Before my eyes, I could see the snow. I recognized that it was cold, that my nose and hands were going numb. I didn’t feel it though. I didn’t feel much of anything, aside from confusion and a general sense of distortion. The world around me looked as it always did, but it didn’t feel right. It was like I was detached from my body, stuck in that memory of last night at dinner while I walked on autopilot.
It had become routine. If I wasn’t eating out with Sebastian, then me, Delilah, Simone, and Junie ate dinner at one of our homes or the cafeteria. I saw Delilah every day. She was my friend, quickly becoming my best friend alongside Simone.
Who made distinctive notes of every conversation they’d had with each of their friends? I hadn’t realized it would be the last one. Even now, I couldn’t believe that it had been the last one.
What the hell had we talked about?
Had she looked sad? No. No, I remembered that we were all happy. We were laughing, and picking off each other’s plates, and talking about…
What the hell had we talked about?
Beep-beep!
Headlights came toward me. Was I walking on the road? Did they have enough room to pass?
I stepped further from the gravel into the snow, but the car slowed. Once it was beside me, it halted.
“I know you like to get your steps in and everything.” Simone. Simone was in the car. “But it’s, like, eight degrees out here. Do you need a ride?”
It was thoughtless. I yanked open the passenger side door, and I sat.
“You going up to your place?”
All I did was stare ahead. What was I supposed to say? How could I break this to her gently?
“Hello?” Laughing, Simone waved her hand in front of my face. “Anybody in there?”
“Delilah’s dead.” Why it left my lips that way, I couldn’t say.
“What?” The overhead lights in the car began to dim, and Simone smacked them back on.
My eyes started to adjust. Simone gently grabbed my face and turned me toward her.
She whispered, “What did you just say?”
“Delilah’s dead.” The hot sting of a tear burned down my frozen cheek. “The cops just came to talk to Rhiannon and she had me talk to them too. They say she killed herself, but I know she didn’t. I know she didn’t kill herself. It was her ex. It had to have been her ex.”
Shifting the car into park, Simone’s mouth dropped open. She covered it with a shaking hand. “Oh my God.”
“I can’t remember what we talked about last night.” I rubbed my temples. “I didn’t think it was gonna be the last time I talked to her. Everything was normal. Everything was fine. But now I can’t remember the last thing we said to each other. What did I say to her?”
“College,” Simone murmured, eyes falling to her lap. “She was talking about college. How excited she was to start the spring semester.”
“See?” Shaking my head furiously, my voice raised, cracking over every word. “She was happy. She was planning for herfuture. Last night at dinner, we were all happy. She didn’t leave that dinner and kill herself. I know she didn’t. But he didn’t believe me. The detective, Mitchell, I think, he didn’t believe me. Edwards said that he would keep looking into it, but the detective didn’t believe me, and Edwards is just an officer, and—and—I can’t believe this. I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“You’re right,” Simone murmured. “She wouldn’t have killed herself.”
“But she kept talking about wanting revenge. Maybe she got in contact with him. Maybe she wanted to tell Evan how much better off she is, and how happy she is that she’s going to college, and how much she hates him for all the ways he hurt her, and—and that’s all that makes sense. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Headlights shone behind us.
“Shit. I’m blocking the road,” Simone said. “Do you want to come back to my place?”
“No, I need to let Honey out. And I think I want to be alone right now.” I rubbed a hand down my face. “I can just walk.”
“Like hell you can.” She shifted the car back into drive, cut the wheel as far as she could to the right, and skirted off to the side of the gravel. Out the window, she waved her arm at the other driver. “I’ll take you home.”
Maybe that was best. I wasn’t sure I could distinguish between up and down at this moment.
