by Cyn Balog
The thought makes my heart ache. I stand, without a word, and go outside. Kane follows a few minutes later, after I’ve already twisted the key in the ignition. “See,” he says, opening the door to the passenger side. “Told you that you’d take this too hard.”
“I’m not taking anything hard,” I snarl, reaching into my bag and pulling out the notebook. I scan the calendar and say, “What happened on January 7?”
He lets out a laugh. “Well, that was the day I was wearing the red Aeropostale shirt.” When I scowl at him, he throws up his hands. “How should I know, Hail? It was a long time ago!”
“It was the day after the movies,” I prompt. “Sunday.”
He thinks, then hitches a shoulder. “I don’t know. Let me think on it. I’ll file a full report in the morning, officer.”
I ignore the attempt at humor. “When did we have sex? That day?”
He shakes his head. “No. That was later. I don’t know the date.”
I throw the notebook into the center console and shift out of Park. “Well, think. Please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m serious.” The sun is so bright against the snow that I wish I had my sunglasses. I look over at him and see starbursts. I’m getting a headache. “You will, right?”
He mumbles, “Yeah. Sure.”
I don’t know if he really means it. I can tell he’s getting annoyed with me, but I don’t care. I pull out onto the main road and gun it through the slush. My Jeep starts to rattle and whoosh with the wind so I have to yell, “What are you moping about now?”
“I’m pissed that you have absolutely no recollection of our mind-blowing time together, so yeah, I’m moping,” he yells back.
I give him an annoyed look. “You know what I’ve been thinking?”
“About how much you want a repeat performance?”
I cringe. “Can you stop being a total horndog and focus? I was thinking about the shed.”
He lets out a sigh. “Right. Of course. Why think of your living boyfriend when you can think of your dead one?”
“Stop. I’m not your girlfriend. What—”
“Because you don’t want to be.”
I huff. “Let’s not talk about that now. Listen. Do you think we can go by the police station? I want to talk to Nina’s dad.”
Without waiting for an answer, I start heading there. It’s around the corner from the church, so it would be a wasted opportunity not to.
“What do you expect he’ll tell you?”
“Declan hated going into that shed when he had to mow the lawn. He used to tell me that the chemicals made his eyes water. He avoided it at all costs.”
“Yeah, well, apparently he didn’t avoid it that day,” Kane says, looking out the window. He starts to play with the frayed edge of the soft top.
I’m so deep in thought that I don’t come out of it until I find myself sliding on a patch of ice from driving too fast. Overcorrecting, I look at Kane, and he’s bracing himself, holding the door handle. “Chill. I’ve got it.”
He loosens his grip. “You know what? Drive us off the road. Kill us. Since you only seem to think about the dead.”
“Sorry.” I slow down, though I’m dying to get to the police station. I lower my voice from a yell. “And the gun? What about that? Your dad kept his guns under lock and key, didn’t he?”
He nods. “Uh-huh. Key was in my father’s bedroom, in the top drawer of his dresser.”
“Declan didn’t care about guns. Did he even know that?”
Kane shrugs. “Guess so.”
I don’t buy it. Declan was anti-gun, I’m sure. We pull into the parking lot of the police station, between two police cruisers, and the whole time, I’m seeing more cracks pop up in this story by the second. Why had I never questioned this? When I cut the engine, Kane’s looking at me helplessly, his hands in his lap. “What?” I ask.
“I don’t know what you’re hoping to find. What can Officer Paradis actually tell us that we don’t already know?”
“We’re missing something. He might have some information from the scene.”
Kane closes his eyes and inhales, long and purposefully. “Really? You’re forgetting, Hail. I saw the scene,” he says, his voice hollow. He had, for a second, until his father had pulled him back, but I’m sure that second is permanently ingrained in his head, as much as he won’t speak of it. “You ever think how I might feel? Maybe I don’t want to relive it.”
