Chapter 4 She Was Trying To Save You

The house had never felt this quiet.

Mom kept the television on all afternoon, but neither of us actually watched it. Every channel was saying some version of the same thing. Student found dead at Ravenwood High. Police continue investigation. No names had been released publicly yet, but they would be soon, and it hardly mattered anyway. Rumors traveled faster than the news ever could.

I sat curled up in the corner of the couch with a blanket over my legs, my phone resting face down beside me like it might do less damage that way. I told myself I didn't want to look at it. I looked anyway.

Sixty-three unread messages. Some were from classmates. Some from numbers I didn't recognize at all. Most of them asked the same handful of questions in different words. Are you okay? Is it true you found her? Did you really see the body? A few were worse. People are saying the police questioned you first. Why was there blood on your shoes? Were you even friends with Maya?

I locked the screen before I could read any further.

Mom muted the television without looking away from it. "You don't have to answer anyone."

"I know."

"They'll move on eventually."

I almost laughed. "No, they won't."

She looked at me for a long moment, like she was deciding whether to argue. "They will."

I wished I believed her.

The doorbell rang before either of us could say anything else. Mom answered it while I stayed exactly where I was, and a familiar voice floated in from the hallway.

"I just wanted to check on her."

Jenna appeared in the living room a second later, carrying a paper bag in one hand and two bottles of iced tea in the other.

"I brought sugar," she said, holding up the bag like proof.

I managed the smallest smile I'd made all day. "That's oddly specific."

"My mom says sugar fixes emotional damage."

"That's not remotely scientific."

"Hasn't stopped her from being right before."

She sat beside me and pulled two chocolate muffins out of the bag, handing one over without asking if I wanted it. For a few minutes we just ate, not talking, and it was the closest thing to normal the whole day had offered.

Eventually Jenna broke the quiet. "Everyone's talking."

"I figured."

"Most of them are idiots."

"I figured that too."

She hesitated in a way that wasn't like her, turning the muffin wrapper over in her hands instead of looking at me. "Other rumors are going around. Not just about you."

"What kind?"

"They're saying Maya was meeting someone before she died."

My stomach tightened. "Ethan?"

"I don't know for sure."

"Lena told me she saw them together. Behind the school."

"I heard that too. Nobody knows if it's actually true, though."

I stared at the muted television, at the same three words scrolling silently across the bottom of the screen over and over, and neither of us said anything else for a while. The silence wasn't uncomfortable exactly. It just felt heavy, like the whole house was holding its breath along with the rest of the town.

After Jenna left, I went upstairs because I needed to be somewhere that wasn't full of other people's questions.

My room looked exactly the way I'd left it that morning. Unmade bed. History textbook still open on the desk. My backpack tossed against the chair where I'd dropped it before running out the door. Everything about it was completely ordinary, which somehow made it worse, because nothing about today had been ordinary at all.

My eyes landed on the government textbook still sitting on my desk, and for a second I almost didn't recognize it. It wasn't mine. Mine had a cracked corner and a coffee stain on the cover. This one didn't.

Then I remembered. Maya had handed me hers weeks ago, some mix-up after a group project where our stacks had gotten switched at the end of class, and I'd meant to give it back and never had. I hadn't touched it since.

I picked it up now without really thinking about why, flipping it open out of nothing but restlessness, and a folded sheet of paper slid out from between the pages and landed on the floor by my foot.

I frowned. I didn't remember there being anything inside it.

I pulled out a single folded sheet, torn from a notebook, no name on it, no handwriting I recognized at a glance. Just one fold pressed neatly down the middle.

A strange chill moved through me before I'd even opened it.

Five words, written in careful block letters.

She was trying to save you.

I read it again. Then a third time, like the words might rearrange themselves into something that made sense. Save me from what? The handwriting wasn't Maya's, or at least I didn't think it was, though at this point I wasn't sure I trusted my own memory of her handwriting any more than I trusted anything else.

I ran downstairs still holding it. "Mom."

She looked up from the kitchen counter. "What is it?"

I held out the note. "This was inside Maya's textbook. The one she gave me weeks ago."

She frowned, wiping her hands on a towel. "Maya's textbook?"

"From the group project. I never gave it back."

"Rina, that's been sitting on your desk for weeks. Why would there be a note from her in there now?"

"I don't know. I've never even opened it until tonight."

A cold knot settled low in my stomach. If the note had been inside that textbook all along, then Maya, or someone else, had hidden it there long before she died. The question was whether it had been meant for me, or whether I'd simply found it too late.

"Then maybe she meant for you to find it," Mom said quietly. "Eventually."

Neither of us said anything else for a while, and the silence that followed felt a lot worse than the one from before.

I carried the textbook back upstairs and set it down on my desk, meaning to leave it there and go to bed. Instead I found myself opening the front cover one more time, running my thumb along the inside flap where Maya had written her name in blue ink months ago, back when the book still belonged to her.

Underneath her name, in handwriting so small I almost missed it, there was one more line.

If you're reading this, I'm already too late.

I closed the book fast, like that would undo having read it, and sat down hard on the edge of my bed.

That night I couldn't stop turning the note, or that sentence, over in my mind, no matter how many times I told myself to just go to sleep.

Around nine o'clock my phone buzzed. Not another unknown number this time. A name I actually recognized lit up the screen.

Ethan Cole.

I stared at it until it had almost stopped ringing before I finally picked up.

"Hello?"

Neither of us spoke for a second.

"How are you holding up?" he finally asked.

It was such a normal question that I almost forgot everything else for a moment. "I'm fine."

The lie came out easier than it should have.

"You don't sound fine."

"I'm tired, Ethan."

"I know."

Something about his voice made it sound like he understood exactly how tired I was, like it went deeper than simple sympathy.

"Rina."

"Yeah?"

"Did Detective Carter ask you about..."

He stopped.

I waited, phone pressed hard against my ear. "About what?"

Nothing came back for a second, just the faint sound of him breathing on the other end.

"Never mind," he said.

"Ethan, don't do that. Finish the sentence."

"It's not important."

"You don't get to decide that for me."

Another pause, longer this time. "I have to go."

"Ethan."

"I'm sorry, Rina. I'll call you tomorrow."

The call ended before I could say anything back.

I sat there staring at the screen, confused and angry in a way I didn't fully understand, until it lit up again a few seconds later.

Not Ethan this time.

Unknown number.

Don't let him fool you.

My pulse spiked before I'd even finished reading it, and a second message landed right behind the first.

Ask him where he was after midnight.

Then a third.

Don't listen to his words. Watch his eyes.