Chapter 30 #2
I played it again, enlarging it to get a better look at who was there.
Dex and Philly were near the bottom of the stairs, his arm around her shoulders.
I was kind of surprised they hadn’t gone to the other hockey players’ party, but maybe not having to come up with a costume idea appealed to more than just those of us in Grief Inc.
No sign of Logan. Abby was chatting with Dustin in the entranceway to the dining room.
I was happy that he’d made it to the party.
He was laughing at something Abby said, making me smile.
Until I remembered I was sitting in a hospital, waiting to see another one of the partygoers.
When I got to the end, where Chloe was looking at the camera for her sign-off, I could see two sets of legs just over her shoulder, like a couple were sitting on the steps a few above her. I didn’t know who they were, but I knew it wasn’t Logan’s legs and feet.
I looked up at the door to Connor’s room. There’d been no sign from inside that I was wanted. Taking a deep breath, I played the last, most recent, post on Chloe’s page.
“I think I’m getting a lot out of it, actually. I’m glad I’m going,” Paige was saying to Connor, who sat beside her on the top step. It had been their bodies in the last post.
“Yeah? I guess so. Me too, sort of,” Connor said. His voice was thick and not slurring, but close. His eyes were glassy as he looked at Chloe and said, “I don’t know. Hey, if nothing else, Logan and Megan found each other, right?”
“And you found me, through Megan, so kind of through your grief study,” Chloe added, a little bit of flirt in her voice. He was looking at her face, but the angle was lower, like she was holding her phone down, away from herself as she filmed.
Yeah, maybe Connor, a very drunk Connor, had known on some level that Chloe was filming, at some point in the evening. But the way she was now unobtrusively holding the phone as she filmed, would not be an in-your-face reminder. That was the point.
Rage at my suitemate mixed with the deep feelings of protectiveness I felt for Connor and Paige. I had inadvertently led my lambs to Chloe’s slaughter. All for clicks and followers.
“There’s that,” Connor said, trying to return Chloe’s look (I was guessing her pouty smile), but his smile fell short. He turned to Paige. “I just thought it’d be easier by now. Being away from Settlers Hill and all. Some distance, you know?”
Paige was nodding. I could hear the background noise of the party below, and there was some movement behind Paige and Connor, at the end of the hallway, but I blocked that out to concentrate on what they were saying.
“I get that. I’m from a small town, too. Everybody knew about my sister dying. It’s nice, in a way, but also suffocating, you know?”
They were only looking at each other now, forgetting that Chloe—and her phone—were even there.
“So fucking suffocating. And Settlers Hill has gone apocalyptic over this thing. Parents against each other. Different factions. Everybody trying to find fault. My buddies’ parents both smothering me because I was with their kids when they died and also acting like…
I don’t know, that I don’t deserve to be here if they aren’t. ”
Paige put her arm around Connor’s shoulders. I was so glad she’d been there for him in that moment. And even more furious that Chloe was there too.
And filming this private, devastating moment.
“No, I’m sure they don’t feel that way. Not really. It’s just super hard for parents, right? To lose a child. My parents still catch themselves starting to call me by Clara’s name. Something they did all the time, and we’d just roll our eyes. Now it’s like a fresh cut.”
“Yeah, totally. Fresh cuts. That’s what it’s like anytime someone from home texts or calls. And the people who came out of the woodwork at the funerals? I mean it’s nice people want to pay their respect. I get that. But pretending you’re so much closer to it than you are? Kind of fucked up.”
“God, I know—people I knew that Clara had barely ever met needed to tell me how close they were. And I’m just staring at them like, ‘Bitch, my sister didn’t even know your last name,’ while I’m just smiling and nodding.”
“Yeah, I know those people. We had lots of them. My uncle came up to me at one of my buddies’ funerals when he saw I was overwhelmed and said not to sweat it.
Those people. How’d he say it? Yeah. At a funeral, there’s always the ‘best friends with the dead guy’ people, and best to steer clear of them. ”
Paige nodded, chuckling. I was happy she found the humor in it, and I knew exactly what Connor’s uncle had meant. I’d experienced it myself with a couple of people at my mom’s funeral. Not as much well-meaning, as just wanting to be part of it.
“I never want to go back to that fucking town,” Connor said.
“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but give it time, before cutting all cords. Isn’t that what Wednesday night is all about?”
“’Scuse me, coming through,” came a female voice from behind Paige and Connor.
Someone had come from the hallway and needed to get down the stairs.
They moved aside, and a pair of legs and great boots walked between them and down to the side of Chloe.
She never moved the camera from Paige and Connor, so you couldn’t see the upper body or face of the girl who had come from the hallway.
But I knew those boots. Or someone who had a pair just like them.
I watched as the video concluded with Connor tearing up and Paige hugging him. Chloe turned the camera off them (finally!) and toward herself.
“Loss is hard, y’all. We need to take care of ourselves and each other. Grace, bitches.” She’d spoken softly, nearly a whisper, as if not to tip off Connor and Paige.
Disgusted with Chloe, I watched it again, but this time I turned off the sound and enlarged it so I was just looking at the hallway over Paige’s and Connor’s shoulders. I was right about the boots. They were Ches’s.
And she was leaving Logan’s bedroom while still putting herself together. Buckling her belt, doing up the last button of her top, and fluffing out her just-fucked hair.