Makani and Alex nodded. It was.
“I mean, what kind of person would do something like that?” he asked.
A sickening wave of shame rolled throughout Makani’s body. It’s not the same, she reminded herself. I’m not that kind of person. But when the warning bell rang—three sterile chimes—she bolted from the cramped hatchback as if there were an actual emergency. Darby and Alex groaned as they extricated themselves, too caught up in their own gloom to register her odd behavior. Makani exhaled and readjusted her clothing to make sure that she was decent. Unlike her friends, she did have curves.
“Maybe it was a serial killer,” Alex said as they headed toward first period. “A long-haul trucker on his way through town! These days, serial killers are always truck drivers.”
Makani felt the welcome return of skepticism. “Says who?”
“The FBI.”
“My dad is a truck driver,” Darby said.
Alex grinned.
“Stop smiling.” Darby glowered at her. “Or people will think you did it.”
By lunchtime, Alex’s tasteless joke about the source of Ollie’s hair dye had spread. Makani had heard more than one student whispering about his possible guilt. It infuriated her. Ollie was an anomaly, sure. But that didn’t make him a killer. Furthermore, she’d never seen him talk to, or even look at, Haley Whitehall.
And Makani had studied him a lot.
She was upset, despite understanding that the rumors were exactly that—fabrications created to distract them from the unknown. The unknown was too frightening. Makani had also overheard a group of academic overachievers gossiping about Zachary Loup, the school’s resident burnout. She didn’t think he was guilty, either, but at least he was a better suspect. Zachary was an asshole. He wasn’t even nice to his friends.
Most students, however, were agreed on the real suspects: Haley’s family. Maybe a boyfriend. No one knew of a boyfriend, but perhaps she’d had one in secret.
Girls often had secrets.
The thought churned inside Makani’s stomach like a rotten apple. As Darby and Alex speculated, she pushed away her paper boat of French fries and glanced around.
Nearly all of the 342 students were here in the nucleus of the campus, completely surrounded by brown-brick buildings. The quad was plain. Dreary. There were no tables or benches, only a few stunted trees scattered about, so students sat on the concrete ground. Unwind a spool of barbed wire, and it could have been a prison yard, but even prisoners were given tables and benches. A dry fountain filled with dead leaves—no one could remember ever having seen the stone lion shoot a stream of water from its open mouth—rested in the center like a mausoleum.
This time of year, the weather was unpredictable. Some days were warm, but most were cold. Today was almost warm, so the quad was crowded and the cafeteria was empty. Makani zipped up her hoodie, shivering. Her school in Kailua-Kona was always warm. The air had smelled like flowers and coffee and fruit, and it had tasted as salty as the Pacific, which glistened beside the parking lots and football fields.
Osborne smelled like diesel, tasted like despair, and was surrounded by an ocean of corn. Stupid corn. So much corn.
Alex grabbed a handful of Makani’s uneaten fries. “What about someone in show choir? Or drama club?”
Darby scoffed. “What, like, Haley’s understudy?”
“Isn’t that the person the Masterpiece detective would investigate?” Alex asked.
“The what-now?”
“Sherlock, Morse, Poirot. Wallander. Tennison.”
“I only know one of those names.” Darby dipped his pizza into a glob of ranch dressing. “Why don’t you watch normal television?”
“I’m just saying, let’s not rule anyone out yet.”
Makani was still staring at the fountain. “I hope it’s not a student.”
“It’s not,” Darby said.
“Please,” Alex said. “Angry teenagers do shit like this all the time.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but they show up at school with an arsenal of automatic weapons. They don’t go after people in their homes. With knives.”
Makani muffled her ears with her fists. “Okay, enough. Stop it.”
Darby ducked his head, abashed. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. School shootings were real. With real murderers and real victims. Haley’s death felt one step removed from reality, because it didn’t seem like something that could happen to them. The crime was too specific. There must have been a reason for it. A horrible and misguided reason, but a reason nonetheless.
