Chapter Twenty-Seven
Steve
Was Faith really pregnant with Steve’s child? Were they madly in love?
And the night she died, he had been on duty to follow her for her dinner break.
So what had gone wrong? He thought he lost sight of her car but he couldn’t really remember.
Or maybe he had gotten into the passenger seat of her vehicle on a backcountry road with the intent to talk, and maybe she said she wanted to cut things off, and maybe he went a little nuts.
He’s really, truly not sure. He has images of things in his mind.
Different things, different scenarios. In one, she was going very fast and he couldn’t keep up with her and her car was gone, and in the other he wrapped his hands around her perfect neck and she begged him to stop and he wanted to but he couldn’t.
And then she went limp and he scrambled back to his car and raced home.
Where was the truth? He wished he knew. And when the police shocked him by knocking on his door the night of the vigil and he had to sit on the couch between his mom and dad, his mother shaking uncontrollably, he was forced to tell an outright lie to protect himself.
He couldn’t divulge to the cops about his full, deep relationship with Faith or he might be a prime suspect.
How did they even know he had anything to do with Faith? He couldn’t figure it out.
So he said he went to the casino for the night as an alibi (it’s only later when he realizes they can probably check security cameras) and he says that yes, while he and Faith corresponded at times, it was nothing unusual or important.
He is hoping against hope they won’t find the emails between him and Faith.
When the police finally left after a bazillion questions, his father turned to him sternly. “Stephen, what is going on here?”
“It’s nothing, Dad, no big deal. Must be some kinda mix-up.”
“Stevie, I just can’t believe you’re wrapped up in this,” cried his mother, still shaking.
“Ma, don’t worry about it. Cops make mistakes all the time.”
Then he bolted up from the couch, grabbed the laptop from the desk in the dining room, went to his room, and called up the email exchange between him and Faith.
He printed a few things to keep forever, but as much as it pained him to do so, he deleted every flirty email and photo the two of them shared.
How he wished he could keep them all, but it was too dangerous.
Instead he committed them to memory and lay down on his twin bed, letting some tears finally come—for Faith, for himself now caught in some kind of weird thing with the cops, for his parents and their worried looks, but most of all for what he and Faith almost had and now lost that she was gone.
He knew he would never find another love like her, ever.