by Kate Brian
The lines of her e-mail were burned indelibly into my brain. She had blamed me for her death. Blamed me. How could that ever be okay? I shoved the covers aside and cool air rushed over my hot legs. My hair was plastered to the back of my head with sweat. I had to do something to distract myself. E-mail my brother. Or Natasha Crenshaw, my roommate from last year. Something. Glancing at Sabine's bed, I got up and opened my laptop, then pulled the chair back from the desk as quietly as I could. Out of habit, I opened my inbox first. There was a message from Dash right at the top. My heart pounding for a whole new reason, I clicked it open.
Dear Reed,
I heard about Cheyenne's memorial service. I really wish I could go, but I can't make it. I feel awful, considering how long I've known Cheyenne, but I have this massive paper due on Monday, and unfortunately, funeral services for casual friends don't merit an extension here at Yale. But don't worry. I'm sure you'll be fine. It'll suck, don't get me wrong, but you'll get through it. I know your Billings friends will be there for you, and I'm sure you'll keep yourself busy being there for them as well. You've always been good at that--being there for your friends no matter what. If it does get tough, just know that I'll be thinking about you all day... wishing I was there with you.
Love,
Dash
There was no air in the room. I read the e-mail over three times and my heart felt full. That line about me and my Billings friends- how he knew we'd be there for one another--I couldn't stop staring at it. Dash understood. He knew what my friends meant to me. He knew what Billings meant. Not like Josh. Josh, who felt the need to bash my housemates at every available opportunity. Dash understood, and it made me feel validated. Proud. Happy.
And then there was that final line. I'll be thinking about you... wishing I was there with you. There was no misreading that. And he'd signed the e-mail "Love." Love, Dash. In one e-mail, everything between us had changed. It had just gotten interesting. And dangerous. And wrong. Josh was my boyfriend. And Noelle was one of my best friends. So why couldn't I stop smiling? Fingers trembling, I rested my fingers lightly on the keys. Everything hinged on what I typed back. I could tell him I'd be thinking of him, too. Could take this thing, whatever it was, to the next level. Or I could ignore what he'd said. I could be cold and distant and loyal to Josh. Dash would get the hint. He wasn't a dumb guy. That was what I should do. Obviously that was what I should do. Things had been strained between me and Josh tonight, sure, but it didn't matter. It was going to get better eventually. I loved him. He loved me. I couldn't jeopardize that for an e-mail flirtation with a guy who lived hundreds of miles away. Even if he had just made me feel infinitely better with one e-mail, while earlier tonight Josh had made me feel like crap.
My face flushed hot, remembering Josh's obstinacy. I didn't want to go there. Didn't want to dwell on the negative. I wanted to dwell on this new, calm, validated feeling. I typed back....
Dash,
I'll be wishing you were there with me too. Sabine shifted in her bed, letting out a sigh. My hands jumped from the keyboard as if the keys had just turned white hot. I glanced over my shoulder tremulously, but Sabine had simply rolled over. She wasn't glaring at me in admonishment. Even if she knew whom I was e-mailing, she wouldn't know that it was wrong. And was it wrong, really? Dash was my friend. Plus, I needed a distraction from everything. The weirdness with Josh, the confusion over Cheyenne--I needed something light to get me through all the dark. I took a deep breath, signed the e-mail "Love, Reed," and sent it on its way. And I didn't even feel guilty. All I felt was tired. Excruciatingly, permanent-yawn-in-the-back-of-my-throat tired. I closed the "mail sent" window, and my inbox automatically popped up. There was a new e-mail at the top of the list. I did a double take. My heart was sucked right out of my body, and I gripped the desk as I buckled forward.
The e-mail was from Cheyenne. No. No, no, no, no, no. This was not possible. What the hell was going on here? Delete it. Just delete it. It's not really there anyway. You're just hallucinating. Imagining things. You're exhausted. Delusional. Delete it and go to sleep. But how could I? It was a week to the day the first e-mail had been sent. A week since she'd died. I had to open it. I had to know. Holding my breath, feeling like I was about to shake apart at the seams, I clicked open the message. Ignore the note. You did this to me. You ruined my life. Every cell in my body went cold. I couldn't breathe. I gripped the edge of my desk to keep myself from fainting or reeling--just to feel something solid and real. Because this... this e-mail... it couldn't be real. It couldn't be happening. It was the same message I'd received last weekend. Cheyenne's last e-mail. How had it been re-sent? Had someone sneaked into her room? Was someone on her computer, messing with me?
