I don’t know what to do.
I sit with her box of stuff and stare at the pile of notes and envelopes, and I have no idea what to do about it, or what it all means.
She got notes like I’m getting.
I reach into my backpack finding my last note. I start comparing Kellen’s notes to mine. I don’t need to do this to know it’s the same writer but what else can I do? Up on my knees, I start rummaging through my room to look for Kellen’s diary.
My suitcase from California sits on the floor next to my bed, gathering dust. I slide it over and look under my bed. Nothing but masses of dust bunnies. I check the closet, and when I’m almost done there, I remember where I put the diary.
My dresser in the tiny hallway. I dig into the back of each drawer until my hand touches the smooth, hard surface of the faux alligator cover.
I never wanted Mom to see any of this. My sister chronicled her sex life with every guy she ever dated. I already read enough the first time so I scan the entries. They are long in the first half of the diary and the second half gets shorter. I search through for key words.
It doesn’t take long to find what I’m looking for.
31. Fold it all together.
..........................................................
Dear Diary—
Two this week and they are scaring the shit out of me.
I’ve had the whole night to read and think about Kellen’s diary. Mr. King attends to a burnt pie on the opposite side of the classroom as I sit at his desk reading the diary again because he’s giving me this last day to get over my contest depression and get back to work.
This entry was dated two weeks before she died.
All day, I felt like someone was following me to my classes. I still don’t know who the creep is.
The next one was written a few days later.
I called Mom today. She was supposed to call me back but forgot I guess. I don’t know what to do.
Before I read her last entry I scan back through the earlier pages, trying to catch a glimpse of what she was going through. I stop on one written at the end of September.
I can’t believe I gave that D bag 3 nights I can’t get back. We’re so done. He’s creeping me out. I woke up this morning with him staring at me. It really freaked me out. I know we did it but I was high so I barely remember. Not ever again! He was so sweet before and now he’s a psycho. I think he’s obsessed or something. Met a junior on the quad today. Baseball player. Super hot. We’re going out Friday.
He’s finally leaving me alone. I haven’t heard from him in two weeks, it’s a miracle. We still have math together but I can manage to stay out of his path. I really like the baseball player. I started calling him The Cup, for many reasons. Deets later. I’m too hungover to write more.
The Cup is really growing on me. I think I may keep him. I may finally be in love. I got a weird secret admirer note today. My math prof said someone left it on his desk. Weird.
The rest of the entries detailed her dates with The Cup and listed the notes she received.
Her last entry was written the day before she died.
Today I got the worst one. He all but promised to kill me. I’ve hidden all the notes and on Monday I’m going to talk to campus police. I feel relieved just knowing I’ll take care of it soon. I called home and Kara hung up on me. I’ll keep trying. I dialed Mom’s cell but then changed my mind. I don’t want her to worry. Maybe after I talk to the cops. I found something today and I think I know who it is. His ass is so done when I talk to the police.
Tonight is the Halloween party in Moscow. It’ll be good to get away from here, from the notes, from him. I need to get wasted and forget everything for a while.
I close the diary. I feel bad for hanging up on her. I always hung up on her. I wonder if she died the way the police said. I wonder if I hadn’t hung up on her if things would be different.
How could Nick have had anything to do with Kellen when she was away on the other side of the state? He was supposed to be going to school in Arizona.
Maybe he didn’t go to school in Arizona. Maybe he followed my sister and stalked her and wrote all the notes because she dumped him. But I remember hearing Kellen on the phone before she left for college: she said Nick got over her quickly because he already had a new girlfriend.
What is going on? I don’t know what to think of it all.
“Kara.” Mr. King smiles down at me. “Mail, please?”
I muster a half-smile while I stuff the diary into my bag. When I step out into the hallway, he’s there, lingering outside my class.
Noah Bender. He’s weird, no matter how much Noelle tells me he’s just nice and quiet. I don’t have time for weird right now.
“Look, Noah, I know we haven’t talked to each other a lot before, but it seems that I always catch you hanging around. If you have something to say, spit it out. What do you want?” I feel a tad bitchy for how it comes out, especially because I’ve caught him with his mouth hung open.
When he shuffles his feet, I spot his right hand tucked close to his thigh. He’s holding his hand in an odd way—flat—fingers together and two corners of paper stick out.
“Hey,” he says before he nods at the door. “King in there?”
I keep staring at him and notice that his eyes won’t meet mine now that I’ve seen the paper in his hand. Briefly, he glances at me, and then the floor when his right hand moves behind his back, to hide the paper from me.
When I gasp, I can hear the catch in my throat. Noah dropped it on the floor behind his feet.
It’s not just any old paper.
Purple droplets and bloody red fibers.
My eyes feel dry and my breath comes out loud and shaky. “If you move I’ll scream, Noah,” I say, sounding calmer than I feel.
He swallows. I see the pulsing tendon in his neck.
His face turns to chalk.
“Kara, I’m sorry. He—”
“Give it to me!”
He nods fast and his breath rushes out, as shaky as mine. He bends even faster to pick it up and his hands are trembling.
“Why do you have that, Noah? It’s for me, isn’t it?” My legs are wobbly. I need my legs. I may need to run because I know I won’t be able to scream.
He clutches the note. “Kara, I’m sorry. He paid me. I needed money, to pay for a speeding ticket. I couldn’t tell my folks! I’m sorry!”
He paid me.
