I’m handed a plastic candle holder by a sophomore girl; she passes me off to an older boy, who supplies a slim candle. I stick the two parts together and move along the line to someone with a lighter. Outfitted for respectful mourning—or, I guess, celebration is the point here—I crawl the perimeter of the student assemblage. I need to find the best vantage point for my plan. I’ll be alone, with no cover, but the key is to find a spot where I’m able to catch a view of most, if not all, of the other attendees. I spot some of the drama club possibilities toward the back. It helps that the FIRST Robotics team is all together, next to where the teachers and admin are corralled to the right side of the small dais Tyler has had erected. He stands with a cordless mic in hand, portable speaker off to the side.
“Everyone, make sure you grab a candle, and please gather around. We’ll begin momentarily.”
I finger Emma’s phone in my left-hand pocket to check that it’s there. My phone is in the right-side pocket. I float on the outskirts of one side of a horseshoe formation everyone is arranging themselves into. My heart leaps into my throat when I catch sight of Avery, Margot, and Sierra. They’re perfectly centered in the front row, directly across from Tyler and the dais. I slink back a foot, letting the lumbering football player to my right provide cover. I don’t think they see me.
I glance around for Ethan, but there are too many faces cast into spooky relief alternately by flickering candlelight and by their phones. No better moment than now to prepare the seminal text. I have to time things like a dance, send my missive at a point during the memorial when everyone else won’t be on their phones, so Beau stands out. However, I can’t let him catch me on my phone, either. I tap in what I want to say.
Miss me, lover boy?
It’s stupid but should shock well enough. Even though logically he knows she’s dead—we’re at her memorial service, after all—the quip, the implication, hangs. I’ll just look for the guy who’s seen a ghost.
I secure Emma’s phone back in its pocket and retrieve mine as a force of habit. Have to check if I have any messages. There’s an email from my secret stalker.
From: Meddling, Quit <[email protected]>
To: Winters, Olivia <[email protected]>
Subject: You should listen to me
I know what you’re doing. Back. Off. Bitch. Do you want to end up dead, too?
Cold pierces my ribs, radiates outward as white-hot panic. My eyes pinball around the circle, looking for them. Who is torturing me with these messages? This is a real threat now. Do you want to end up dead, too?
Fuck.
Screw Ethan hating me, I need help. I need him. He’ll know what to do. I move to leave, but then Tyler clears his throat at the mic, holds his hands up to indicate we should quiet. Phones are put away. Candles are positioned solemnly in front of torsos.
“Thank you, everyone. Thank you for coming,” Tyler begins. “First, I want to thank Headmistress Fitzgerald and the board for allowing me to put this together on such short notice. I wanted to honor Emma’s incredible memory and give all of us the opportunity to grieve her passing but also celebrate her life.” His voice chokes, and I can’t tell in the candlelight whether he is crying.
Tyler launches into a fine speech about all the things he loved about his girlfriend, and I can’t help but feel jaded. The Emma he describes is perfect, but I now know my friend was far from it. If I’d come to know all of Emma’s secrets before she died, would I still have liked her? Will she now forever be crystallized as a saint because she died young and tragically?
I lean forward, eyes drifting over my friends. Their faces are hard, all three of them, though maybe it’s the light. Everyone looks a bit like a jack-o’-lantern.
“And now I’d like to take a moment of silence, to remember and honor my beloved girlfriend, Emma Russo.”
This is it. Everyone bows their heads in respect; some even close their eyes. I edge Emma’s phone out of my pocket, bring up my ready text. Hit send. I expect to hear a chime from the receiving phone, but Beau is smart enough to have it silenced. For a steady moment, no one reacts to anything. I’m rapid-fire scanning the crowd, jumping at any minute movement.
Then, finally, there. As the moment of silence is ending, Tyler drawing a deep breath and exhaling a “Thank you” into the microphone, Mr. Tipton pulls out his phone from his jacket pocket.
Joe. He always wanted us to call him Joe.
Well, right now Joe has the damnedest expression on his face.
As if the dead were talking.
Mr. Tipton is Beau. Emma was sleeping with the college counselor.
Shit. That’s why Cataldo was asking about him. How Emma got him to write her recommendation letter. Though I didn’t have to sleep with him to get him to help me.
Cataldo! I whip around, search the outskirts of the crowd for her lumbering figure. I have to tell her now, I have to—
An electronic jingle rips through the peaceful assembly. A phone ringing.
My phone is ringing.
I always silence my phone, always, don’t even like it vibrating with incoming messages. It’s nails on a chalkboard, pings my anxiety every time. But I didn’t think to check the other phone. Emma’s phone, buzzing and ringing in my left coat pocket. I fumble to pull it out, silence it, feeling heat in my cheeks and hundreds of eyes on me as I mumble apologies. When I finally look up, any relief at having conquered the noisy beast congeals into humiliation. Now the Ivies know I’m here. They’re staring right at me, throwing daggers with their eyes. I take a few steps back. There’s sniggering all around me, whispers about how I lost my shit earlier.
“She probably killed her.”
I whip around. Who said that?
The whispers multiply to an overwhelming din.
Get away, something inside me screams, but no. I have to stay. Find Cataldo. Tell her about Tipton. My eyes rake across the crowd to where he is.
Was. Tipton is gone.
I stumble backward and trip over my own feet, landing hard on my ass. No one helps me up. Indeed, Tyler has wrested back his control of the proceedings, announcing a song in Emma’s honor. Again on my feet, I push through the throng of bodies, make my way to the edge of the horseshoe, scanning for the detective’s T.J. Maxx suit and tight ponytail, but everyone is a shadowed shape. I don’t see her. Or him. Shit.
I leave the discordant sounds of half a crowd singing off-key behind me. I sprint toward Bay because it is home and it feels safe. I shove Emma’s phone into my pocket and fumble for my own. I’ll call Cataldo. I pull up the phone app, scroll through my contacts, but there’s no Cataldo. I’m sure she gave me her number! Fuck, was it on a card? I’ll have to go up to my room and get it. I’m almost to Bay. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. I keep scrolling my contacts. There’s Ethan’s name, floating under the Ds. I tap and hold, open our text chain, start swiping.