This Is How It Ends

“Wow,” she breathed when I finished.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Wow.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“I don’t know. I hope not,” I said, adding, “he’s too short, if what we mapped up there is right.”

“If,” she said.

“Yeah.” It’s what nagged at me, as much as I didn’t want it to. “This is definitely his. And it was on top of the blood.”

“Should we tell the police?”

“Probably,” I said. “But I’d like to talk to him first. I feel like I already ratted him out once.”

“Riley, if he’s the killer, it’s not ratting him out.”

“Yeah, I know. I just . . .” I didn’t know how to explain how I felt like Moose always got the shitty break. How George always treated me better at work. The way guys like Trip and girls like Sarah ignored him, didn’t even know who he was. I knew what that felt like a little. I’d gotten a taste of it every now and then, growing up with Trip around. I guess I wanted to give Moose a chance on his own. Just him and me. Just in case things weren’t what they seemed, because lots of times they weren’t.

She nodded. “Okay.”

I put the lighter back into my top drawer. Sarah stood, stretching, her hands over her head. It tugged her shirt up, and I could see where her jeans hung loose around her hips, the top of her panties, black and lacy. I looked away, my ears hot.

“The binoculars,” she said, noticing the case, also in my top drawer. “Have you looked in them again?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I admitted. “But, no.”

She nodded, picking up a picture from the top of my dresser. It’d been there so long, I’d forgotten all about it. “When was this?” Sarah asked, studying it. Me and Trip in front of our tent. The camping weekend when his dad had fed my mom marshmallows. I was surprised I hadn’t burned it. Maybe I would now. Just toss it into the fire downstairs.

“A long time ago,” I said.

“I can tell.” Sarah smiled. “You guys look so cute. What are you . . . ten? Eleven?”

“Something like that.”

“You’ve been friends for a long time,” she observed. It made me wonder if Trip had ever talked to her about how we’d grown up together. Or if he’d boxed most of that up with his Pokémon cards and car magazines.

“Since we were born, pretty much. Our parents were friends.”

“Are they still?”

“Not since my dad died,” I said.

She nodded but didn’t say anything, which I appreciated. Some people feel like they have to rush in with “I’m sorry” or platitudes, but it’s just better when they act like it’s no biggie, because it really isn’t. I mean, it is, but I’ve lived with it every day for the last four years. Just because someone’s never talked about it with me before doesn’t make it new news.

“I’ve never had a friend like that,” she said, flopping back onto the bed. “We moved around so much when I was younger. This is the longest we’ve lived anywhere.”

“How come?”

“Mostly it was my mom,” she said. “She was the kind of person who’d have three projects going and still be looking for the fourth, you know?” I nodded. “She was always doing something new, learning something else. My dad tells this story about when he was in grad school. She was an undergrad, double-majoring in engineering and physics.”

“Um . . . wow?”

Sarah smiled. “Right. Anyway, he was doing his dissertation on brain function, dormant sections, hypnosis, stuff like that. She got interested in it, but it wasn’t like she just asked about it or read a book or two. She read them all.” Sarah laughed softly. “By the end, he always says, she could have written his paper better than he did.”

“She sounds kind of brilliant.”

“She was. Is,” Sarah said. “Brilliant and flighty and a little bit nuts. In a good way,” she added wistfully.

“I see you got one of three.”

“I’m not that flighty,” Sarah said, grinning.

“Not the one I meant. I’ve seen your mad skills.”

She laughed. “But to get back to your question,” Sarah said more seriously. “My mom liked to see new places. Do new things. It was like an itch to constantly go, do, explore. In some ways it was great.” Sarah smiled fondly. “When I was little, we were always running off to museums and exhibits and parks. She taught me to bike and swim and play tennis. Or, if we were at home, we’d have a soufflé baking at the same time we were making a sodium chloride volcano.” She bit her lip for a second, then added, “But it wasn’t great in the way that made us move every time she got bored. I used to wish we’d just stay put, you know? Just for once not constantly have to make new friends.”

“I can’t imagine you ever had much trouble,” I said, grinning.

But Sarah didn’t smile. “Please. If it weren’t for Natalie, I’d probably still be skulking around the corners of school. You know, Vermont isn’t the most welcoming place.”

Yeah, I guess I did know that. We all did.

“Of course, if I’d have known that the price for staying somewhere was her leaving, I’d have pulled that wish back in a second,” she said quietly. “I’d do anything to have her back.”

I didn’t say anything at first. I didn’t like talking about my dad, but I knew what Sarah was feeling—that intense, hollow gap; the feeling that some vital part of you was missing—and it seemed like she wanted to talk about it.

“What happened?” I asked. “With her and your dad?”

She got that wistful look again. “They were quite a pair,” she said. “The absentminded professor and the mad scientist.”

“Who was the scientist?”

“She was. It’s what she did for work,” Sarah said. “But it was also her passion at home. She had botany projects and chemistry, and of course, a spot for tinkering wherever we lived. All those plants in our house?” I nodded. “They were hers. Grown from seed, varieties she’d cultivated . . .” Sarah trailed off. “I’ve been keeping them alive, because if it were left to my dad, they’d be deader than doornails.”

“Why did she . . . like, when she went away . . .” I fumbled for how to ask it.