With a sudden surge of adrenaline, I shoved myself away from my desk and tiptoed to the door. Every inch of me quaked as I slipped out into the hallway. Cheyenne's room was just a few doors down. I looked for the glow of a light under the door, but there was none. Still, that didn't mean there wasn't someone inside. Sitting at her computer. Having a bit of fun at my expense. I took a deep breath, held it, and started to walk. The hallway had never felt so wide, so frigid, so silent. As I passed by the grainy photos of Easton Academy through the years, I felt as if someone was watching me. As if at any moment cold hands would reach out and grab me. Clearly, I had seen too many horror movies. I had to get a grip. When I made it to Cheyenne's room, I pressed my palms into the wood trim around the door and breathed. Someone's in there. Someone has to be in there. I'm not crazy. That e-mail did not send itself. Squelching the fear that threatened to overcome me, I held my breath and opened the door. It swung wide and fast, as if propelled by a burst of wind. The room was empty, the computer dark. No one was there.
For a long moment I stood alone, disbelieving. If no one had sent it, how had it shown up in my inbox? How could it possibly have happened? No answer miraculously came to me, and the longer I stood there, the more the room in front of me came into focus. I started to notice things. Things I hadn't noticed the last time I had been there-- that morning when we found Cheyenne. Like the suitcases, three of them, open on the floor near the far wall. There were sweaters piled into one, stacks of neatly folded lingerie in another. Cheyenne had started to pack that night. Had been getting ready to go. At what point had she stopped? At what point had she decided that she was not, in fact, ever going to leave Billings? At least not alive. I would never know.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I stepped into the room and closed the door quietly behind me. On her dresser was her makeup case, filled to the brim with Shiseido and Laura Mercier. Next to it sat a small silver box with ornate etching on the lid. Beautiful. Taking a closer look, I saw that there was a monogram worked into the swirling design. VMS, the letters all the same size. Why would Cheyenne Martin have a box with the initials VMS etched into it? Tentatively, I opened the box and froze. Inside, sitting on the black lining, was Cheyenne's diamond B necklace. I couldn't believe she had ever taken it off. This necklace symbolized everything important to her. Then I saw that something was wrong with the chain. It hadn't been unclasped. It had, in fact, been snapped. How? Why? Had she torn it off in the midst of a fit over being expelled? Another thing I would never know.
Spooked by the violent image, I clicked the box closed and placed it right back where it had been. Right next to the pieces of the cell phone I had shattered against the wall above her bed in the midst of our Josh confrontation. She had gotten a new one the very next day, so why had she kept the remnants of the old one? One more unanswered question. Then I looked at her computer. She had sent that e-mail from this machine. Had used that keyboard to type her final message. Was it still in her system? If she'd sent it from here, it still had to be coming from here, didn't it? It had to be. And then it hit me. Maybe she had set it up to be a repeating e-mail. Maybe she had set her server to send me her suicide note every Friday for the rest of my life. The very thought made the room tilt before me, and I grasped the desk.
<
br /> Was she that sadistic? That angry? That unhinged? It couldn't be. But if it was set up that way... if it was, I had to stop it. If it was, I had to make it go away. Before I could rethink my actions, I sat down in Cheyenne's pink upholstered desk chair and powered up her computer. It seemed to take forever to whir to life, and when it did I was faced with her desktop wallpaper, a photo of all of us taken last year in front of Billings on the last day of school. The sight of all those smiling, unsuspecting faces--Cheyenne's dead center--made my eyes sting. I quickly double clicked the Easton crest at the top right of the page, and the Easton e-mail system popped open. That was when I froze. It was, of course, asking for her password. Dammit. Damn all the damn security. How was I ever going to figure out Cheyenne Martin's password? Feeling as if I couldn't give up now, I typed a few obvious things. "Billings." Nope. "Easton." Nope. "Josh" and "Hollis." Nope. Thank God. But I was at a loss. Last year, when Dash and I had broken into Ms. Lewis-Hanneman's computer, he had used some universal password that Lance Reagan had cracked, but I had no idea what it was. I could have called Dash or Lance or Josh or any of the guys in Ketlar, all of whom, apparently, had been granted this information, but whoever I asked would want to know why I wanted it. It was no good. I was going to have to abort this mission. It was all I could do to keep from picking the monitor up and slamming it to the floor in frustration. But that, surely, would be loud enough to attract some attention.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I turned off her computer. As soon as the room went dark, a floorboard creaked behind me. I whipped around, heart in my throat, but again, there was no one there. Nothing but Cheyenne's open closet. I really was losing my mind, and this room wasn't helping. I quickly got up and slipped back to my room, sliding silently under the covers, which I drew all the way up to my chin. There would be no sleeping tonight, that much was now clear. I was just going to have to lie here and wait until morning. Until Cheyenne's memorial. Until it was time to say good-bye and maybe, just maybe, I could say good-bye to all this guilt and fear and uncertainty as well. A girl could hope.