With the car’s heat off, the cold quickly seeps in. I dig my hands into the pockets of my coat, sinking into my seat. “Well, whose idea was it to torch the shed afterward? Isn’t that odd? Do you—”
“My dad did that. It was easier that way. Easier than…going in there, I guess. He just wanted to wipe the place off the earth. And I agreed with him. We all did.”
“But he did it so soon. Maybe he was hiding something that—”
“Wait, hold up.” He turns to me in the passenger seat. I can feel his stare on me. “Do you realize what you’re saying? You’re implying that my dad had something to do with the death of his stepson. My. Dad. That’s bullshit, Hailey. He loved Declan like a son.”
“I know, I know.” It’s stupid. But my mind keeps spiraling, coming up with the weirdest ideas. Everything is on the table, and no one is safe from suspicion.
Not even Kane. Not even me.
53 Days Before
I was beyond jazzed.
School had let out for winter break, and I was lying in bed, savoring that invincible, one-whole-week-off feeling. I was making plans for the new year, wild ones. I’d learn French, because that was alluring, unlike Spanish, which my parents had been making me take because they insisted it would benefit me in the corporate world.
Maybe I’d apply for my first real summer job that didn’t involve babysitting rich camp kids. I’d care more about my appearance: I’d use whatever money I got for Christmas and buy pieces for my wardrobe that I could accessorize with the help of YouTube so that everyone would think I was an artsy, classy chick. Maybe I’d dye my hair blue. I still didn’t have a thing, but I was okay with it. Like Declan said, it was okay. Not having a thing was my thing.
And when Declan went off to UPenn (he hadn’t gotten accepted yet, but he was a shoo-in), I’d visit him in Philadelphia every weekend. He’d show me off to all the jealous girls in his dorm, and we’d walk down the city streets, hand in hand, like real adults. We’d stop in little shops and admire the offerings, and we’d share an ice cream cone. I could see him dropping to his knee and proposing, like he’d talked about. As ridiculous as it had sounded when he’d first mentioned it, I’d gradually warmed to the idea.
At this time, next year, I could be Mrs. Declan Weeks.
I grinned as the doorbell rang downstairs. I checked my phone. It was after noon. Throwing my hoodie over my PINK tank top, I scuffed into my giant unicorn slippers and ran downstairs. I opened the door to Declan. He was holding a tiny wrapped box.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Let me guess. You just woke up.”
I nodded. “Hell yes. It’s the first day of winter break.” I motioned to the box. “Is that for me?”
“It’s actually for your mom,” he said as I pushed open the screen door for him. “Of course it’s for you, dummy.”
I grinned. Then I read the little Christmas-tree-shaped card on the top, and my expression soured. “‘Do not open until Xmas’…really? Why give it to me now? Scumbag.”
He dug his hands into his pockets and looked sheepish. I knew him so well that I found myself bracing for the big bomb drop. “Because my stepdad surprised us with a trip to Split Rock Lodge,” he said. “We leave this afternoon.”
“What?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “You know me and winter sports,” he said, twirling a pointer finger in the air. “Woo-hoo. I mean, why
go to church on Christmas when you can freeze your ass off on top of a mountain?”
“But…our first Christmas together as a couple,” I said, pouting. Not that I’d expected us to cavort through multicolored light displays while having a snowball fight and drinking hot cocoa as carolers regaled us, but, well…okay, I had been imagining something like that. Something romantic. Him being a hundred miles away kind of threw a wrench in that plan.
“I know, I know. Believe me, I’ll be having a worse time than you will be,” he said. “But I’ll be back for New Year’s.”
I groaned. That was more than a week away. What the heck was I going to do?
The truth was, I shouldn’t have complained. Earlier in the week, I’d reminded myself to count my blessings. Although Declan might have been destined to have a bad time and my week would be boring, I knew someone who’d be having an even worse time. Luisa’s dad’s heart attack had been pretty severe, and he’d lost a lot of oxygen to the brain, which had put him in a coma. He’d woken up three weeks later, permanently brain damaged, to the point that he couldn’t communicate with his family.
