Chapter 21 Aria
ARIA
SEVERAL WEEKS LATER
Some things refuse to stay buried, no matter how hard you try to forget them. They haunt you, lurking behind familiar faces that look at you a little differently, whispering rumors you pretend not to hear, and fraying connections that can never go back to how they were.
Nothing’s been the same since I got back.
It will never be the same.
Nerves twist inside me as I slip through the halls of Hillside Academy alone. Whispers trail behind, “That’s the girl from the headlines,” digging under my skin, making me wish I turned around and went home.
But there are only so many times I can ditch school.
I can’t avoid people forever. Eventually, life slipped back into a forced routine, fragile and nothing like before.
I’ve trudged through each day, pretending I still belong here, even though it’s obvious to me and everyone else that I stick out like a sore thumb.
I can’t go back to navigating the world quietly, slipping through the days like I don’t exist. I’m all anyone can talk about now.
It made trying to forget the past harder.
Impossible. What’s worse is I have no one I can talk to about it.
This will be something I have to carry with me to the grave. I’d promised, and like I told Ledger, I mean to keep it. I’ll never tell.
The thought of him tightens in my chest like fingers digging into a tender bruise. It’s sharp and sudden, flaring the ache of his absence.
He’s probably miles away by now, somewhere far beyond reach. I know I’ll never see him again. That he’ll never want to see me again after what happened at the warehouse. After all that I cost him.
I still can’t believe he brought me back here. For weeks, it’s all I’d longed for. What I kept clinging onto during my darkest hours. The chance to come back home.
Now that I’m here, though, I can’t fathom why I was so desperate to return in the first place. There’s nothing here for me. There never really has been.
My first night back was hard, not at all how I’d imagined it to be. Which was strange. I should’ve felt relieved. Grateful, even.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to sleep alone without the warmth of someone beside me, steady and soothing. I’d grown to find comfort in it.
Without him, it was dark. Lonely. Even the familiarity of my own bed offered me nothing without his presence there. Everything about it felt wrong.
Some nights, I’d jolted awake, drenched in sweat, heart racing, the cold settled deep inside me. Sleep never returned.
By the time the sunlight broke through my window, I’d already be dressed, dark circles concealed, the night erased as best I could.
If people are going to gawk at me, I might as well give them nothing to see.
No cracks, no weakness, no signs that they’ve gotten to me.
I’ll keep my perfect mask in place until the end of the school year when I can finally leave this all behind.
Go back to living on my own, away from society.
Away from the whispers. Away from judgment.
There was a time when solitude felt like safety. No one could hurt you if you didn’t let them in, right?
But I did let someone in.
A sharp ache pulls in my chest again, harder, the same kind I get after waking from a nightmare, reaching for Ledger and finding only an empty space instead.
He’s gone now. Forever. Clara, too.
Our severed friendship is my fault. I’m the one who pushed her away. Iced her out.
Every time she brought up that night, it felt like tearing open a wound that still hadn’t closed. And I couldn’t share any of it with her.
“Where were you?” she’d ask. “You went missing, and no one had a clue where you were. What happened?”
The guilt was unbearable.
She had questions. Of course she did. And I wanted to answer, to be able to tell her anything. But I couldn’t.
Heartbroken and barely holding it together, I spent most of that first day back answering twenty-one questions from two officers that came banging on my door.
I nearly spiraled into a full-blown panic attack the second I saw them. I wondered if they knew. If somehow, they’d pieced it all together.
They asked calmly, but every question felt like a trap, like they were just waiting for me to slip up. I imagined them snapping their fingers, shouting, “Aha! I knew she was in on it.”
Of course, I stuck to the script. The same well-rehearsed story Ledger drilled into me on the ride home. It rolled off the tongue so effortlessly that even I thought it might’ve been the truth for a second.
They scribbled into their little notepad, angled just high enough that I couldn’t read a single word. I held my breath.
“We’ll be in contact with your mother,” said the thinner of the two, handing me a plastic bag, my phone buried inside.
The phone I left in the house that night.
My shoulders stiffened.
I tried to push down the doubt, to smother the anxiety crawling up my spine as I walked them to the door.
What if she answers and tells them something different? Tells them that I lied and was never with her?