* * *
"My daughter always wore her heart on her sleeve. If you knew her, you knew her feelings, you knew her hopes, you knew her dreams," Mrs. Kane, Cheyenne's mother, said. She stood behind a small podium in front of a huge bank of windows that fronted the rocky Cape May shoreline. Before her, a hundred guests sat still as statues, not daring to move and disrupt the service. "But as her mother, I like to think that I knew her better than anyone, so today I'd like to share with you some little-known facts about Cheyenne Martin, my little girl." I reached out and gripped Josh's hand. Every time Cheyenne's name was mentioned, all the hairs on my neck and arms stood on end. Ever since I had received her e-mail again the night before, I had felt shaky, vulnerable, almost as if I was being watched. That feeling had only intensified upon entering her mother's huge, airy Victorian on Cape May. Cheyenne's picture was everywhere. Staring at me. Judging me. Blaming me. As miserable as I had expected this experience to be, it was ten times worse now. My own personal torture chamber. "My little girl," Mrs. Kane repeated wistfully.
She placed her hands on the sides of the podium and paused as we all held our breath. Cheyenne's mom was a slim blond woman who could have doubled for Naomi Watts, but even with her wispy body, she had a strength about her. She wore a formfitting black suit and black heels, her hair back in a low bun, her makeup perfectly applied. Behind her and to the left, hunched in a wooden chair, was Cheyenne's father, who was not nearly as composed as his former wife. He had a chiseled jaw, broad shoulders, and day-old stubble- handsome even through his obvious grief. "Cheyenne loved horses, as I'm sure you all know, but did you know that her greatest dream as a child was to own a pink pony with a red tail?" Mrs. Kane said. The crowd laughed quietly and shifted in their seats.
"Many of you know that my daughter was also a philanthropist, spending a few weeks each summer building houses with Habitat for Humanity," Mrs. Kane continued. "But did you know that she learned to love architecture and construction so much that she designed and built a house for our dog Coco all on her own?" Mr. Martin hung his head. Guilt surged through me, white hot and fresh. I squeezed Josh's fingers again. Thank God he was there. Steadfast, solid Josh. Josh, who hadn't mentioned a word of our argument all morning. Who'd simply put his arm around me on the quad, brought me to his car, and hadn't stopped asking if I was okay all day long. Even in the midst of a fight, he cared about me enough to selflessly be there for me. Why had I sent that e-mail to Dash last night? Why? I had done it in a moment of weakness. A moment of needing to be understood and comforted. But who was here for me now? Josh. All day long. Comforting. He was the guy I loved. The only guy I needed.
"And I'm sure you all know how much she loved her friends, the girls of Billings House." Here Mrs. Kane paused to smile down at us, Cheyenne's housemates. We were all seated in the first two rows, at her insistence, and I suddenly felt a glaring red spotlight burn my skin. "She loved you girls more than anything, and I know that if she were here with us today, she would tell you all how much she misses you, and that she hopes you all remember her for the things she did to brighten your life at Billings, and not for the way in which she left it." Her eyes shone as she looked at each of us. A tear slid down my cheek and I shakily swiped it away. Cheyenne didn't miss me. She hated me. She wouldn't be dead if it weren't for me. "Now, if you'll all adjourn to the shoreline outside... in a few minutes we'll be releasing Cheyenne's ashes at her favorite spot on the bluff. Thank you," Mrs. Kane said, mustering a bright smile. The guests started to stir, but Mrs. Kane stepped around the podium and stopped Rose with a hand to her arm.