Makani turned to look at them, backpedaling the conversation in an attempt to downplay her reaction. “Well . . . Jessica didn’t do it.”
Alex raised her eyebrows. “Jessica?”
“Jessica Boyd. The understudy.” Makani rolled her eyes when Alex smirked. “I only know she’s the understudy because I heard somebody else say it. But can you honestly imagine her killing anyone?”
“You’re right,” Alex said. “That does seem unlikely.” Jessica Boyd was a delicate wisp of a thing. It was difficult to imagine her even flushing a dead goldfish. “But did you guys notice that Haley’s best friend didn’t come to school today?”
“Because Brooke is in mourning.” Darby was exasperated. “Like I would be if this happened to one of you.”
Alex leaned forward conspiratorially. “Think about it. Haley was one of the most talented students here. Everybody knew that she’d leave us for someplace bigger and better—Broadway, Hollywood. Whatever. She was the kind of person who should be totally stuck up, but . . . she wasn’t. People liked her. Which always means someone didn’t like her. Resented her.”
Makani’s nose wrinkled. “And you think it was her best friend?”
“No one even knew Haley,” Darby said, “unless they were in the drama club or Vocalmotion.” Vocalmotion was, regrettably, the self-chosen name of the show choir. Osborne High only had three respectable organizations: the drama and choral departments, which had a nearly one-hundred-percent overlap, and the football team.
It was Nebraska. Of course their school took football seriously.
“But that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Alex said. “Nobody else knew her. So doesn’t it make sense that one of her friends did it? Out of jealousy?”
“Should we be worried? Are you plotting to kill us?” Makani asked.
“Ugh,” Darby said.
Alex sighed. “You guys are no fun.”
“I believe I warned you this morning,” Darby said, “not to appear so excited.”
The wind picked up, and it shook a paper banner on the other side of the quad. An advertisement for Sweeney Todd. Each letter dripped with garish, hand-painted blood, and two long swaths of dark red tulle draped down from opposite corners like theater curtains. A gust heaved the tulle into the air, where it danced and writhed. Makani felt a chill touch her spine. Her name meant “wind” in Hawaiian, but she wasn’t superstitious about it. Except when she was. They should stop talking about Haley.
“It’s tactless,” she said, unable to help herself. She nodded toward the banner. “The Splatter Belt. Do you think they’ll cancel it?”
Alex swallowed the last greasy fry. “They’d better not. That was the first school function that I’ve ever planned on attending. Willingly,” she added. She was in the marching band, which meant she was forced to attend the football games.
Darby stared her down until she made eye contact.
“What? It seemed like fun,” she said. “Getting covered in fake blood.”
Makani snorted. “There’s that word again. Fun.”
Faux wistfulness spread across Darby’s face. “I remember when you used to collect plastic horses and Pokémon cards, and your life goal was to work for Pixar.”
“Lower your voice, dickpunch.” But Alex grinned.
A back-and-forth taunting of childhood hobbies and idiosyncrasies ensued, and Makani, as it so often happened, found herself excluded. Her
attention waned, and her gaze drifted across the quad. It was almost time. Any minute now, and . . .
There.
Her heart plummeted as Ollie appeared from the depths of the locker bay to throw away an empty plastic grocery bag. This was his daily routine appearance. He always ate a packed lunch in an uninhabited nook behind the old lockers, and then he always disappeared into the main building. He would finish this hour in the library.
Makani felt a familiar pang of sorrow. Ollie was so alone.
A small group of football players stood beneath the Sweeney banner, blocking the entrance to the building. Her muscles tensed as Matt Butler—Osborne’s golden boy, its prize running back—said something as Ollie approached. Whatever it was, Ollie didn’t react. Matt said something else. Ollie didn’t react. Matt flicked his thumb and index finger at Ollie’s hair. His friends laughed, but Ollie still didn’t react. It was agonizing to watch.
