by CM Wondrak
Police. Two officers. Not just random men.
“Tenley Goddard?” The one leaning on the bookcase pushed off, moving closer to me to shake my hand. I figured not offering to shake his would be a red flag, so I tentatively did. The cop by the window made no moves to come to me, I noticed. “Mind if we ask you a few questions about last night?”
“Go ahead,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. This had to be about Kyle, right? If Kyle really was dead, these two police officers were just following up, talking to one of the last people who saw him alive.
Me.
The one near the window gestured to the two seats in front of the principal’s desk, saying, “Take a seat.”
I cautiously chose the left seat, sitting down on it, feeling my skin start to crawl. Being so close to these policemen, knowing Kyle was indeed dead and that this wasn’t some kind of sick joke… I didn’t know how to take it. Did my stranger step in? Should I tell these officers my suspicions?
But then… then they might try to take him away from me, if they thought my stranger had anything to do with this. It was quite possible I was just pulling air from my ass. Just because I was trying to use Kyle to lure my stranger out and Kyle was now dead didn’t mean my stranger had anything to do with it.
It should be something that needn’t be said, but I couldn’t let anyone take him away from me, not before I saw his face. Not before I knew the entire truth. To give him up would be like throwing away my past, as weird as that comparison was.
I said nothing, waiting for one of the officers to speak. The one who spoke first was the one near the bookcases, who moved to stand near the other chair beside me. He did not sit, though, and having him tower over me made me the slightest bit uncomfortable, almost like he was trying to make me anxious.
“Were you with Kyle Sturgis last night?” he asked me.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, figuring there was no reason to hide the truth. Not that truth, anyway. My stranger? These two policemen would have to pry that truth out of my cold, dead hands, because even if he was involved with this, I refused to tattle on him like some snitch.
The one near the window turned to face me, still holding his hands behind his back. He had the mean stare down pat, leveling it at me. I didn’t know if they suspected me of something or not. “News travels fast around here. I assume you’ve heard?” When I said nothing, he added, “Kyle Sturgis is dead.”
I’d heard that, yes, and I didn’t know how I should be reacting in front of these cops. Should I tear up? I wasn’t sure if I could will myself to cry like that. Should my body be trembling or… shit. I really had no idea. This was just one of those times when I felt like an outsider, through and through. Someone who didn’t belong with other people.
The dark. The darkness never made me feel like this. It was only other people, other people in the daylight with their harsh glares and their judgment.
Instead of tearing up or acting shocked, I decided to venture, “What happened?” You couldn’t really trust the rumor mill at this school; someone said one thing, and by the time it made its way through the entire school, the rumor was twisted and completely different than what it started out as. The police were the only ones whose word I could trust for the truth.
“His parents came home last night to find him dead in his room,” the officer before me spoke, frowning somewhat as he studied me.
The other officer beside me asked, “What were you doing with Kyle last night?”
“We have… had a project for language arts we were paired up for. We’ve been working on it almost all week.” I kept the fact that I’d offered my house as an almost nightly escape to myself; I dared not bring up the stranger at all. Not to these blue-wearing, badge-wielding officers.
“Did Kyle seem off last night? Was he acting differently?” This question the one near the window asked.
I shook my head and shrugged. “No. I mean, he seemed normal, like he always was. He wasn’t acting weird or anything like that.”
The police officers glanced at each other, and I wished I could peek into their heads and see what they were thinking, what they were wordlessly talking about. Did they think I was involved?
“Can I ask,” I paused, unsure if I should even dare to ask something like this, if it was considered going too far, but I had to know, “how did it happen?”
The officer beside me broke his staring contest with his fellow officer and looked at me. His eyes were a dark blue, a pretty color, but one that instilled no warmth within me. “He was found on the floor of his bedroom with his father’s gun.”
I wasn’t aware his father had a gun, and it took me a moment to put the pieces together, to say what the officer didn’t, “He killed himself?” That… that didn’t sound right. Out of everyone in this school, I just couldn’t picture Kyle ever taking a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. He was popular, he was loved and liked by almost everyone. He had the next four years planned out with his football scholarship.
And now he was dead, but why?
I guess that was the question the police were trying to answer here.
The officer near the window folded his arms over his chest, saying, “It looks to be that way, but something about it doesn’t sit right with me. A golden boy like him… normally they’re not the ones killing themselves.”
The other one muttered, “And when the parents called it in, they found the back door was unlocked. Someone could’ve gotten in and made it look like a suicide. It wouldn’t be the first time a criminal has tried to pass off a murder as one.”
Something about his words didn’t sit right with me, and my stomach curdled. Murder. Suicide. Those two words said so close to each other made me think of my parents. My father, my mother, the two people who were supposed to protect me from the horrors of the world. The two people who failed in that duty.
“Did Kyle have any enemies that he talked about? Anyone who might hate him for his success or popularity?” the officer with his arms folded over his chest asked me.
Enemies? This was the Twenty-First Century. Who the hell had enemies? People either liked you or they didn’t; that’s just how it was these days. Having an enemy sounded old-fashioned and almost ridiculous.
