Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,97

of privacy. I wrote them but I didn’t write what I was really thinking or what I really want to say to you. If you were here with me, I’d tell you everything. We’d stay up late at night and talk about everything. We’d always be together. Things would be better. That’s the thing Mom and Dad and Dr. Who Cares What Her Name Is don’t understand. I know they think I’m really messed up. They say I have an unhealthy fixation on you. But am I really supposed to pretend that my life would have been this shitty if you were still alive? I don’t believe that. If you were here, I’d at least have one friend. Sometimes I need to imagine that you’re here or that maybe you still exist in spirit or in some other dimension or whatever. Sometimes I need to think you can hear me or else I’ll go crazy for real. No one knows what it’s like for me. What it’s really like. Being alone all the time. Picked on, teased constantly.

“Stop,” Josie choked out. A sob rose in her throat. I was here the whole time, she wanted to tell her fourteen-year-old sister.

Shannon stood in the doorway with tears streaming down her face. Lisette adjusted her reading glasses and turned some more pages. “Let me just look and see,” she said. “Maybe I can figure out what it is she wanted you to read.”

“No,” Josie said. “I want to hear it. Please. Go on.”

Shannon walked over and sat beside Josie. As Lisette read on, Shannon inched her chair closer to Josie’s until they were touching. Josie leaned into her mother, letting her head rest on Shannon’s shoulder as Lisette read well into the night. The details were heart-wrenching. Trinity’s high school experience was far worse than even Shannon and Christian knew. The bullying was so relentless that eventually, Trinity began eating lunch in a bathroom stall. Her locker was vandalized on an almost daily basis—usually with something that smelled so that she’d have to walk around all day with one or more of her books stinking like urine or dog feces. She couldn’t even get partners in her classes when teachers assigned group projects. In biology class when she was supposed to be working with a partner, she cut class instead, too embarrassed to work alone. With each new revelation, anger flamed brighter in Josie’s core.

Then an entry struck a more hopeful tone.

Vanessa,

I met you today. Okay, well not you, but what I imagine you’d be like if you had lived. Actually, the girl I met looked a lot like me only she had this bright teal scarf around her neck that didn’t really go with her outfit. Like I would never wear that scarf with a coral shirt, but that’s not the point. The point is that I couldn’t help imagining that she was you. Sometimes I like to pretend you didn’t die in the fire at all, but that we were separated at birth instead. If we had been separated at birth and you were alive, you’d definitely be like the girl I met today. By the way, I got in serious trouble, but I don’t even care. I didn’t get her name which is okay because I like to think it was you. We were on that stupid school trip I told you about. The one I didn’t want to go on. We went to a deer farm and pumpkin patch which is just dumb. What is this? Kindergarten? I had to sit by myself on the bus of course and that bitch, Melanie, messed with me the whole time. She even threw gum at me and it got in my hair. Then everyone laughed hysterically. Longest bus ride ever. We got to the farm and everyone went off on their own. I was actually glad to be alone for once. I wanted to try to get the gum out of my hair but all they had were portajohns. So gross.

Anyway, there were a bunch of other schools there. At the end of the day I was walking back to the bus when I heard Melanie and her bitchy friends talking behind me. At first, I didn’t think they noticed me. Then this group of girls from some other school were walking past me in the other direction and I felt Melanie shove me right into the other girls. I know it was her. I fell right into one girl