The dirty, scuffed floor in front of me draws closer, giving me the feeling of it rising and me falling backwards. I close my eyes and inhale so I don’t fall down. “Who paid you? For what?”
“Look, I know it’s a shitty thing, me spying on you at school and reporting to him. Leaving these for you.” He waves the note. “But he paid me, I had to do it.”
“Who paid you? Who is he? Oh my God, Noah, who?” I need him to say it.
“I, I don’t know who he is. I only saw him once. He said no one would be hurt. He said they were just love notes for you and he was shy. I mean, if I knew who he was, I’d tell you. I didn’t recognize him. He wore a hat and sunglasses that one time. He leaves me all the instructions and the notes here at school and online.”
The door swings open and Mr. King pokes his head out, smiling. “Hey kids. Everything okay? Kara, did you get my mail?”
“Uh,” I reply. “No, I, uh, felt sick and Noah here was looking for a garbage can for me to be sick in.” I look at Noah and hope that Mr. King doesn’t notice how pale and sweaty he is.
“Uh-oh, sounds like you better get to the office, maybe have them check your temperature. Let me grab your backpack just in case you end up going home.”
I stare at Noah’s colorless face while I wait for Mr. King to come back.
“There you go, Kara. Young man, maybe you can walk Kara to the office? Make sure she doesn’t get sick?”
“Uh, sure.”
We walk slowly down the hall, and I speak first. “So you don’t know who he is?”
“No, I swear it, Kara! I don’t even know what he looks like except that he’s taller than me. I only met him the one time and I haven’t seen him since. He uh, he brings me the notes here, in lunch bags, and I deliver them wherever he tells me.”
“You went into my apartment, Noah, my bedroom!” I hiss.
“No! I never did that, Kara—”
“Shh, lower your voice okay? I don’t need anyone hearing this.”
He nods his head and backs up against the wall. “Kara,” he starts, his voice a loud whisper, “I swear! I never went in your house! The other notes, yeah, but not in your house.”
I stand next to him, my back against the wall, too so I can watch out for people who might walk by. “You swear you don’t know him?”
“I swear it! I’m always looking for him here, you know? It’s freaked me out thinking he could turn on me, turn me in for doing this to you, for practically stalking you!”
I can’t believe this.
“I’m sorry, Kara. I won’t do it anymore, okay? I’m done! I’m supposed to get another delivery today, and I’ll go and try to meet him and tell him I’m finished!”
We’re halfway to the office when he turns and offers me the envelope. “Look, I better get to class. Do you want me to do something? Tell someone?”
I shake my head, taking the note.
“Kara, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, really. I just figured they were love notes, like he said. But your face—obviously something else is going on. I’m, I’m so sorry.” He pivots and walks fast down the hall.
I watch him, unable to speak.
Instead of going to the office I duck out the side door and down the path through a small cluster of evergreens where the smokers hide out. Since we’re halfway through sixth period the place reeks already, but the smokers ignore me as I scramble down the hill. The Metro rounds the corner when I cross through a gap in the fence. I hop on the bus and get off at my old house.
Someone’s home today. And it’s daylight so I can’t very well sneak back to the trampoline or even sit under my favorite tree, still naked with winter.
But as I turn to go I see Kellen.
My sister stares out at me from her bedroom.
She’s seventeen and I’m sixteen. She’s not wearing the brown and pink monkey pants, but instead wears the sundress she wore on the night she left me at the pizza place.
My sister was stalked.
Maybe my sister didn’t just drown in a pool.
The envelope from Noah rests on top of dirty tufts of moss beside me. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d dropped it. When I look back to the window, Kellen’s gone.
The wind rustles frozen leaves as I pluck the envelope from the ground and tear it open.
You belong to me. I’m coming for you.
32.
Watch carefully.
..........................................................
Where do I start?
When I make it to the Ave I sit down on a bench and stare at the police station down the street. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want my mom to find out. Mom is over Kellen’s death. Why make her remember and suffer even more?
I hear sirens. A lot of sirens, off in the distance. Taking it as a sign, I decide to walk home. Snow flurries about, landing wherever the wind drops it. Maybe I could stop by Crockett’s and tell Justine, or at least tell her what I found out about Kellen. But the explanation would require a lot longer than her ten minute smoke break. Besides, Justine has her own problems—she doesn’t need to worry about mine.
When I get to the café I peek in the window for Charlie. I want so badly to see him, but I can’t face him right now, not with how I’ve treated him yet again. I’ll figure things out tomorrow. Maybe I’ll try to talk to Noah again, see if I can get more information because my list of questions grew the minute he left me.
Tomorrow.
I’ll tell Noelle and maybe she could take me to the cops, and they could start looking for Nick.
No. I can’t! If the cops are involved, Mom will find out for sure. God, Mom doesn’t even know what Nick did to me. I can’t let her find out that and now this, too.
I peek inside the café again. Mom has a handful of customers finishing up. She sits across the table from a woman, and I recognize her as the lady Mom introduced me to a few months ago—she used to run the bake sales at Mom’s church. Her husband died last year, so she won’t bake anymore because he isn’t there to steal bites of cookie dough when she isn’t looking, Mom said. And she comes to the café for dinner because her husband isn’t there to tell her that her fried chicken is the best on earth.
Mom leaves the woman and goes to sit with a father and daughter who come in at least once a week. The man is young, mid-twenties maybe. His eyes droop and have dark circles like those of someone older and so tired and burdened. His daughter looks about four and behaves as if she’s older, too.