A meaty guy with an absurd name, Buddy or Bubba, she thought, jumped up and snatched at the tulle, and the right half of the banner ripped and collapsed downward. He laughed even harder as Ollie was forced to duck, but the pleasure was short-lived.
Matt gestured angrily at the wreckage. “Hey, man! Show some respect.”
The outburst carried across the quad. It took Buddy or Bubba several seconds to make the connection between the ruined banner and Haley, but as his expression transformed from confusion into humiliation, he was faced with a choice—either admit to a wrongdoing or double down. He doubled down. Shoving Matt’s shoulder, he set off a furious chain reaction of even more shoving until they were no longer blocking the entrance.
The escalating action held the student body in rapt attention. Only Makani was staring elsewhere. Ollie still hadn’t moved. He’d kept it together, but it was clear that the football players had unnerved him. She was on her feet.
“No,” Darby said. “Makani. No.”
Alex shook her head, and her barrettes clicked against one another. “Ollie doesn’t deserve your help. Or pity. Or whatever it is you’re feeling right now.”
Makani smoothed the front of her hoodie. She was already walking away.
“You never listen to us,” Darby called out. “Why don’t you ever listen to us?”
Alex sighed. “Good luck, gumdrop.”
This thing—this unbearable weight and pressure—that had been boiling inside Makani for months was about to erupt. Ollie might not deserve her help, but she still felt compelled to try. Maybe it was because she wished someone at her previous school had helped her. Or maybe it was because of Haley, a horrific situation already beyond anyone’s help. Makani glanced back at her friends with a shrug.
When she turned forward, Ollie was staring at her. He didn’t look nervous or angry, or even curious.
He looked wary.
Makani strode toward him in a bold path. She always stood out among their peers. Their skin was several shades lighter than her brown complexion, and her surf-inspired wardrobe was several shades brighter than their Midwestern sensibility. She wore her hair big—in its natural curly coils—and she moved with a confident sway in her hips. It was a false confidence, designed so that people wouldn’t ask questions.
Ollie glanced one last time at the jocks, still shouting and posturing, and pulled aside the dangling tulle. He went into the building. Makani frowned. But when she opened the door, he was waiting for her on the other side.
She startled. “Oh.”
“Yes?” he said.
“I . . . I just wanted to say, they’re idiots.”
“Your friends?” Ollie deadpanned.
Makani realized she was still holding the door open, and he could see Darby and Alex through the tulle’s transparent weave, spying on them from across the quad. She released her grip. It slammed shut. “No,” she said, trying on a smile. “Everyone else.”
“Yeah. I know.” His face remained impassive. Guarded.
Her smile dropped. She crossed her arms, her own defenses rising as they sized each other up. They were almost eye level; he was only an inch or two taller than she was. This close, she could see the newness of his hair. His scalp was hot pink. The dye would need more time to wash out of his skin. There was something vulnerable about seeing him like this, and her body re-softened. She hated herself for it.
She hated herself for so many things.
Makani hated that she’d gotten carried away with Ollie, even though she’d been warned about his reputation. She hated that she’d tricked herself into believing she didn’t care for him, when she’d always known that she did. And she hated the way it had ended. Abruptly. Silently. This was their first conversation since the end of summer.
Maybe if we’d talked more to begin with . . .
But that was it, wasn’t it? There had never been a lot of talking. At the time, she’d even been grateful for it.
His pale eyes were still fixed on her, but they were no longer passive. They were searching. Her veins throbbed in response. Why did it suddenly feel like they were back behind the grocery store, preparing to do what they did on those hot, summer afternoons?
“Why are you here?” he asked. “You haven’t spoken to me all semester.”
It made her angry. Instantly. “I could say the same thing about you. And I said what I wanted to say. About our classmates. Being idiots and all that.”
“Yeah.” His posture stiffened. “You did say that.”
Makani let out a singular laugh to show him that he wasn’t getting to her, even though they both knew that he was. “Fine. Forget it. I was just trying to be a friend.”
Ollie didn’t say anything.
“Everyone needs friends, Ollie.”
He frowned slightly.
