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And it should have been her. I’ll make sure that itisher.
I’m not quite sure how I’ll do it. It’s not that I didn’t have plenty of time to think while I was in there, I just never thought I’d actually get out without going to trial.ThatI was prepared for—to put her on the stand, to make her look me in the eye while she tried to lie through it all as it came out. It would have gotten messy. We were relying onmessyto set me free after the knife incident. It was the only card left to play.
I spend the next few hours googling myself—something I haven’t been able to stop doing since I got out, even thoughI promised my parents I wouldn’t. For the most part, Ally has seemed to elicit sympathy from our peers, but the internet has come up with several conspiracy theories that, as usual, are far from the truth. Many of them believe Ally and I killed Darci together, but she turned on me afterward, hoping to save herself. Some think it was just Ally, which—although it would work in my favor—isn’t true, either.
There’s a lot of stuff about her childhood on here. They go on about how she spent a lot of time homeless while her mom had an addiction and worked as a dealer to feed it, although Ally always said she was only ever a dealer, not a user, and it was because she had no other choice. They talk about the family, their religious beliefs, and how Ally’s mom was thrown out when she became pregnant at sixteen. They even found her dad, and the same pictures Ally showed me on Facebook wound up in the threads. There appears to be a universal consensus that a background like this would inevitably breed a sociopath or a killer, but she’s only the first one.
They mention my mom, too, and our experience with Ivy’s dad and draw the same conclusion about me.
The internet sleuths have been all over it, though. My favorite is the ‘What happened to Darci Connelly’ subreddit. One of its active users was the one who found the camera on the side of our neighbor’s shed, which ultimately led to my release. He drove all the way from Boise to investigate the area for his podcast. The dude had a theory that Ally and I killed Darci in the woodsbehind the neighborhood, and that was why there was no physical evidence found inside the house. Still, there were holes in this logic—our security system shows that only one door was opened and closed one time after everyone left that night. It was at 2:12 AM, and now we know Darci’s body was left in the pool an hour later.
We can also be pretty sure that her cell phone didn’t leave the area, even though they never found it. Anyway, the internet’s focus seems to have shifted away from both of us and back to a secret boyfriend.
I scroll past threads I’ve read and reread and pictures I’ve seen a thousand times over. There are a couple of images of Ally walking into school and a few of her playing volleyball. I heard they had to start banning the general public from attending the matches for that reason; only students and their immediate families can attend now. Our small island runs on tourism in the summer, but apparently, murder tourism is frowned upon.
I spend hours diving deep into this trash bag, and when I come up for air, it’s after midnight, and I haven’t found anything useful.
What a fucking waste.
Luckily, after living in a concrete shithole waiting to be tried for murder, sleep comes easy for me now. I close my eyes and instantly fall into a deep sleep. I dream of Ally’s hands on me, of felt-tipped markers running down my spine and the weight of her body on mine.
And when I wake up the next morning, I hate myself a little more.
“Ally, are you okay?” I ask.
She jumps at the sound of my voice. She must have fallen asleep again; this will be the fourth day in a row.
“Yeah, I just…I haven’t slept,” she says. “I need to sleep.”
Her portfolio has been open to the same practically empty page for days now. It’s not like her.
“You’re stressed,” I tell her. “Maybe you should skip the meet. Go find somewhere to sleep.”
“Like with you?” she asks.
“Yeah, if you want.”
I reach forward and start to rub her shoulders. She lets me, but only for a few seconds before she snaps.
“Stop,” she hisses. “You can’t touch me here. You probably shouldn’t talk to me so much, either.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I miss you. I’m just trying to help.”
“Yeah, well—you’re not.”
I spend the rest of class trying to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with this girl. Five months doesn’t feel like much time, but it’s a lot to let whatever is happening to her in that house keep happening.
The bell rings; I gather my things and head for the door, looking back at Ally, still in her seat, before I do.
She mouths the words,‘I’m sorry.’
“I know,” I say back.
It doesn’t make me feel much better. I hate that I can’t talk to her or touch her at school. I hate that I can’t see her on the weekend and that everything has to be hard for reasons that don’t make any fucking sense. I don’t mean to be mad at her for it, but I am. I mean, fucking in my car after her away meets over the last few weeks has been great and all, but it’s just making the space between even worse.
I take my seat in Mr. Parks’ health class and pull out my notebook. He’s on my list, too. I’ve just been waiting for my chance with this dumb mother fucker, and I get it at the end of class.
“A lot of you have asked about how you can get your grade up before the end of the year,” he says. “I have an opportunity for you—an essay. I will post a few topics for you to choose from on the class site, and if you choose to participate, you’ll turn it in on Monday, and it will be worth twenty points.”
