22 #2
“Sorry,” Sage mutters as we take the shortcut through the thick ferns toward Creek Bridge.
Apart from the birds chirping overhead, we push through the feathery fronds in silence.
When the lapping of the creek drifts through the trees, I bat a loose hair out of my eyes and speed my steps until the clearing.
It’s been ages since I’ve been out here, and with the familiar sounds come the bittersweet memories.
I think of the summers spent swimming with the boys, splashing around and making bets on how long we could remain submerged.
The water, sourced from the mountain springs, is dangerously cold year-round, and we never lasted long.
The wooden bridge stretching from one side of the ravine to the other is old and rickety, its low railing missing beams in places.
When I was little, Mom used to make me hold her hand as we crossed it and forbade me from playing on it.
Since her passing, it’s become a place to sit and remember her, to listen to the birds and the water down below.
I wish I could do that now. I’ve never needed Mom as much as this moment. Dad is there for me, but it’s not the same. Instead, I have Sage, who is not exactly an objective or even sympathetic listening ear.
“Shoot,” she says, having touched the rail. Now she has to extract a splinter from her finger.
My phone dings from the outside pouch of my backpack, and I dig it out to find a text from Henry.
Please believe in me.
My chest feels heavy. This distance between us is something I never could’ve predicted in a million years. I had such a different vision of our future.
I read the text again, noting his choice of phrasing. He’s not asking me to simply believe his words but in him. My friend. The words speak to more than my brain; they appeal to everything I’ve experienced. To countless moments by his side.
And I get a sickening sense of guilt, because I never should’ve doubted him. Over the years, I can’t think of one time that he’s intentionally ignored my texts like I’ve been doing to him. He’s never let me down in a time of need.
The night Dad deleted our home videos, I called Henry, sobbing.
He dropped everything to come sit with me here on the bridge.
He brought a blanket, and the two of us lay down right on these boards to watch the stars glimmer overhead where the canopy of trees parted.
He asked me to tell a story about Mom, and then he listened, the way Dad simply couldn’t.
Not back then. One story led to another, and before we knew it, hours had passed.
Mom’s favorite song, or at least the song she always sang to me, “Daydream Believer,” was one her mother had sang to her when she was a child.
When I told Henry, he started to hum it as we lay there, staring at the sky.
Sage glances over to see the phone in my hand. “Who are you texting?”
“Nobody,” I say, putting my phone away.
“Henry’s a sicko, Hayden. I tried to tell you.
” Over in the trees, an animal rustles—something large, possibly a deer.
I start to turn, but Sage’s next sentence slices through the air like a knife.
“How demented do you have to be to take a girl to the woods and hit her over the head with a rock until she dies?”
“What?” I ask.
An uncanny sensation is zinging up the back of my neck. How does she know the way Kennedy was killed? I saw the body, and not even I know the details, apart from what Lydia let slip. “Why did you say Henry?”
Sage’s eyes widen. “I did? Oh, whatever. The triplets are all the same to me. I meant Bram. Like I said, though, I don’t trust anyone in that whole family.”
“Who told you how Kennedy was killed?”
Sage turns to face the creek, as if admiring its beauty. But she’s playing with the collar of her dress, and the skin at her clavicle and all over her neck is blotchy red. “I think it’s common knowledge. My mom is a friend of the Russos, so they probably told her, and she told me.”
“Right,” I say, but I don’t buy it.
Did Sage see Henry in the woods? Did she see how Kennedy was killed?
Or is there more to it than that?
I try to remember what Henry told me, but my adrenaline is kicking in hard. My heart is pumping louder than the water below, and I can barely string a thought together. He confronted Kennedy about Mariana’s death. She’d confessed to tampering with Mariana’s car.
Kennedy killed Mariana, Sage’s cousin.
And Sage may have overheard the confession.
What if Henry was telling the truth? What if he left Kennedy behind in the woods, and Sage, overwhelmed and alone with her cousin’s killer, couldn’t control her rage?
Or maybe saying Henry when she meant Bram was a simple slip of the tongue. Even so, I start to back away from her, pulling my phone out again to text Henry. “Did you see Henry in the woods, Sage?”
She shakes her head. “No. I told you, I meant Bram.”
“Sage, I know that Kennedy confessed to killing Mariana. I know she killed your cousin, so it wouldn’t be—”
“Stop it,” she cuts in, her voice high-pitched. It’s clear she isn’t hearing this information for the first time. She knows about how Mariana really died. When she glances over from the creek and our eyes meet, I know everything.
But before I can blink, she’s rushing at me with her hands outstretched.