“Not that I know of,” I spoke, telling the truth. It wasn’t as if Kyle and I were close; I literally said no more than two words to him before all this. It wasn’t like I knew his friends and what he did every weekend. Hell, I’d bet these officers would get a better answer to that question out of Aubree.
“Well, if you think of anything, feel free to come down to the station, okay?” the other officer spoke, lowering his voice to a bare whisper as he added, “If this isn’t what it looks like, if this is a murder, we have to catch whoever did it. Who knows who will be next if we don’t?”
I was not sure if the officer was trying to instill a sense of urgency in me or what, but it wasn’t working. I wouldn’t sit in class all day and fear for my life; I wasn’t made to do something like that. No, if I was to die, then I guess I’d die. I didn’t fear death, didn’t fear the end. It just meant the darkness would finally take me, as it always should’ve.
All I could do was nod, and the police let me go. I slipped past Mr. Peele, who thanked me for cooperating with the police, and started to make my way back to class. All the while I wondered what happened, if he’d really taken his parents’ gun and shot himself, or if someone had staged it all. Like the one officer said, it wouldn’t be the first time—
My feet stopped in the hall. Everything was oddly quiet around me, not a single sound echoing in the emptiness. An unsettling feeling began to crawl up the back of my neck, and I was too caught off-guard to try to shake it off.
Kayla always hated that I believed the police, that I never called what happened to my parents an accident. What if…
No. No, I wouldn’t let myself be caught up in conspiracy theories or anything silly. I wouldn’t. Who the hell had time to worry about that stuff? K
yle was dead, so what? It wasn’t like my world would crumble because he was gone now. The worst of it would be that I’d have to do our project on my own, which I honestly anticipated having to do it on my own, anyway.
I resumed my pace, silently slipping back into class and ducking my head down until I got to my seat. Nothing worse than returning to class in the middle of a lecture, but seeing as how I’d been called to the office, it wasn’t like I could’ve said no.
Kyle was dead.
I still couldn’t believe it.
Lunch rolled around, and Aubree was glum and morose, sighing every ten seconds and not eating anything. I even went to the vending machine and got her some chocolate, figuring she would at least eat that, but she didn’t. She was so out of it, so broken-hearted and depressed about what happened to Kyle that she was hardly acting like herself. This Aubree… I wondered if this Aubree was anything like the Aubree that used to cut herself.
Not that I was assuming she’d go straight back to the habit, the habit that had almost killed her years ago, but without being inside her head, I had no idea where she was mentally. Not good, that much I knew.
I didn’t know if I should tell her about the police questioning me this morning or not, but I decided to anyway. “The police were here this morning. I got called down to the front office,” I said, shooting a look at her. Around us, the cafeteria was quieter than it usually was, less merriment to be had. Fewer conversations and a lot less laughter, and it had to be out of respect for the one this school had lost.
Out of respect, or out of fear, because what if the officers were right? What if Kyle’s death wasn’t a suicide and it was a cold-blooded murder? If someone could go after the high school’s star quarterback, any one of us could be next.
Death. It wasn’t something high school kids thought of, other than me. But I knew I wasn’t normal in that respect; it’s where my not-like-other-girls thing shined through. It could be that everyone else was scared they’d be next. If there was one thing I was told us teenagers felt, it was invincible, that nothing could ever harm us.
I never believed that, but I think I was more pragmatic and cynical than most of the others around me, Aubree included. Even though my past was mostly a blank blur, I just knew I’d seen more, witnessed what this world had to offer so much more than anyone else here.
Aubree snapped to attention once I’d spoken, blinking as she looked at me. “They were? You did? What… what did they say?”
“They just asked me about last night,” I said.
“And you told them everything, right?”
I blinked. I didn’t know about telling them everything, but I did answer their questions. “All they did was ask me if I thought Kyle was acting strange last night and if he has any enemies.” I shrugged, much like I did to the policemen. “I didn’t know Kyle that well, so I didn’t really know what to say.”
Aubree quieted, staring at me, the frown tugging at her lips a truly sad one. “You know what that means, right?”
Truthfully, I had absolutely no idea what it meant. I didn’t know what any of this meant, nor what it meant that my mind kept going back to my parents and what happened to them. All I could say was a quiet “No.”
“It means you might be the last known person to see Kyle alive,” Aubree whispered. “Do they think someone killed him?” She brought a trembling hand to her neck, touching her skin—its white color was drained to be the most pallid it could be, and yet I could see red splotches, as if she was breaking out in hives or something from the stress of today.
“I don’t know,” I said. “The way they talked, I don’t think they believe Kyle did it to himself, but it wasn’t like my answers helped them much.” As I spoke, I tried to picture it: Kyle, in his room. I’d never seen it, having not gone upstairs at the party, but I could imagine it well enough. A jock’s room. A boy’s room.
Stained in blood, now.
It wasn’t something I should let myself think of, but I couldn’t stop myself. I almost wished I could’ve seen it, that seeing it would help me understand why my mind didn’t work like it should. Why I was so sickeningly curious about his death and how I could act so nonchalant while being questioned by police.
