But as I get up and leave Adam’s room, I know that it’s the biggest lie I’ve told all night.
I want to get away from this place, to leave the party without having to look Bram in the eyes ever again. But Henry is at the bottom of the stairs, concern still etched on his brow.
“Is everything okay?” he asks when I reach him.
“Yeah, but I’m not feeling great. Think I’ll head home.”
“You drank that stuff Bram made you,” he says, reaching out totouch my arm. His hand slips down to take mine, and for the first time, he seems at ease touching me. Like whatever happened on Saturday marked a change between us, a change that I’ve wished for since we were in middle school.
It would be easier to lie and say yes, I drank that horrible drink. But I don’t want to continue down this path of untruths with Henry.I look into his eyes, and the last thing I want to do is come clean about this. To come clean to myself, once and for all. “It’s Bram,” I say, and Henry’s eyes narrow. “Something happened, and I…”I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want this moment with you looking down at me, your hand on mine, to be the last.
“Yeah, I know,” Henry says, his expression dimming as he lets my hand fall.
“You do?” If he knows, why is he even standing here, talking to me?
“Somehow, Sage got the video. She posted about it on Instagram a few minutes ago. It’s all anyone’s talking about.” He gestures to the rest of the room, where sure enough, every eye is on a phone screen.Some people are laughing nervously; some are looking up from their screens to stare at Henry and me.
“Sage?” My insides go hollow, everything shelled out and replaced by horror. Sage must’ve stayed when I told her to go back inside. She must’ve followed Bram out there to the hedge maze and somehow recorded us together.
I scan the room for Bram, but he’s not here. I need to know how bad it looks. Palms sweaty, I pull out my phone and navigate to Sage’s post.
What I find is far worse than I imagined.
It’s not a video of Bram and me in the garden. It’s a clip, shot within Silver Creek High’s school hall. The footage is shaky, like it was recorded on someone’s phone, and this time, there’s no mistaking the subject. Bram is standing in his black T-shirt. He glances from side to side, then reaches out and pulls the fire alarm. The last thing the camera captures is him racing out of the frame, in the direction of the back doors.
The caption on Sage’s post reads like someone reached straight into my head, removed my thoughts, and pasted them onto the screen:
Still having doubts about whether or not Bram Abbott killed Kennedy Russo? This was recorded minutes before she was lured outside by the sound of a fire alarm and murdered.
18
In the morning, feelings of guilt, embarrassment, and fear rush back before my eyes are even open. I see the garden behind my closed lids, hear Adam’s horrible tale all over again, remember Sage’s social media post.
Last night, Sage left the party immediately after posting. That must’ve been her plan all along, the one I’d predicted. To stay long enough to witness Bram’s undoing and then skip off into the night.
Bram had locked himself up in his room, so it was up to Henry, Adam, and me to send everyone home. The house was in shambles, disproving Henry’s assumptions about student council members not partying too much. I offered to stay and help clean up, knowing Mr. Abbott would arrive today. But they told me to go home, and though I said I’d be fine, Henry insisted on walking me because of the late hour.
He held my hand the whole way home. After everything with Sage’s post, I didn’t have the heart to mention the whole Bram situation. Dad was waiting up for me, so there was no possibility of a good night kiss at my front door. Which is just as well—I won’t kiss Henry until I’ve come completely clean about my history with Bram.
Bram, who may be a killer.
Though my mind—or maybe my heart—refuses to accept this. Sure, Bram is gorgeous and has never had an issue getting attentionfrom girls. But I can’t wrap my head around this girlfriend-stealing monster that Adam has painted him as.I knowBram. I keep going over everything that happened with him last year.
Did he lure me into his bedroom? No.Iasked to see his painting. Maybe, subconsciously, I wanted something to happen. But that’s just as ridiculous. There was Mariana, of course. And even back then, I had a crush on Henry. I asked to see Bram’s paintings as a friend. And in the garden last night, I was trying to comfort my good friend—or someone Ibelievedwas my good friend.
Now, I sit up in bed and check Sage’s post again, hoping that the school or the police have taken it down. But it’s still up, its views upwards of one hundred thousand, with hundreds of comments. Despite feeling torn, I recall the scared look on Bram’s face last night in the garden, and my heart twists for him.
I text Sage, asking if she wants to meet me at the coffee shop in town to get started on our English papers. Our rewrite deadline was extended on account of the murder. She responds immediately:Don’t need help but always need caffeine
An hour later, I arrive at the shop dressed in jeans and an oversized sweater, my backpack heavy with the weight of my laptop. Sage is already there, wearing a cute floral sundress and a cropped white cardigan. She has headphones on and a latte on the table as she types away.
I wave a hand in front of her, and she removes the headphones. “Oh, hey.”
“How’s the paper coming?” I ask, setting my things down acrossfrom her.
“Fine, I guess. Mrs. Lieu’s grading rubric is a complete mystery. So who knows?”
I open my laptop and take a seat. I’d planned on making up a question about my paper topic, just to ease my way into the real reason I asked her here. But I get as far as pulling up a blank document, typing out my title, and messing with the font before blurting out, “I wanted to ask about your post last night.”
