It was shitty enough today with the stares and the comments and the skeleton on the locker. Now that Laura has publicly accused me of withholding information, it will only get worse. Maybe Dad’s offer of homeschooling would be better. My own pace. Maybe I’d even have more time for college applications.

But my mind can’t get all the way there. What if I miss something by not being there? Aren’t the chances pretty good that someone at Garrett Morgan knows something?

The sound of my name brings my eyes back to the screen.

Daniel is trying to get my attention. But it’s the movie. It’s Daniel’s voice saying my name on the screen.

It’s a photo of Chloe and me taken the night of the accident, one she uploaded to Instagram while we were at the dance. We have our arms around each other on the dance floor. I’ve seen the photo on her Instagram page since the accident. I’ve looked at it many times since that night, but I don’t remember it being taken. I’ve tried and tried to conjure that moment, which is likely one of the last meaningful ones we had together, but I can’t. I’ve searched my memory until my head starts to thump, but I still can’t locate it.

The photo lingers on Daniel’s screen, with the droning piano music and Daniel’s squeaky narration, and I again notice Chloe’s smile.

It’s not right. It looks…I don’t know…forced. Strained. And not in the way people look when someone sticks a camera in their face and says, “Smile!” and they want to tell whoever is taking the picture to fuck off.

No, it’s not that kind of forced smile. Not a mildly irritated one.

Chloe actually looks…unhappy. Shaken would be a better word.

And I don’t understand why.

If I see that look maybe other people will, too. Maybe her mother has seen it. Maybe that’s why she threw me under the bus.

“…the last person to have seen her alive. And has naturally became the object of much suspicion. According to the National Crime Prevention Council in Washington DC, the overwhelming majority of murders are committed by someone who knows the victim.”

The photo from the dance remains on the screen, but the camera zooms in. Closer and closer to my face until it almost blurs. The music slows, distorts. It drones deeper than before.

“What does Hunter know? What has he told the police? Can we believe him when he says he doesn’t remember the details of the accident? I recently spoke with a doctor of neurology—”

I lunge forward and start hitting keys on the computer until one stops the video.

“What are you doing?” Daniel asks.