Luisa and her family had always gone on extravagant vacations for the holidays, but this year, they’d canceled their Mediterranean cruise. I hadn’t asked her what they were doing instead, because I hadn’t wanted to pry, but every day, she’d come into school, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. She avoided her friends, and Kane said that she’d been avoiding him too.
“What will we do on New Year’s?” I asked.
“I’d say it’s an intimate get-together at our place. But you know Kane.” He imitated an explosion with his hands. “He wants to do a speakeasy theme.”
“Speakeasy? You mean, like, Roaring Twenties? Gatsby? He hated that book.”
“Yeah, but the extravagance is right up his alley. And our parents will be out of town. You’ll come, right?”
I nodded, wondering how I’d find a flapper dress. But there was no place I’d rather be.
My eyes drifted to the gift, carefully wrapped in red foil paper, in my hands. I gnawed on my lower lip. The box was the size of an engagement ring, but I didn’t think Declan was that crazy to propose to me when I was sixteen. “I really have to wait until Christmas?”
“Hell no. I only did that to torture you,” he said, grinning. “Annnd I see it worked. Open it.”
Within seconds, I’d ripped off the paper. I lifted the lid to reveal a tiny silver heart. There was a diamond in the center. “Oh!”
“Do you like it?”
I nodded and took it out. The necklace was so delicate, but so, so pretty. I didn’t really have that much fine jewelry. I handed it to him, whirled around, and lifted my hair so he could place it around my neck and fasten it.
“Diamonds are forever. And so are we,” he’d whispered in my ear. As corny as it sounded, I liked it. We’re forever. It made all those thoughts of walking the streets of Philadelphia next fall, hand in hand, and his bended-knee proposal, solidify in my mind. He kissed my ear. “I read that on a jewelry ad.”
I shook my head at him as if he was a total nut and modeled the necklace, doing my best Vogue poses.
“Oh yeah. The unicorn slippers really pull the outfit together.”
I kicked him in the shin with one pointy, stuffed horn, but it probably felt like being hit with a pillow.
“I’m gonna text you,” he said to me. “Perpetually. From in front of the fire in the lodge. Where I’ll be bored as hell. And having no fun whatsoever.”
“I’m counting on it,” I teased him.
It turned out he didn’t text me much. The first couple of days he did, all the time. He texted about how the food sucked and snow sucked and everything about that particular area of the world sucked. By Christmas, he’d texted me twice, once to say, Merry Christmas, love, and another time, he texted a picture of him and Kane in front of a massive Christmas tree at the lodge.
After that, nothing. But I didn’t mind.
Well, I minded a little. But I reminded myself that on New Year’s Eve, we’d be together, and everything would be okay.
Wednesday, February 27
Of course, the little snow holiday we were having couldn’t last forever.
At six thirty in the morning, the temperature is frigid. An icy wind is blowing off the retention pond. I rush out of the house, slide into my Jeep, slam the door, and power up the defrost. The windows are covered with icy starbursts, but I’ll let Kane use the scraper. I sit there, teeth chattering, waiting for warmth to toast my frozen face.
Kane shows up late and slides in. He screams something that sounds like “Witch’s tit! Mother of hell!” but I can’t really tell because he’s breathing into his hands at the same time.
Okay, forget Kane using the scraper. “You are such a wuss,” I say to him, watching as he positions the vents so they’re on him. He even tries to position one of my vents to blow on him, but I slap his hand away. “How is your mom? When are they coming home?”
“My dad was home last night. But Cooper the Pooper’s in NICU. It’ll be another few days until they bring him home.”
“Oh. Is everything okay?” He’s leaning over the heat, letting it blow straight into his face, not answering me. I smack him. “Oh my God, wuss. Grow a pair.”
