“Stop,” I hissed. “They’ll come out.” There were more cars in the driveway than when we’d left. The boys were definitely home.
Clem turned to us, chest heaving, face red and sweaty. “I’m not scared of them.” She swung the branch again. “Andrew, you rapist! Come face us!” She beat at the glass, and suddenly, it cracked—only a hairline, but it was all she needed. Clem smashed the branch like a pole against the window until it shattered.
Laurel pressed her face into my shoulder. “Oh my god, they’re going to call the cops. They’re going to come outside, they’re going to see me—”
“Assholes!” Clem moved to front door, kicking it. “You think you can get away with it?”
A face appeared at the second-floor window. It was a boy’s, pale and stricken. He and I locked eyes—and as soon as we did, he jerked away, the curtains rustling in his wake.
“Make her stop,” Laurel pleaded, but her voice had grown soft. Together, we stood and watched Clem, a tidal wave of anger lashing out against the still and silent house.
I thought of the way Laurel had looked in the basement, like a cornered animal, vibrating with shame. I thought of the detective’s narrowed eyes when we talked back. The surprise on the boy’s face when he looked through the window. I remembered the sight of a school going up in flames, brilliant against the night sky, blazing hotter than the stars, and the faces of all those adults afterward, wary for the first time. All that fear, transferred back where it belonged.
I remembered it and let Clem rage.
I may have even smiled.
***
So which was worse: the way I’d met Laurel, or the way we were saying goodbye?
I dodged cars to cross the street and entered the thicket of trees surrounding the Performing Arts Center, the angular glass building hidden somewhere among them. How would I know the right tree where Laurel had been found?
It turned out I didn’t have to wonder. At the edge of the thicket, with the Performing Arts Center towering in the background, a white cross leaned against the trunk of an old, bent tree, its branches creeping low to the ground. A teddy bear and two bouquets of flowers rested on the grass.
Maybe the students hadn’t brushed Laurel aside, after all.
I walked to the tree and studied it, running a hand over the trunk, letting the rough, coarse bark snag my skin. This was where she’d stood. Where she’d made a hard decision all alone, without Clem or me to stop her.
Or maybe this was where she’d fought for her life, and lost.
I pressed my forehead to the tree, hard enough so the wood bit, and imagined climbing it, whether the bark would be rough enough to slice me. Come back, Laurel. Tell me what happened.
“Excuse me?” came a voice.
I startled back. Behind me stood a girl with strawberry-blond hair, dressed in a forest-green Whitney College hoodie. She looked so young to be a college student.
She thrust a pamphlet at me. Suicide Prevention Hotline, it said.
Her voice was soaked in reassurance. “No matter what you’re feeling, I promise it gets better.”
I stared at her until she staggered back. “No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”
On the way back to the car, I pulled my phone out of my purse and tried to recall a number I hadn’t used in a decade. But it turned out there was no need to worry; it came back to me quickly, as if it had been floating just beneath the surface, waiting.
Chapter Five
Jamie answered warily—then, after a long beat of silence, his voice softened into something lighter, almost hopeful. “Shay?”
The fact that Jamie Knight was on the other end of the line—real, flesh-and-blood Jamie—only truly hit me the moment it became clear I could no longer simply listen to him. That unlike with the podcast, this time I would have to talk back.