CHAPTER 2
Magda and I were supposed to go into senior year together, but on the first day of school, I was alone and Mags was dead.
I arrived ten minutes before the bell for homeroom. It was a nice day, warm and sunny, and there were kids all over the front lawn of Carter High School. A year ago, Magda and I had been among them, excited to be back, but dreading the daily grind.
I walked up the concrete path to the main doors and walked inside. The halls teemed with kids—tall, short, fat, skinny, nervous or bored. There was every hair and skin color imaginable represented. I saw a girl with pink hair, a guy with a mohawk and a kid with a septum piercing clustered together, talking animatedly by a classroom. The three of them would probably get hassled at some point during that day. Would anyone stand up for them?
No one had stood up for Magda. No one but Magda’s brother Gabriel and me. I hadn’t always been the friend I should have been to her. I hadn’t understood what she was going through. I had to live with that—and without my best friend.
There was a shadow box on the wall by the principal’s office that had photos of kids who had been killed during the school year. They’d started it back in the eighties. There were a lot of pictures in it. Magda’s wasn’t there. They justified her exclusion by calling it a suicide. But Magda’s life had been over months before she took those pills. She’d been murdered, and her killers had been allowed to walk free. Their names were even protected by the press because they were underage. We were all going to be under the same roof that day, the four of them and me. It seemed more ominous after a summer of missing Magda, like her absence had intensified the gravity of what they’d done.
I looked for them as I roamed the halls, but I didn’t see them. They traveled as a pack, usually followed by sycophants and foolish girls who believed that cute boys couldn’t possibly be monsters. I hoped none of those girls discovered how wrong they were.
Gabriel had graduated last year, and would be starting classes at a local college in a couple of days. I missed having him with me. After Magda died, the two of us had become each other’s support—it was the only way we could get through the day at school. We kept each other from falling apart, and when the charges against Magda’s rapists were dropped, we raged and cried together.
“Hadley?”
I turned at the sound of the familiar voice. Standing beside a row of lockers was Zoe Kotler, who I’d known since first grade. We weren’t close friends, but we’d hung out a bit over the years. I remember she cried at Magda’s funeral, something I hadn’t been able to do.
“Hey, Zoe.” A guy wearing a huge backpack practically hip checked me into the wall.
“Watch it,” I snarled.
He shot me a dirty look. “Fuck you.”
There were meaner things he could’ve said. By the time you get to senior year the F word has lost much of its gravity and ability to offend. It’s almost a regular part of the lexicon of teenage language, like texting, or soda.
I watched him walk away. Normally I would’ve had a good comeback, but I couldn’t summon one. What I wanted to do was kick him in the back of his stupid head. I could do it.
Zoe scowled after him. “Douche,” she said to his retreating back.
I shrugged. “The school’s full of them.”
She laughed. “You’ve got that right.” When I met her gaze, I saw concern and wariness in her brown eyes, like I was a wounded animal she wanted to pet but was afraid would take her hand off if she did.
“I know this might sound weird, but a few of us have started a petition.” She pulled a stapled stack of paper from her binder and handed it to me. I looked at the pages; the petition was to have Magda’s picture added to the shadow box.
I stared at all the signatures. There had to be at least forty there already.
“It’s not fair that she’s not there,” Zoe said. “Three other people whose pictures are there died the same way.”
I looked at her, tempted to ask if those people had been raped, but I knew that wasn’t what she meant. She meant they’d killed themselves. “Do you have a pen?” I asked.
She smiled and handed me the pen she had clipped to her binder. I signed my name.
“I miss her, you know?”
I handed the petition and pen back to her. I wanted to tell her that she knew nothing. That she was a stupid cow who had no idea what it was like to lose your best friend, someone you knew so well they felt like a part of you. Wanted to tell her she should be glad that she had never seen someone she loved suffer like Magda had. I wanted to tell her that I hoped she never walked into a friend’s room and found them on their bed after they’d taken a handful of sleeping pills—enough to kill them, but not enough to do it quickly.
I remembered holding Magda in my arms, screaming for help. My brain latched on to that memory of her, so pale and unresponsive, and rolled it around in my head until my lungs felt as though they were being squeezed by a giant hand, each breath more strangled and difficult than the last.
Mostly, I hoped Zoe never knew what it was like to feel responsible, to know that the last thing you’d said to your best friend had broken her heart and her spirit. I’d let Magda feel alone, and she’d killed herself.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “I know. I have to go.” I pivoted on my heel and walked away as fast as I could without running. I dived into the nearest girls’ bathroom and ducked into a stall. I closed the door and locked it before pressing my forehead against the cool metal.
I breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth until the panic faded. My mother thought I had PTSD. Maybe I did, but calling it that felt like I was trying to excuse my grief. It felt like a lie. Because what I had was not a disorder, but a sadness that ran so deep I could feel it in my bones. Sometimes I felt like Magda had taken my own life with hers that day.
I tried to push thoughts of her away. My parents and my therapist had been concerned about how returning to school would affect me. I thought they were the crazy ones, but it seemed they understood me better than I did. I should have taken a Xanax before I left the house. At least that would have taken the edge off.
* * *
The bell rang. I made my way to the auditorium with the rest of the throng. Magda and I always sat as far back as we could. I couldn’t bring myself to climb the stairs to the back of the room, so I sat four rows back from the front. The seat to my right remained empty as the auditorium filled up. I could almost pretend my friend was there beside me.
They divided freshmen into their classes first, calling out names and then telling them where their classroom was located. Next was the sophomores, then the juniors and finally the seniors.
I sat there, numb and disinterested, until four familiar names were called: Jason Bentley, Drew Carson, Brody Henry and Adam Weeks. People actually cheered them. Those raised voices set my teeth on edge. Then, the universe decided to be cruel.
“Hadley White.”
No one cheered for me or applauded. I doubted many of them even knew who I was. It didn’t make me feel
