The Fall of Iris Henley

Chapter 1

VARDA HIGH FOOTBALL FIELD

It’s one of those nights I used to love.

One of those nights with a packed stadium, where the football arcs like a rocket against the sky and the lights feel like a halo around all of us.

Where everyone glows a little, even the kids in the stands, even the teachers and parents, all their faces painted green and gold.

Everyone glows a little. But we glow brightest of all.

“Get up!” I’m at the center of the line of cheerleaders, clapping between each sentence.

“Get up!” We all move and shout in perfect sync so you can’t pick any one of our voices from the crowd.

We have practiced this over and over, drilled the rhythms down so now it’s all a perfect muscle memory. “Let’s go!” Clap clap. “Let’s go!”

We are here to smile and laugh and look weightless.

And we’re good at it. To my left and right, Hayden O’Hara and Molly Jun kneel down and I jump up to their palms. “Let’s go!

” I shout, holding one fist up to the sky as they lift me up.

A smile is just one more muscle memory, flashing across your face. “Let’s go!”

I’m only up there for a few seconds, but it’s long enough to get a good look at the bleachers.

Everyone I know is out there. All the people I’ve grown up with, the kids I’ve known since kindergarten.

Varda is small, and there aren’t too many people that come or go.

And on a Friday night there’s nowhere to be but here.

There’s Mr. Blanton, my Hank Williams–obsessed English teacher, sitting with his wife and kids; there’s Miss Geneva, our school secretary, in one of her trademark rhinestone-studded denim jackets.

There’s Morgan Jennings and Lydia Haber-Jones, taking a break from the physics lab we have to write up this weekend, and Stephen Dawes from choir, and his girlfriend Lacy Smith.

There’s my mom sitting with some other cheer moms, most of them almost as made-up as we are.

There’s my sister Noelle with the marching band, sweating in the green-and-gold uniform.

Even people without school-age kids come to our games—I recognize neighbors and shopkeepers and my old pediatrician. It’s what you do in Varda.

It’s what you do, even after bad things happen.

Then I’m flying. Falling, really, tumbling into my friends’ arms. They catch me and I right myself in two beats, quick and clean.

It’s an easy trick, but it looks good, and it always gets a reaction from the crowd.

They howl and whistle and clap as we do our toe touches. We step to the side to drink our water.

It’s strange, how back to normal everything feels.

This is the fourth game of the season. At the first game everyone cried or looked scared; no one really knew how to feel or what was okay to say.

It was the first game without Rocky, and his absence took up so much space.

But now it’s October and everyone’s eased into the new reality, the new shape of the team, the new plays and the new dynamics.

Or maybe they’re all like me, and still baffled, still lost, but they’re holding it all together outside. That automatic smile, the muscle memory that keeps us moving forward.

“This is embarrassing,” says Sophie Garcia, her eyes following our team as they move back up the field for the next play. “Sanders can’t hit the side of a barn, why is he still in the game?”

“Come on, paste that grin back on.” Hayden pokes Sophie’s cheek with a manicured fingertip. “If we can’t cheer on a bunch of losers, who can?”

My two best friends are a study in contrasts.

Hayden is tall and curvy and loud. She’s exuberant but sometimes sloppy, the rare kind of cheerleader whose energy really is directed toward cheering on the team more than pulling off the stunts or making it to competitions.

Sophie, on the other hand, is a flier like me, a sharp little wire of controlled energy.

She’s small and dimpled and what most people would call “adorable.” She is also what some people would call “prickly,” but that’s just because she doesn’t take shit.

“Look, those dumbasses are going to try to take it up the center. I can’t even watch,” Sophie says, covering her eyes.

The ref blows his whistle. I cringe a little; I’ve never liked the crushing, slamming sound of bodies coming into contact. Rocky used to tease me about it. But the ball is aloft. It hangs there for a moment, and I watch, entranced, as it falls right into Billy Schultz’s hands.

Hayden is screaming right into my ear. “Run! Run!” All around, the crowd is going wild.

I can’t make out what’s going on for a moment; there’s just a tangle of bodies, our own team in green and gold, and Deerfield’s in black and blue.

And then I see Billy come out of the scrum, hurtling toward the end zone. And then there it is: a touchdown.

The band launches into the fight song, and we scramble into position.

Our touchdown routine is always the same: a few dance moves, a few basket tosses, a pyramid at the end.

I find my mark, my hips already finding the beat.

The crowd is going wild. And I think, between the light and the noise, between the laughter of my friends and the way the drumbeats bounce on my bones, maybe … maybe we are okay. Maybe I am okay.

Hayden and Molly move in to either side of me and then I’m flying, tumbling, landing in their arms again to thunderous applause.

And then it’s time to build the pyramid.

I am top girl because I’m five foot one and because I’m strong.

That’s a thought that echoes: I am strong.

I’m strong enough for all of this—for the pyramid, for the pressure.

And then I have a split second where the world feels like it used to—big and beautiful and full of possibility.

Then I see them, there on the bleacher steps. The Koenigs.

Rocky’s mom and dad.

They’re standing on the steps, dressed head to toe in green and gold, for all the world like they’re just any other family.

Mr. Koenig holds a giant sign that says PUMA PRIDE.

Mrs. Koenig—Chrissy, she always told me to call her—is wearing Rocky’s letterman jacket, even though it’s got to be almost ninety degrees out.

Her smile is sad and frail, but she claps with everyone else.

I think, for a moment, that she meets my gaze, her smile quirking up a half centimeter more.

The world blurs again as I fall back to my friends’ arms. I stagger over to the sidelines, forgetting to do any herkies or toe touches.

I’ll hear about that later, but right now I don’t care.

My stomach gives a low, acid jerk. I grab my water bottle and take a drink, the chill hitting my gut with another wrenching splash.

“Iris? What’s wrong?” Sophie slides in next to me, her eyes wide. “Did you get hurt?”

“No, I…” I can’t bring myself to say it. But by then, I don’t need to. Others are starting to notice.

“What the hell,” Hayden mutters, staring up into the stands.

She’s not the only one. The whole squad’s started to notice.

Bella Zseleczky’s mouth has fallen open in a small O of shock.

Tammy Bates looks like she’s ready to fly into the bleachers and give them a piece of her mind.

And slowly, the rest of the crowd turns to see what’s happening.

The movement is subtle at first, a wind in the leaves, but as more and more people turn to look, a murmur wells up.

I close my eyes for a moment, then turn to look again.

Mr. Koenig hesitates on the steps, looking like he’s as likely to bolt for the exit as anything.

But Mrs. Koenig? She ignores everyone. She pushes her way past Mr. Blanton and his family to get to an empty spot on the bleachers. After a moment, her husband follows.

“Why would they come here?” Hayden’s voice trembles softly. “They shouldn’t be here.”

There’s a wide radius around Rocky’s parents as they sit. It’s like they’re radioactive. It’s like they’re diseased and no one wants to catch it. And just like that, the illusion that we’re all okay, that we’re all moving on, goes up in smoke.

Because you can’t just show up like that. Not if your son is a murderer.