“But, obviously, that’s impossible.” With one violent thrust, she pushed the door back open. “Great talk. See you in class.”
She stormed straight into the curtain of tulle. She swore as she struggled to pull it aside, growing more and more ensnared in the dark red netting. A thunderous uproar surged across the quad—a chaotic mob of excited, agitated spectators.
The fight had finally broken out.
Makani stopped thrashing. She was trapped, imprisoned even, in this miserable town where she hated everything and everyone. Especially herself.
There was a quiet stir, and she was surprised to discover that Ollie was still behind her. His fingers carefully, gently untangled her from the tulle. It dropped back into a sheet, and they watched their classmates together, in silence, through the blood-colored haze.
CHAPTER THREE
“Did you know that Haley girl?” Grandma Young called out from the sofa.
Makani waved goodbye to Darby as he drove away. He honked twice. Her grandmother’s house was only a short walk from school, but he always picked her up and dropped her off anyway. Makani lived in Osborne’s oldest neighborhood, and Darby lived in its newest. Alex lived on a muddy cow-calf operation near Troy, one town over. She had band practice in the afternoons and carpooled with a girl who played tenor sax. They could all drive, but Darby was the only one with full-time access to a car.
Ollie lived . . . in the country. Makani wasn’t sure where. When the fight had ended, he’d gone to the library, and she’d gone back to her friends. Later in Spanish, she’d felt the faint pressure of his stare—it had thrilled her, even though she wished it hadn’t—but nothing had actually changed. It felt like it never would.
Makani’s heart sank as she locked the front door, further enclosing the scope of her world. “Yeah, I knew Haley. Sort of. Not really.”
She kicked off her sneakers and socks and placed them at the bottom of the stairs to carry up to her bedroom later. Shoes were another thing Makani disliked about the Midwest. Apart from the summer months, it was too cold to wear slippers, but her feet always felt heavy in the necessary sneakers and boots. It had taken ages to build the callouses so that they didn’t rub her heels into blisters.
Flip-flops, she corrected herself. Not s
lippers.
Regionalisms still tripped her up. Flip-flops weren’t a big deal. But she cringed every time she heard someone order a pop instead of a soda.
Her grandmother was perched in front of the television, streaming Scandal on Netflix and separating out the edge pieces of a new jigsaw puzzle. Makani flopped into a well-loved easy chair. It had belonged to her granddaddy. Tucking her feet under her legs to keep them toasty, she picked up the cardboard lid. The puzzle was a folk-art design that featured a folksy pumpkin patch, a street of folksy houses, and a stream of trick-or-treaters dressed in folksy costumes. Grandma Young liked to keep things seasonal.
“I’m waiting for the local news to come on,” she said.
Makani tossed the lid back onto the coffee table and glanced at her phone. “You still have another hour and a half.”
“I want to hear what Creston has to say about all this.” Creston Howard was the handsome, black half of the five o’clock news team, and Grandma Young believed his word to be infallible. “The whole thing is awful. I hope they catch whoever did it.”
“They will,” Makani said.
“She was so young, so talented. Just like you.”
That last part wasn’t true, but Makani knew better than to correct her. She could already hear the beats of their ensuing argument: Makani would deny it; her grandmother would accuse her of negative thinking; Makani would explain that she was simply being honest; her grandmother would press; and then Makani would explode with something like, “You aren’t my mother! My own mother is barely my mother! We’re not talking about this, okay?”
Instead, Makani scrolled through her phone. She no longer hoped for a text or message or email from Jasmine, her former best friend. And she no longer hoped that, for some miraculous and unlikely reason, everything would go back to the way it had been before. Those hopes had perished a long time ago. It was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment, though perhaps it began when she’d signed the official government document that changed her surname from Kanekalau to Young.
She hadn’t taken her mother’s maiden name because of the impending divorce. She’d taken it because it wasn’t safe to be the easily Google-able Makani Kanekalau anymore, and she’d needed a fresh start in Nebraska.