He gives me a superior glance. “All right, then this wuss won’t tell you what he remembered about January 7 of last year.”
“You remembered something?”
He nods.
Frozen windshield forgotten, I turn, scrabbling for my backpack. I reach in and pull out my little notebook, hovering my pen over the blank spot for that Sunday. “What?”
“Luisa’s dad died.”
I let out a hard breath of air. It’s still so cold inside the Jeep that it puffs out as a white cloud between us. “Her dad is dead?”
He nods.
I didn’t know that. Or maybe I did, once. I only knew her father from the few times he’d shown up at school concerts. Mostly, he worked. He was a workaholic. “From the heart attack?”
“So you can remember that, but not that he died?”
“Yeah, because that happened months before. In September, I think. She told her mother she was going to stay overnight with me because she didn’t want to be alone. And then she went to stay with you.”
“No. I was asleep. She tried to get in, but I was dead to the world. That goddamn Gatsby book drained me of my will to live.”
“You never finished it?”
“I skimmed the good parts—all three pages of them—before the test. I think I passed.” He stares through the defrosted circle that has appeared on the windshield. “She probably knocked on my door, but I didn’t answer. So she must have gone back to your house.”
I remembered her coming in my bedroom that night, so late that I didn’t bother to check my phone to see what time it was. She had to come back anyway, because despite how many times they defied the rules, the Weeks boys weren’t technically allowed to have girls in their rooms overnight. “I was dead to the world by then too.”
“Yeah. Fucking Gatsby.”
I don’t bother to tell him that I actually liked the book, once I read it. I liked Jay, the way he was so dedicated to Daisy and zealous about pursuing his dream of being with her. Tragic, yes, but I guess I understood him. I understood how reality was often tainted and never could match up with the dream.
I write down the new information about Luisa’s father dying. “Do you remember anything else?”
“Just that it really messed with her. She came to my house that night, talking crazy. She was saying shit about you, unbelievable stuff. I don’t remember. We all wanted to go to her dad’s funeral, which was a couple days after that, but by then she wouldn’t even talk to me. She told me she didn’t want any of us there.”
“Well, she was sad.”
“It was more than that. She was pissed on New Year’s, and then after you guys got into that fight at the movies…she didn’t want anything to do with any of us. She said her mother might move them away to live with family in Massachusetts, and she wanted to go. To be rid of us all.”
“But…why?”
He shrugs.
Luisa’s family never moved. They stayed, and eventually, somehow, she and Kane had patched things up, rising to become the untouchable power couple of our senior class. “You guys got back together.”
“Not for a long time,” he says. “We only started going out again in September. She didn’t want anything to do with me for months.”
“Why?”
He rolls his eyes. “Because she’s Luisa. She needed her”—he makes quotation signs at his ears—“space.”
I pull out of the driveway, heading for school, deep in my own head. Kane always thinks every relationship woe he’s ever had with Luisa boils down to her wild, unexplained mood swings, but I don’t believe it. There’s got to be more to their fights than that.
“I’m breaking up with her, though. Today,” he says.
Keeping my eyes on the road ahead, I see him in the periphery of my vision, studying me, waiting for my reaction. I don’t have one.
“You have anything to say about that?” he prompts.
“Nope.” I told him that’s the last thing I want. He thinks I’m so interested in having a boyfriend. After the way everything turned out with the last one? I don’t look at him, but I can tell from the way he clenches his fists in his lap that he’s pissed.
We don’t say anything more due to the roar of the wind outside.
By the time we arrive at the senior parking lot, I know what I need to do. “Don’t break up with her yet, okay?” I say to him as I find one of the last open spaces. “Please?”
He was trying to zip his coat higher to his chin, but he stops, staring at me. “Why?”
“Just don’t. Okay?”
I don’t tell him what I’m planning, because I know he’ll try to talk me out of it. But I need to talk to Luisa. She already hates me. I don’t need to give her another reason to.
