My eyes water, but I blink rapidly to clear them.
“What?” I ask, sticking a huge bite in my mouth and watching my father warily. He hasn't exactly been the most forthcoming, more like some sort of prison guard. He hugged me hard that first day, but I think he has intimacy issues, so that's all I've gotten. Just that one hug. And it was only an okay one at that. Ranger's the one who showed me what a hug should really be like.
“The police have ruled the death a suicide. I just wanted you to know that.”
“A suicide?!” I shout, accidentally flinging a huge lump of hot mac ‘n’ cheese onto the wall. Both Dad and I cringe, but I can't help it. I'm shaking here. “Are they stupid?! I'm a seventeen year old student, and I could see murder written all over that scene. How could a person even get a rope that high up in the tree, and then hang themselves from it without there being some sort of ladder around?”
“Charlotte, I'm not a detective. I'm just telling you what the outcome of the investigation was. If you have an issue, you can take it up with the officers involved.” My mouth is quite literally hanging open, and my words have escaped me completely. I'm reeling here.
“But … someone locked us in those tunnels. Someone wanted us dead.”
“The door to the tunnels was closed and locked, yes, but it could easily have been an accident or a prank gone wrong.”
“And the hole in the ceiling in Mark's room?!” I ask, standing up so fast that I send my chair tumbling over. “Was that a prank, too?”
“There is no hole in the ceiling in Mark's room,” Dad says, and my eyes go wide. What … the … fuck?!
“What do you mean there's no hole?” I whisper, my voice low and dark. I'm having a little trouble processing what my dad's just said. “There was very distinctly a hole there before. I told you what happened.” Well, part of what happened. Some of what I said was a lie. I told Dad that we heard loud noises in Mark’s room and opened the unlocked door. I didn't tell him that I was attacked in the shower. Maybe I should have? Although … I swear, I smell a conspiracy here.
Something isn't right.
“I don't know what to tell you. There's no hole in his room, Charlotte. And while I agree that what happened in the tunnels was horrible, it was the result of a rainstorm. You shouldn't have been down there in the first place.”
“Someone closed and locked that door on us.”
Dad gives me a long, lingering look and sighs.
“Maybe. But what do you want me to do about it? I've told the police everything you've told me. Unless there's something you'd like to add?” The way he stares at me, it's pretty obvious that he knows I'm holding back. I just return the look, but I don't say anything else. If I do, he might send me to another school like he promised. Until I know what really happened to Spencer, I'm not going anywhere.
I shove up from the table and storm up to my room. When I'm alone, in the dark, that's when it gets impossible to hold back the tears. Lying on my bed alone, I cry into my pillow for hours.
Spencer liked me for me. He didn't know all my secrets, and yet even when it came to questioning everything he thought he knew about himself, he was willing to take a chance.
How often in life does a girl run into a guy like that?
Ugh.
My pillow is wet with tears, and I'm all snotty. But it doesn't matter. All I can think about is all the things I wanted to talk to Spencer about that I never got a chance to. Guess all that hokey shit they paint on distressed wooden signs is true, sayings like Live every day like it's your last or You don't appreciate what you have until it's gone.
With a growl, I throw my pillow across the room and it hits a water glass, spilling it everywhere. Grabbing my laptop, I message Spencer a dozen more times. I tell him all sorts of things I'd never have the courage to say aloud.
And then I fall asleep and dream of his scent, that hyssop and cedar smell that makes my stomach tighten, my heart race, and my body heat up from within.
I may never smell that scent again.
The thought just kills me.The next morning, I don't even bother to get out of bed. What's the point? I have two days left of spring break, and nowhere to go, nothing to do. All I want is to find Spencer, but as the days pass, my hope gets less and less. If he were alive, he'd have texted us by now. If he were alive, we'd have seen him by now, wouldn't we?
