Chapter 22
SOPHIE GARCIA’S HOUSE
“So then she’s like, ‘Sophie Garcia, if I catch you talking like that to your brother again there’s not gonna be a homecoming.’”
Sophie takes a hit on her (new) vape pen.
The weed smell is potent; I wouldn’t have the guts to use it in my bedroom.
My mom would sniff that out from a half mile away.
But Sophie’s lucky. Her mom let her move into the little studio apartment in their backyard on her sixteenth birthday so she could stop sharing a room with her sister.
She’s got privacy and her own bathroom. Plus she’s allowed to decorate however she wants, unlike both me and Hayden, which means she’s painted her walls in lush glittery colors and filled the space with throw pillows and thick rugs.
There are pictures tacked on every wall: ballet dancers in complicated poses, vintage glamor shots of old-school movie stars, art prints cut out of magazines.
You could squint and pretend that you’re in a cramped bohemian apartment in New York.
Hayden snorts with laughter. She’s on the floor with her civics book open next to her, but she’s not looking at it. She’s painting her nails in alternating colors of green and gold. We’re supposedly studying for our civics midterms, but no one’s mentioned the Constitution in at least an hour now.
“She’s all talk,” Hayden says. “They all want their pictures of us in plastic crowns. There’s no way she’d make you stay home.”
“That may be true for you guys,” Sophie says darkly. “But unlike you, my mom doesn’t do any kind of vicarious living through me. She just wants law and order in her house so Grandma doesn’t start making us go to Mass five times a week.”
Sophie’s mom, Toni, is actually the only sane mother I know in this town, truth be told.
Sure, she’s got an iron fist about things like sibling rivalry or whatever, but she’s also not obsessed with Sophie maintaining some illusion of perfection.
Sophie says it’s because her grandma, who moved in with them after Sophie’s dad moved out, was such a hard-ass back when Toni was growing up.
But Abuelita is always on the lookout for excuses to get them all back on the straight and narrow.
“Well, then, it’s easy,” Hayden says. “Stop being a bitch to your little brother.”
I expect Sophie to snap back, for them to snipe at each other like usual, but instead she turns to me. “You’re awful quiet.”
I’ve been lying on my stomach on Sophie’s bed, scrolling through fragments of Kendra Koenig’s life.
She doesn’t have any social media accounts—or, at least, she doesn’t have any that I can find with a casual search.
But there are still a few hits when I google her name.
Local news items about her family (though she’s not mentioned by name in stories about the murder).
A few sports items from when she played soccer.
A picture of her on a horse at thirteen, riding in a parade.
I put my phone down next to me. “I’m just thinking about those pictures. Seriously, if you’d seen them…”
“Yeah. It sounds fucked up,” Hayden says. She’d looked disturbed when I’d described my conversation with Kendra Koenig in the art studio.
But Sophie just shrugs. “I don’t know. I think it sounds like she’s working stuff out,” she says. “Maybe it’s some kind of art therapy. Mom made me do some of that after Dad left. I had to go into this lady’s office once a week and draw pictures of my feelings.”
“These weren’t pictures of her feelings, Soph.” I think again about the images I’d seen: bodies sprawled across a dirty floor. Staring eyes, blood, gore. My shoulders involuntarily shudder.
“Just think about it for a minute,” Sophie says. “Whether or not you think she’s in denial about Rocky, she saw something really awful. So maybe drawing it is her way of working through it.”
“Or,” Hayden says carefully, “maybe she’s reliving it.”
Sophie just stares at her for a long moment. I’m the one who speaks.
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I don’t know!” Hayden throws her hands up in the air. “I mean, it’s just weird. You have to admit it’s weird. Drawing her brother’s dead body again and again? Not normal!”
“Well, what happened to her wasn’t normal,” Sophie says.
“No, I know, but…” Hayden shakes her head. “Haven’t there been killers that’ve drawn their victims afterward?”
Sophie gives a little shriek. “That’s messed up, Hayden!”
Hayden shrugs again. “I’m just saying! Something about it makes the hair on my neck stick up. It feels wrong.”
I frown, trying to imagine what she’s suggesting. Is there any version of reality in which I’d believe Kendra might’ve murdered Rocky and Lynette? Her behavior in the studio was weird enough to set off a few red flags, but turning a gun on her beloved brother is a stretch.
But could she be behind the Sekrit post?
That’s easier to imagine. I wonder where she was last Friday when her parents showed up for the game.
Maybe she was somewhere in the crowd, hat pulled low over her head so no one would notice her.
Maybe when she saw how we all reacted, something in her finally snapped.
