it’s been years since it happened, or since I even spoke to her, I try to blink back the images of my best friend cryin’ a soul-deep kind of cry as I begged her to get out of the shower and come with me to the police instead.
Like it was only yesterday, I recall cradlin’ her on the floor as she flatly told me the pieces she could remember of what happened. I tried to hold her together as she broke, cryin’ endlessly until we were both wrung out and hollow.
“I should’ve been watchin’ for her. Keepin’ an eye out for my friend, but I hadn’t, and now this awful thing had happened to her,” I say quietly, that old guilt still gnawin’ away at me. “I didn’t know what to do. I eventually convinced her to report what happened. But everythin’ that came after she did that was almost just as bad as what happened to her in the first place. There were brutal interviews and horrible gossip, glares, and accusations flung by strangers. I wish I could say there had been some kind of justice, but Mackenzie was told that her case wasn’t strong enough, and the prosecutor refused to pursue it.”
Flint and Alder both shake their heads in disgust, and anger fills up the car like breaths you can see when it’s cold outside.
“That bastard carved his initials into her like she was a tree, and they told her there just wasn’t enough evidence, that her case wasn’t strong because she had been drinkin’ and couldn’t recall if she said no. They said they could try for a lesser charge, but by then, Mackenzie was done. She’d been hurt and harassed and put through hell, and she just wanted to get as far away from everythin’ as she could.
“I had been holdin’ back my anger, tryin’ to be there for her every second of every day like I should’ve been that night, but then Mackenzie got in her car, rolled down her window and told me never to contact her again. That she was leavin’ me, this place, and everythin’ that happened behind her, and then she just drove away. And I…I snapped.”
I look out the window, sunshine wrappin’ itself around the houses and buildings that are flashin’ past the window as we drive by. I wonder—just like I’ve wondered so many times before—if Mackenzie is okay, if she’s healin’, if she’s happy now, but I respect her wishes to this day, and I stay away. It’s the least I can do for her. I know that I’m just a painful reminder of that time.
Droppin’ my hold on my necklace, I clear my throat, nervous for my next words to come out. “A week after Mackenzie left, they found Channing Phillips dead, a couple counties over. His initials had been carved all over his body, and his perfectly healthy heart had just stopped, according to the coroner. On the night they suspected that he died, I was accused of beatin’ the shit out of four startin’ football players—his best friends and teammates who were there at the party and spoke against Mackenzie.”
“You did that?” Flint asks in surprise.
“Well, not me exactly. A girl who looked like me, but she had black eyes and could move faster than was humanly possible and hit harder than a heavyweight fighter. Or so the rumors say.”
Flint snorts out a laugh. “I bet they were all drug tested,” he states with a hollow chuckle.
“They were,” I confirm. “Oddly, they came out clean, but what could be done? I, of course, don’t remember anythin’, not with the football players, or why exactly I attacked them, or what happened with Channing. They couldn’t press charges because there was no evidence, but at that point, I became more of a pariah than before. Gossip swarmed, that I instigated things and encouraged Mackenzie to lie. Those boys were near celebrities in our school, and most everyone took their side, so when they were attacked and Channing ended up dead...to say I was hated is an understatement,” I say bitterly. “My grades suffered from everythin’ that happened, and it was easy for them to kick me out in an effort to clean up the mess. So I moved back home, and here we are,” I tell them with a shrug.
“If he wasn’t dead already, I’d send him to Hell myself,” Alder grumbles before meetin’ my gaze. “I’m sorry that happened to you and to your friend,” he