The Thrashers(95)

Jodi



Jodi winced seeing her message. Julian could have cut it off after Lucy’s threat to get the point across, but he’d included her. She chose one of the other screenshots.

Paige

emily just asked me where im applying to college

why do i feel like shes about to get a jump start on her app to brown

Zack

probbly

Lucy

she is. shes going to follow you to class and kill your roommate and then lock you in your dorm so you can be together forever

Jodi

College Admission Essay / Emily Mills

I’ve known Paige Montgomery for only twenty minutes, but we are destined to share the same 8x8 box. Please admit me so I can continue clipping pieces of her hair. My extensions are almost ready.

Julian

Fuck

Paige

its too accurate help

Her stomach was churning. Jodi rubbed her brow. All she’d wanted was to make her friends laugh. She specifically remembered feeling almost proud when Julian had laughed. Now there was something twisting and tight in her chest.

Emily was never supposed to see this. Jodi had trusted that these four people would never share these messages. She ground her teeth, thinking of how Julian had betrayed their confidence.

The screenshots got worse for Jodi as the year went on. At one point, Jodi had documented an entire conversation between herself and Emily. They’d been talking about homework, but Emily kept changing the subject to sex, digging for information on each of their sex lives. Jodi had made Emily sound unhinged—and, in retrospect, that’s how it had felt. But she shouldn’t have told the others about it like that.

Another conversation from the beginning of May made her sweat.

Jodi

please please please please please please somebody be free tonight

emily just suckered me into hanging out

Julian

your own fault

Jodi

i know that

Lucy

Say you forgot your dad was in town

Jodi

SHE ALREADY MADE SURE HE WASNT

SHE IS A MASTER AT THIS

FUCKING FUCK AAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Julian

amateur

Zack

I have practice! sorry

Paige

what are your plans?

Jodi

i wanna see a movie so i don’t have to talk to her

Lucy

thats good

god its like a bad date youre tryna get out of

Jodi

fucking exactly

Paige

ill go to the movie IF AND ONLY IF you sit in the middle seat

i will tear her face off if i see her watching me watch the movie like last time

AND i get to pick the movie

Jodi

QUEEEEEEN BITCH thank you thank you thank you

Her head was spinning. She swallowed back the bile in her throat as she imagined Emily reading these texts—ones sent only weeks before her death. It was clear that Jodi didn’t want to spend time with her, that Jodi laughed at her behind her back, and that Jodi considered her a burden.

If what Julian said was true, if Emily did shift her focus onto her, then Jodi could only imagine how heartbreaking it was to read through this. To watch Snapchats and private TikToks either making fun of her or filming her without her knowledge, zooming in on her face, staring at Zack in adoration as that Police song about “I’ll be watching you” played in the background.

Jodi forced herself to look through it all. By the end, there were tears tracked down her cheeks, and her stomach was in knots.

Julian may have handed this over, but Jodi had no doubt that her own messages were the final straw for Emily.





Chapter Twenty-Seven





She hardly heard the knock at the front door. She had one fleeting hope that Zack had come to apologize before she opened the door and Oliver Burns stood there.

“Hey, I thought I saw people coming in and out.”

Jodi nodded and crossed her arms over her stomach. “Yeah, I’m just grabbing a few things. What’s up?”

Oliver’s eyes flitted over her face, taking in her red skin and puffy eyes. When he didn’t ask, Jodi felt such gratitude. Zack would have asked. Zack wouldn’t have let it go.

“So, I got a call from Calloway this morning. I guess somebody broke into the shop and opened a bunch of paint cans?” he said. Jodi felt her chest relax. “She says it doesn’t look like they fucked up anything, but she wants us to go check it out.”

“That was me,” she sighed. “I went in there during the dance and worked.”

Oliver’s brows shot up. “Oookay. Did you … It’s kind of a mess, Jodi—”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I had to leave quickly.” She looked away from him. “I can go in today and close the paint, salvage what I can of the brushes.”

He nodded slowly, looking her over.

Don’t ask. Don’t ask.

“Cool.” He shrugged. “Do you want a ride over there?”

Jodi thought about the fifty other screenshots on the flash drive. The amount of people she wanted to ignore right now, and the weight of the decisions she had to make.

“That would be great.”

She changed into some old paint clothes and met Oliver out at the curb. His beat-up car chugged them toward school as they sat in silence. When she got into the lab and saw the footprints in paint, the spray of gray over the tables, the ecstasy of last night washed over her again, followed by the devastation. Her heels still lay under one of the tables.