“Oh, God,” Aubree muttered, an expression of pure horror on her face. “They think someone killed him.”
I said nothing, because there wasn’t much left to say at this point.
“Who would want to kill him? I don’t understand. I don’t—” Aubree started talking fast, her words stumbling over each other as she spoke, and I had no idea what to say to calm her down. The mere idea of her crush being murdered was too much for her, clearly.
Although… how she was currently reacting was probably more akin to how I should’ve reacted, but that ship had sailed.
“Aubree,” I cut in, stopping her from rambling on and on, “I don’t know. The police are just investigating it. All we can do is wait. Who knows? Maybe Kyle really did—”
“No,” Aubree said with a shake of her head. “No, Kyle never would’ve killed himself.”
“How do you know that? You and him weren’t exactly close.” I realized what I said could come off as bitchy, and I stopped myself from saying anything more, but the blow had landed, and Aubree stared at me as if I’d cut her to the bone. “I’m sorry,” I added. “I just mean you didn’t know him as well as you wanted to. He had a life both you and I knew nothing of. Who are we to say what went on in his head?”
Though she still looked quite hurt at what I’d said, I could tell she softened after what I said next. Aubree leaned on the table, heaving a sigh as she muttered, “You’re probably right. I just… I just can’t believe he’s gone, you know? This place won’t be the same without him.”
Oh, I was sure nothing would be the same now. There would probably be long speeches about him at graduation, school-wide prayers or something, even though this was a public school and technically public schools weren’t allowed to mix in religion.
The rest of lunch was mostly quiet, neither Aubree nor I speaking much.
Language arts wasn’t much better, since there was an empty seat where Kyle was supposed to sit. Mrs. Johnson let us do whatever we wanted, though she did pull me aside and tell me that if I wanted to join someone else’s group, she’d make an exception and allow a group of three. I told her I’d be fine, that we’d already started drafting the paper. Not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth, either.
Time was a funny thing; the minutes seemed to last longer, for whatever reason. Maybe the whole mood of the student body and the teachers who knew what happened made everything stretch out into infinity. All I knew was the end of the day seemed to take forever to arrive, and when it did, I found Aubree huddling near my locker.
“Hey,” she said, looking quite out of sorts still. Not that I expected her to automatically get over Kyle’s death, but it wasn’t like they were close. “Do you think your aunt will let you come over tonight? I don’t… I don’t want to be alone.”
“Um,” I paused, having not expected her to ask that, “I don’t know. I can ask.”
“Just text me,” she said. “I’ll pick you up, drop you off, whatever. I just… I don’t want to be alone tonight, Tenley.” Aubree gave me a weak smile, her eyes welling with tears, and she said nothing else as she turned around and walked away, off to her own locker.
I doubted Kayla would want me going over Aubree’s house, but maybe she had no idea what had happened last night. Kayla had no ties to this school or anything like that, so maybe she didn’t know there could be a killer on the loose.
Even if the police were right and Kyle was murdered, I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t frightened. If the killer came to me, a part of me believed I’d see the man who I’d been dreaming of, that it was all too much of a coincidence.
Call me cold, but the possibility of a murder didn’t bother me one bit.
After I got what I needed from my locker, I headed outside, finding my aunt’s car in
the long line parked in front of the school. I got in, not saying a word as I dropped my bag near my feet and clicked my seatbelt. Kayla was busy studying me, and she hesitated before putting the car into drive and going.
It was a while before I realized no music played in the car. The vehicle was oddly silent as Kayla drove me home. Though it was odd, I thought nothing of it, assuming my aunt had a bad morning at her workplace or something.
But that wasn’t it, I was soon about to discover.
When Kayla pulled into the driveway at home, she turned off the car and got out with me. I shot her a questioning look as we both entered the house and she dropped her keys on the counter in the kitchen. Today had been a warm day, no jacket needed. All my aunt wore was her puppy-covered smocks.
“Aren’t you going back to work?” I asked, feeling uneasy.
Kayla looked at me, and I mean she really looked at me, as if she was trying to stare into my soul or something. Such a hard, intense look, and I didn’t know what to make of it. “I got a call this morning from your principal. It was a courtesy call, since you’re eighteen and can talk to the police on your own. He told me what happened to Kyle.”
Oh. Was that why she was acting so weird? Oh, great. Now my overprotective aunt was going to go crazy with the thought someone was out there, killing high school kids and making it look like a suicide.
I stared back at her, wondering if I should’ve texted her during the day or something, told her about the cops that had questioned me. I mean, it wasn’t like the police thought I did it, but I could only imagine what my aunt was currently thinking.
“You should’ve texted me, Tenley,” she finally said.
“I’m sorry, I just…” What could I say to lessen the worry she surely felt about all of this? Until last night, it’d been a quiet town. Hardly any crime. The worst there was was the occasional drunk driver who ran himself off the road and into a ditch. There were never any murders or anything; at least, none I could recall. “I didn’t know it mattered.”
