.
“But you had sex with her?” the DA asks. “The one time you met her? You knew her well enough to sleep with her, am I right?”
Noah smiles. “You don’t have to know much to…” He pauses and realizes this isn’t really the place. “I met her once. I was doing some work for my dad at one of the houses. He fixes houses, you know? The ones everyone keeps abandoning?”
“Yes, we’re all aware of what your father does. Was your father working on the house where Ellie Frias was found?”
“He worked on a lot of houses. He may have worked on that one.”
“And was that where you met her?”
Noah shrugs. “It was so long ago. I don’t really remember where it was. It was one of the houses, but there were a lot.”
“What happened that night?” the DA asks.
“What night?”
“The night you met Ellie Frias.”
“I was doing some work, like I said. I was upstairs. Caleb was with her in the basement. Sometimes we’d go out to the houses … for other stuff. Since they were private.”
“You’d go there to assault women?” the DA asks. Adrien cries objection, but Noah responds anyway.
“I don’t need to assault them,” Noah argues. “I have no problem finding girls who want me.”
“Do you normally share girls with your brother?”
“Not really. No. But I guess Ellie was into that kind of stuff. Caleb said she begged him to ask me to come downstairs. That she wanted us to pass her around. I mean, I thought it was kind of nuts, but whatever. You know what they say about the quiet ones, right?” He actually laughs. On trial for murder and with multiple charges of rape, he laughs.
“And you just went along with it.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, why not? I was single back then. It was a Saturday night and I was stuck fixing a sink. You tell me if you were sitting around working on plumbing and some girl showed up, asking you to do these kinds of things with her, you’d say no? Bullshit.”
“Were you at the house on Pilot Lake, the one where Ellie’s body was found? Did this happen during the weekend she went missing? Was that the Saturday night you’re referring to?”
“I don’t remember. I doubt it. That was in, what? November? I probably had a game. It would have been the beginning of the season.”
The conversation becomes logistical. Circular. Boring. I’m just a body. Just a girl. Someone Noah’s brother dated. Someone who asked for it. He reminds everyone and then they’re done. The jury is left with that memory at the end of it all. That my body may have been found in that house, but I went there by choice. I asked for it. They didn’t need to force me to do anything, because this is who I was. And somehow, I ended up dead, but it had nothing to do with these boys who were just being boys.
Nobody even cares that I’m dead. No one talks about how I cried. How they threw me into the dirt. They
just make sure everyone knows that I was a slut. That I wanted it. They remind the jury repeatedly that this was the natural consequence of having a boyfriend, of going somewhere with the intention of having sex with him.
chapter forty-eight
After they’re done with Noah, they break for lunch. I hate how normal that is—that there’s a break in things. That everything goes on. I feel like the day should mean more. That there should be a bigger sense of it all, but it’s a day and people need to eat.
My father goes with the DA to an office across the hall from the courtroom. As the DA closes the door, I see the anger in my dad’s face.
“Why is my daughter the one on trial right now?” he asks. “She’s dead. She doesn’t get to tell her side of things. How can you let them sit there and say those things?”
“They have nothing. There’s no way they can prove they didn’t do it, so they’re hoping the jury likes them enough to wish they didn’t. They’re trying to make them doubt that they could have.”
“By making Ellie look like that? That’s how they make those boys likable?”
The DA microwaves a meal wrapped in plastic. The green beans look radioactive. All three of us watch the meal spin inside the microwave, trying to process everything Noah said. All the things Caleb has likely been coached to say. Trying to think like a juror who might pity the poor kids who will lose out on college and basketball championships and getting married and having kids because of the inconvenient dead girl.
“You said it yourself,” the DA says. “Ellie’s not here. She’s an idea. Noah and Caleb are kids. Either of them could be their son. If they can make them likable, some of the jurors might prefer to let them move on with their lives. They don’t want to ruin their lives if they don’t have to.”
“I feel like I’m going to be sick.”