Every day, I keep my head down, attend all my classes, and go back home to safety. Eventually, Mason comes back, too, and we stick to each other’s sides like we’re attached at the hip. On prom night we stay in, camping out in my living room and burning through a long list of horror movies. Our relationship has been in a strange form of limbo ever since everything went down—too involved to be just friends, while also having an unspoken agreement that it’s not the right time to be anything more than that.

Graduation is a non-event. I walk across the stage, receive my diploma, pose for pictures with my family, and go through all of the motions. As soon as we leave the school, I feel a weight lift from my shoulders knowing that I’ll never have to set foot in the building again and constantly be reminded of the worst time in my life.

At first, the case brings in a lot of media attention. All of my trauma is put on display for the world to see and sensationalize. Reporters wait outside our house, chomping at the bit, each of them wanting to be the one who gets the inside story. I don’t speak to any of them. Mom tries to hide the newspapers from me, but I see the headlines talking about a deadly love triangle and homicidal teenagers out for revenge. To the general public, it must all seem wildly exciting: a toxic friendship, endless deceit, and a romance gone wrong like a Shakespearean tragedy.

The online theories and speculations about the private details of my life are hard to escape. The scandal is enough to put Pender Falls on the map. People like to refer to me as the girl who escaped death. Twice.

But despite the fact that Zoe has been locked away, far from being able to hurt me or anyone else anymore, I feel a deep sense of unrest in my soul and the unmistakable desire to leave.

The town of Pender Falls is a black hole. The memory of what happened may fade away eventually, but the headlines will always be there and so will the tombstone. Secrets and corruption cling to every corner, hiding in the shadows, and the ghosts of what happened will forever haunt me here.

Getting out is the only thing I can do to save myself.

My relationship with Audrey is far from where I’d like it to be, and there’s still a distinct distance between us, but over time, it’s slowly healing. Enough so that she’s willing to let me crash with her in Vancouver until I find a place of my own. The temptation to start over in a new city where nobody knows anything about me is too tantalizing to resist.