"Girls, would you mind staying back for a moment? There's something I'd like to say to you all," she said, looking me directly in the eye. My heart plummeted. Why had she looked at me? Why me? "You gonna be okay?" Josh asked, squeezing my hand. There was an enormous lump in my throat, impossible to speak through, but I managed to nod. "I'll wait right outside," he assured me, his blue eyes resolute. '"Kay," I croaked. I sat down again next to Kiki, who had hidden her pink bangs under a black cabbie pulled low over her brow. My heart pounded so hard, I was sure I was going to pass out. What could Cheyenne's mother possibly want to talk to us about? "This should be interesting," Kiki said under her breath, popping her gum as she slumped down. Her heavy black boots peeked out from under the hem of her long gray skirt.
"This will only take a moment," Mrs. Kane began. She smiled as she clasped her hands in front of her. A rock the size of my head flashed on her ring finger. Mr. Martin, shoulders hunched, hovered behind her. "First, a request. Tomorrow morning, Cheyenne's father and I will be coming to Easton to pack up Cheyenne's things, but we've talked about it and we'd like for each of you to stop by her room tonight and choose something of our daughter's to keep." Everyone looked at everyone else. She couldn't be serious. Mr. Martin cleared his throat loudly. "We know how much you all meant to our... to Chey--" He paused and collected himself, running his hand over his eyes. "We know how much you all meant to her, and we know she'd want you all to have something to remember her by. So we hope you'll do us... do her memory... this honor...." He trailed off, looking at the floor, and shook his head. "I'm sorry. If you'll excuse me...," he said, his voice cracking.
He rushed out of the room, hand to his mouth, his expensive pants swishing as he went. I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life. No one moved. To see a man like him break down in that way--it was awful. Horrifying. It brought the whole thing home all over again. "Mrs. Kane. I'm so sorry," Rose said, standing tremulously. "I wish I... I wish--" "Oh, Rose. Come here, honey," Cheyenne's mother said. Rose stepped over everyone's legs, already crying, and Cheyenne's mother pulled her into a hug. No one knew what to do. We all just sat there, listening to the sound of Rose's muffled sobs. Cheyenne's mother fished a tissue from her Chanel purse. She handed it to Rose, who pressed it to her nose shakily. "Girls, I know you're grieving, and you should be. You just lost one of yo
ur best friends. But I don't want any of you to waste time feeling guilty or asking 'what if.' None of you are responsible for my daughter's actions." Except me.
"She loved you all so much. She loved that house so much," Mrs. Kane said. "She would want you to get on with your lives. She would want you to continue to uphold the Billings name and its traditions. Mourn her, honor her, but don't forget to live your lives too. Don't look back with regret." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was Cheyenne's own mother trivializing her death? How could she expect us to move on? To have no regrets? The last year had been nightmare after nightmare for all of us. I glanced around, expecting everyone to look as appalled as I felt, but my blood ran cold. Instead, my friends seemed to be buying it. Already a few of them had visibly perked up. But then, I suppose I couldn't blame them. If Cheyenne's flesh and blood was excusing them from mourning, was telling them to get over their grief, who were they not to listen?
"Now, let's all go outside and join the others," Mrs. Kane said, giving Rose a squeeze. "I'm sure they're ready for us now." After the briefest hesitation, everyone around me started to rise and file out of the room. My knees quaked as I got up, and I had to steady myself with a hand on the back of a chair. "Reed? Are you okay?" Constance asked me. "Yeah, I'm--" "Reed Brennan?" Mrs. Kane interrupted, having overheard Constance. "I wasn't entirely sure it was you. You look so different in the pictures...." My heart all but stopped. Pictures? What pictures? "I'm sorry?" I said. A few of the Billings Girls shot us quizzical looks as they left the room, but only Sabine and Constance hung back, standing a respectful distance from myself and Cheyenne's mother. "Cheyenne spoke so highly of you," Mrs. Kane said. I blinked. "She did?" "You're surprised," she stated, smoothing her already perfectly smooth hair back toward her bun. "But she did. When we were in Greece over the summer, she told me all about you. How you brought a much-needed dose of reality to Billings. How grounded you were. I think you were a good influence on her."