Okay…if she answers.
She hasn’t even texted me back since she took off with my car, so odds are she’ll miss their call entirely. Just another voicemail rotting on her phone.
In the end, the Shaw case was closed. Ruled a suicide. Kelsey flew back to Florida soon after the news broke, off to live with her aunt.
The only mystery left…was me.
Where I’d disappeared to. Everyone wanted to know.
The police officers might’ve bought the story, eager to wrap things up and move on, but Clara would know better.
She knew all about my fractured relationship with my mom, even if we’d never talked at length about it. She also knew my grandmother died years ago.
Guilt knots in my stomach. I’d reappeared out of nowhere, expecting us to pick up where we left off, like nothing ever happened. I gave her nothing. No explanation. My lies wouldn’t have worked on her.
Even if I could tell her, where would I start? From the beginning?
I’d have to explain why Ledger was there in the first place. Which meant I also had to explain what was really behind Mrs. Shaw’s death.
I wouldn’t just lose Clara to my silence. I’d lose her to something even worse.
The truth.
She’d think less of me. I’m sure of it. Anybody would.
I spot her just a few feet away, leaning over Jayce’s locker, twirling the ends of her ponytail while he talks to her.
She’d finally cut me off only to slide in with the same group she used to complain about.
She never liked them. Any of them. And now she moves through their group like she’s always belonged.
My lungs burn as I hold my breath, watching them.
How long did it take for them to get this close?
She told me she was worried. Said I’d shut her out. That I’d kept too much from her. But if she was so worried, how’d she have time to cozy up with Jayce and the rest of them?
My mouth opens like I’m considering calling out to her, but the words don’t come out. They never do.
I used to hide in the bathroom to avoid moments like this. These days, I just stay put, trying to numb myself to the sting of being left behind.
Then, as if she senses me, her eyes flick away from him and land on mine. Her smile drops.
My mouth goes dry. Fingers twitch against the sketchpad clutched to my chest. The hallway noise dulls, and all I can hear is my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
And then…she looks away. Just like that.
Like we were never friends at all.
I thought time would dissolve the tension between us, that eventually we’d find our way back to how things were. But I was clinging to a delusion. Time doesn’t always heal all wounds. That much is becoming clear.
With trembling lips, I turn toward the bathroom, trying to convince myself that I don’t care. If she doesn’t want to speak to me again, then fine.
I don’t owe anyone an explanation. Not even her. If she can’t find a way to move past what happened, maybe our friendship isn’t worth salvaging.
It was only a matter of time before she drifted away, just like everyone else I’ve ever gotten close to. She’s not any different.
For all I know, she was already headed that way. I saw the signs. Like the time she brought up Jayce to me after school, before the sleepover.
They’d probably been talking behind my back since then. And with me gone, they only grew closer.
It stung. More than I wanted it to.
I push through the crowd, ignoring the sharp pinch of betrayal knotted in my stomach. My vision is blurred, the tears barely held in.
“Wait,” someone calls out from behind.
I’m too focused on getting the hell out of here to register the voice, at least not until Jayce steps in front of me, blocking my path.
I glance around him, searching for Clara, but she’s nowhere to be found anymore. Vanished into thin air. Frustration claws up my throat, jaw clenched tight.
“Please. Move.”
“Look,” he begins. “I know you and Clara aren’t on speaking terms, but—”
I flinch at her name, the pain still too fresh. “Whatever she sent you to say, I’m not interested. Please move.” I force the words out as calmly as I can, even as heaviness swells beneath my chest.
He tilts his head slightly, jaw angling as his hand drifts to the back of his neck. A hesitant smile tugs at his lips. “It’s not like that.”
I blink, waiting to see if that’s all he came here to say.
My skin prickles as I feel eyes drifting our way. The weight of attention presses down on me, and I hate it. The last thing I need is for Hunter to show up at his side, parroting whatever nonsense they usually spew. I want nothing to do with any of them.
He starts to talk again, but I don’t wait to listen.
I hunch my shoulders, bracing myself as I squeeze past him, tight and fast, before he can stop me.
Numbness spreads down my legs and into every one of my toes as I rush to flee the wide-open hallway, desperate to shield myself from the dozens of eyes glued to me.