I decided to sit for a moment, send a text to Esme, and savor the raw white sunlight. My arrival startled up birds. I looked down the street and realized I was near the police station. There came a piercing recollection of Belinda’s love for Edna St. Vincent Millay (“Don’t you think Vincent and William Butler Yeats would have been perfect for each other?” Belinda told me once, without a scrap of irony. “They had so much in common. Sad love, being Irish.”) I thought about the lines, Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before. Every girl who dies is canonized, of course; but Belinda’s sweet hopefulness was latticed with the cheerful steel of a supermodel. She was National Honor Society and Prom Queen—both things. With grueling practices and iron will, she pushed the cheer squad not just to compete, but to place first in state. She wrote op-eds about the fate of abused animals that raised thousands for the Humane Society. The plaque on the cherry tree that her class planted in Whitehorse Park read She Always Had Time For a Friend. Seeing her walk shining into a room of adults, Jep used to tease, “I’m Belinda McCormack, your senator.”

And what might she have been?

Whether from the breeze or the sentiment, my eyes watered and I reached up, for just a moment, to cover them with my hands. That was when a feeling crept over me again. And I knew he was there. I knew he was watching me from behind those aviator glasses. I should never have come to Black Creek for any reason. This was the place where our future was revoked. And now someone who seemed to sense my every movement had followed me here, as well. No wonder I was a scream with a skin around it.

I jumped into my car and, within moments, I was on the highway. Esme called me. I refused the call. She texted me. I glanced quickly at her words. Where are you?