I stumbled a little as we walked inside. Dina caught me by the arm. “Have you been drinking?” they asked.
I straightened their bow tie. “No.” I hiccupped. “Only punch.”
They looked at me with concern, and like they weren’t sure if I was kidding.
“What?” I said, then “. . . Oh,” as I realized my mistake.
“Wait. What did you think Booooooozy Poison Punch meant?” they asked.
“I thought they were just . . . words. Halloween words. You know . . . boo. Poison.”
You would have laughed, but for some reason Dina apologized. I guess they felt responsible. They made me drink two cups of water and eat some saltines they found in a cabinet before guiding me out to their car.
“Come on, let’s get you home safe. Or do you want to come over so your parents don’t see you? My dad wouldn’t care.”
I assured them my parents never see me anyway.
I don’t know why I haven’t told you about Dina before. I guess I didn’t want you to think you’re being replaced, because you’re not. But it’s not only that. (Obviously not. I do understand you don’t read these letters before I delete them. I’m not that far gone.) My life at school and at home, when I’m not writing to you or reading about you online, feels so separate from you and us and camp. That gets truer every day, and I can’t lie: It’s a relief. It’s a relief that there’s another normal. That, with time, my brain has found things to think about other than you.
It’s a relief, but I also hate it. I hate it because it feels like abandonment. Betrayal.
You don’t get to move on from Camp Cavanick yet. It feels unfair sometimes that I do—like just by the fact of my life moving forward, against my will, I am somehow being disloyal to you. “Survivor’s guilt,” Dr. Rita calls it. That sounds like an oversimplification to me, but whatever.
Despite the guilt, I think you’d be proud of me (if also jealous). A party. The dancing. My first drinks. My first drunkenness. A sort-of friend. My first kisses with someone who isn’t you.
This little fairy had an eventful Halloween.
Trick or treat?
Love,
Kayla
November 2
Maplewash County Post-Gazette
THE JURY HEARD OPENING STATEMENTS MONDAY IN the trial of Elaine Baxter, the sixteen-year-old who stands accused of killing her sometimes boyfriend, Jackson Winter, at the teen camp where they met last summer.
Prosecutor Marsha Davis told jurors she expected witnesses would describe Elaine Baxter, known as “Lainie,” as “behaving erratically” in the days leading up to the morning of August 14, when Jackson Winter’s body was recovered from Jaspertown Lake along Camp Cavanick property, hours after he apparently suffered a fatal blow to the head. “Over the course of this trial, a picture will unfold,” Davis claimed, of Baxter as a “charismatic, beautiful, and seemingly fun-loving teenager” who is “deeply troubled and deceitful” beneath her appealing surface.
The prosecution promised to establish a pattern of Baxter’s alleged “untrustworthy” behavior and submit “relevant evidence” that she has “a disturbing history of elaborate deceptions,” “lying for fun,” and “obsessive, jealous behavior exhibited toward Jackson Winter before his death.”
Davis ended her opening statement by telling jurors they would hear testimony that Baxter’s own initial statements given to police officers the morning after Winter’s body was found, were “by her own later admission, fully misleading and untrue,” and “clearly reveal that, that morning, Elaine Baxter had something significant to hide.”
Baxter’s defense attorney, Michael Desir, told jurors that the prosecution’s case “is built on rumors and speculation.” He urged jurors to pay close attention to the “actual facts and real evidence,” and predicted the state would be “flailing” in its efforts to establish a reasonable motive for the alleged attack.
Desir acknowledged the defendant wasn’t always “a perfect angel or even an ideal girlfriend,” and that she sometimes “made things up out of regular teenage boredom” and “the normal and healthy adolescent temptation to push boundaries, and see what one can get away with.” But that doesn’t, he insisted, make her a murderer.
“What teenager hasn’t at some point found themself the subject of cruel, untrue rumors they’d be hard-pressed to disprove?” Desir asked, while reminding jurors, “We are trying this case in a court of law, not a high school hallway or an internet bubble.” He ended his opening statement by saying, “The state must be held to a higher standard of proof. When pressed for real evidence, for hard facts that add up, their case will fall short—and you, the jury, will surely find the obvious choice is to acquit.”
Jackson Winter’s family sat quietly in the center of the courtroom throughout the opening statements. Their focus, a spokesman said later, was “on the enormous loss of their beloved son Jackson, who can never be returned to them, and their hope for the deliverance of justice.”
Davis is set to begin presenting her case against Baxter when the trial resumes on Tuesday.
Camper and Counselor Interviews, Statements, and Posts
August 14–November 24
“I heard Lainie’s lawyer wants Lainie to cry on the witness stand, so the jury will feel sorry for the poor pretty white girl.”
“I heard the reason Lainie won’t testify is if they put her on the stand, they can ask her under oath about all the other lies she told. Her lawyer doesn’t want to open her up to that line of questioning.”
“I heard when Jackson’s body was found, Kayla begged Lainie not to speak to the police without a lawyer present.”
“I heard the cops interviewed Kayla for over an hour that morning, and when her parents found out she’d been questioned with no supervision, they gave the camp director hell for letting that happen.”
“I heard when Lainie got arrested, Kayla’s lawyer had to stop her from confessing she killed him. The lawyer tried to scare her by saying false confessions are illegal, but she said ‘good’ because that way they’d be locked up together.”
“I heard someone in Lainie’s cabin saw her come back covered in blood, but Kayla burned Lainie’s sheets and clothing to cover it up before anyone could find them.”
“I heard someone in Emma’s cabin noticed Emma’s bed was empty after midnight.”
“I heard the blood on Lainie’s hoodie was from a nosebleed, not from Jackson. People will believe anything if it proves what they already think is true. It’s so ridiculous. She didn’t do it.”
“I heard Kayla wouldn’t tell the cops anything, and she still thinks Lainie is innocent.”
“I heard Nitin told the cops he feels responsible for Jackson’s death because he told Kayla some secret she must have told Lainie, one he didn’t know Lainie didn’t know already.”
“I heard Lainie, Kayla, Nitin, and Jackson had a four-way orgy on the dock one night.”
“I heard Lainie kissed Kayla in front of Jackson to make him jealous, and when he didn’t seem to care, she totally lost it.”