“Kendra’s messed up, but she’s not a killer, and I very much doubt she’s behind the Rockytruther account,” Sophie says. Then she frowns. “You know who I’ve been wondering about lately? Bryce.”
“Bryce … Sanders?” I ask, and she nods.
This time Hayden frowns. “It can’t be Bryce. Everyone knows he’s got a huge crush on Iris. Why would he start a rumor like that?”
“Because he does have a crush on Iris,” Sophie argues.
“Think about it. Every time you hear about some girl getting harassed online, the perpetrator always turns out to be some mouth-breathing, neck-bearded misogynist that thinks she needs to be put in her place. So maybe Iris shot Bryce down one too many times and he decided to punish her for it.”
“The Sekrit post did show up like, ten minutes after we saw him at the party,” I say softly.
“I’m sorry, I don’t buy it,” Hayden says. “I was in computer lab with him last year, and this is not a plan he is capable of carrying out. He’s not what you’d call technologically savvy.”
“It’s not that complicated,” I say. “All he had to do was create a throwaway account, write one post, log off, and watch the rest unfold. Rockytruther only posted one time. Everyone else has done the heavy lifting for him.”
“Do you know Bryce’s Sekrit username? Maybe we could see if he’s been liking the posts.” Hayden picks up her phone, leaving a long green streak of wet nail polish on the screen. But I shake my head.
“Hey, look at his Insta, though.” Sophie’s got her phone now too. “It’s just guns, guns, and more guns.”
I get up and look over her shoulder. There’s Bryce, posing with a handgun. There’s one of him posing with a semi-automatic rifle. There’s a clip of him filling a paper target full of bullet holes. It goes on and on.
“Creepy,” Sophie mutters.
I don’t say anything, but she’s right. I know plenty of people with guns—it’s Texas, after all.
People here have guns. But most people don’t dedicate every inch of their social media feed to documenting those guns.
You’d think there’d be something, anything else—pet photos, friends or family, whatever.
A knock comes at the door. Sophie’s vape pen disappears into her bag, and she turns on the ceiling fan quickly before she opens the door.
It’s Toni, there with a basket of clean laundry. She sets it unceremoniously on the floor before straightening up.
“Clean shirts,” she announces. “Bring me the basket when you’ve put it all away. Hi, girls, how’re you doing?”
“Studying,” Hayden says eagerly. She gestures toward her open civics text, but in the process she knocks the open gold polish over. A pool of it spills across a picture of Alexander Hamilton. “Shit. Oh, no, pardon my French!”
Toni grins. “More like Alexander Glamilton, am I right?”
She’s a short woman with pixie-cut black hair and cat-eye glasses; she looks more like an Austin barista than she does a small-town dental hygienist who makes bad puns, but I guess we all contain multitudes.
Sophie’s sometimes embarrassed that her mom doesn’t really fit in in Varda, which just goes to show that you can bitch about anything.
As far as Hayden and I are concerned, Sophie’s got it good.
“You two ready for homecoming? Hayden, I’m assuming you’re going with Carter,” she says. “How about you, Iris?”
“Um, no, I’m going stag,” I say.
She nods. “Very sensible. You don’t want to be locked down.”
“Jeez, Mom.” Sophie grabs the basket of clothes and dumps them out on her bedspread. “Here, you can have the basket. Just go.”
“What? Why am I being banished? Just for asking mom questions?” Toni takes the basket. “Sophie’s going with William Schultz. He’s so cute. And very polite.”
“Mom!” Sophie propels her mom toward the door. “We have to study!”
“Okay, okay.” Toni’s voice fades as Sophie slams the door behind her. Then Sophie takes a deep breath and slides down to the floor.
“She is exhausting,” Sophie says. Hayden and I just exchange looks.
“I didn’t know Billy asked you out,” I say.
“Yeah, we’re going as friends.” She gives an impatient shrug, but I can tell she’s pleased. “Possibly friends with benefits. We’ll see how the evening goes.”
“He’ll be good arm candy, at least,” I say.
I’m happy for Sophie but also a little bit disappointed.
Going stag is fun if you’re with other girls going stag, but I didn’t plan to be the only one without a date.
For a second I let myself imagine things differently.
I picture myself in a long satin gown, the homecoming crown nestled in my hair, as I pivot around the dance floor with …
Who? I don’t have any single guy friends I’d want to go with, and the only person I’d want to go with romantically is a three-hour drive away. No, Toni’s right. It’s better to go solo, to look amazing and dance with my friends and let everyone see me unbothered by the rumors.
Even though we all know it’s a lie.