c16

I stop breathing for a second.

"Hazel?" Ashlyn says, as if she can sense the way I'm spiraling.

When I don't reply, she keeps going.

"I just thought," she says, "how convenient that after years of being followed by the creepiest men on the internet, now is when you have a stalker. She thought her phone was bugged. Her house. It just all seemed like an elaborate excuse to imply that there was another reason someone would have been writing all that stuff about me. That they had hacked our conversations or had recordings of us somewhere. I'm sorry. I just…I didn't buy it."

I want to say that this isn't my sister, that there's no way she would do something so extreme just to make amends, to protect herself. No way she would lie like that, but then I remember what happened four years ago.

It was her last year at a Montessori school before she moved to the public high school. By that point I was planning to move back west but was still in New York, mostly keeping up with Evie's life through weekly FaceTimes and daily texts. We talked about everything, but when I asked her about dating, she always brushed me off. I remembered that age, the hunger to be loved, touched. So overwhelming and thorough that it colored everything. I wasn't so naive to imagine that my sister was immune to it, even if she had a never-ending cascade of attention on social media. When I was her age, I would have died to know that a single boy in my class thought I was pretty. Average, even. She merely had to open Instagram to have thousands of strangers telling her she was gorgeous. That she got prettier every day. Still, I knew there had to be someone.

"So, any crushes lately?" I'd ask, trying to seem casual, cool. "Anyone special? A boy? A girl?"

Almost every time, she'd laugh, say no. Not like she was embarrassed, but like it should be obvious that she didn't have time for crushes. And then one day, it was different.

"There was this one kid," she said, and I had to force myself to sound unfazed on the phone.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, well…" she started. "You have to promise not to tell Mom."

I tried to hide my excitement. A secret that was mine? And not my mom's? "Of course. Always."

"I was talking to this guy from a high school in Scottsdale," she said, and I already knew by her voice that there was a line of darkness running through the story that I wasn't expecting. She doesn't sound giddy, or shy, but guilty. Maybe a little defensive. "It was harmless, really. He sent me some pics. I sent him some. Whatever."

I gritted my teeth, trying to remind myself that my sister was a teenager. And this was what teenagers do.

"He wasn't even that much older," she said.

My stomach lurched. "Ev…"

"He literally just turned eighteen. Like, the day before we started talking."

Jesus Christ, I thought. This was worse than I thought. Maybe I didn't want to know this.

"It was whatever, really. We were just talking. Followed each other on Snapchat," she said. "Flirted. Not a big deal. But for him, it was different…he was, like, in love with me."

I can see it now: The too-old-for-her stalker showing up at the door. Our mom freaking out. The details that would leak. The headlines that would follow.

"I was over it, so I ended it, blocked him—I mean, we literally never even hung out in person." She sighed. "But he sent this letter last month. Left it in the mailbox. I got it before Mom found it, thank God."

I'm picturing: A teenage boy's messy scrawl. Threats written in nearly illegible handwriting. Reminders that she was his.

"I know what you're thinking, Haze," she said. "This isn't Law Order. It was…sweet. I mean, a little pathetic, but sweet. He said he would love me forever. He wanted the best for me. He would never forget me. I would do big things in high school. Blah, blah, blah…"

A chill went up my arm.

"And then I forgot about it, really. Put it in my backpack and brought it to school. Stuffed it in my locker between some books. Whatever. And I guess Aiden got the picture—that was his name, by the way," she said, and I wondered why it mattered. "He never sent anything else. Never even texted me. I forgot the letter was there, honestly. I should have thrown it out, obviously. No idea why I didn't. Laziness, I guess. It was also probably laziness that led me to leave my locker unlocked one day, and…"

"Oh, Jesus, Evie…"

"Yeah, Regan found the letter. Fucking Regan. I swear she's still annoyed about me not including her in my ‘best of summer' Instagram carousel. As if she would want any of the photos I had of her online anyway. Let me tell you: not good. But whatever. She snooped. She found the letter. Obsessed with me as always."

I cringed, hearing my sister talk that way, though in a way it was what I always wanted for her—to be an impossible, headstrong teenager concerned with petty school drama, boys, friends.

"And then she…ugh, I swear to God I'm still so mad at her, Haze." She groaned into the phone. "She gave the letter to the principal."

Good, I think, imagining the eighteen-year-old being disciplined accordingly. That's what you get for going for an underage girl. A fucking middle schooler.

"I have no idea why Principal Locklear saw the name Aiden and thought, ‘well, I guess there's only one other Aiden in the world. And he happens to work here.' And is one of my teachers…and that I'm, I don't know, pervert bait or whatever it is people think because of social media…whatever, anyway…she was convinced it was my history teacher, Mr. Jernigan. Aiden Jernigan, I guess. Though it feels weird to, like, say his first name like that. Ew."

Something in her voice sounded so light and airy, so distant, that it made my pulse race. Why didn't this seem like a big deal to her?

"And you told her it wasn't him, right…?"

"Well, that would mean I would have to tell her it was my Aiden…and then she would tell Mom that…so…yeah, no," Evie says.

I had been walking, pacing the apartment, and I stopped in my tracks. Who was this person I was talking to?

"No?" I repeated.

She sighed loudly, but I spoke before she could say anything. "I don't get this, Evie…I thought you were over him. Why would you want to protect him?"

"I mean, the photos, for one," she started. "He screenshotted a few…At the time, I was, I don't know, flattered that he thought I was hot enough. That I looked old enough. But then afterward, I realized that there was no telling where the photos would end up if he was pissed. Even if he got in trouble. You know how guys are. They feel betrayed and boom: scorched earth. Plus, the money he could make on them…I'm sure you get it."

"So you just…let your teacher take the fall…and…what? Get fired?" I pushed, trying to make sense of what she was saying, putting together what must have come next. "Get arrested?"

"Look, it's not like the letters were sexual, Hazel," she said, drawing out the word like she wants to make it clear that she's comfortable with this situation. That it doesn't faze her. That this is all no big deal. "I knew they weren't going to, like, immediately send him to jail. I mean, the letter seemed weird, sure. I knew he wouldn't be back next year, but neither would I. We could all move on. And once I explained to Principal Locklear how many people would care about something like this because I was involved, if it ended up on the news, what would happen to the school…"

She sounded calculated, both younger and older than I'd ever heard before. She sounded like my mom.

"Evie," I said quietly. "You could have figured out a different way. You could have…I don't know…talked to me. Something. That man didn't do anything wrong."

"Yeah, well," she said, and I could practically hear her shrug through the phone. "He's not in jail. And neither is the other Aiden. And Mom isn't losing her shit. So it's fine."

"It's really not."

"I mean, it's not like Mr. Jernigan was an angel, either, Haze. He was very open about the whole ‘in this classroom, hugs are free' policy." She sighed. "A little sus if you ask me."

It was clear that Evie had thought the whole thing through. That it all made sense to her, even if it was scorched earth, even if it was destroying so much more than was necessary or even remotely fair.

"You promised, Hazel," she whined, sensing the depths of my disapproval through the phone. "You cannot tell Mom. She'll kill me. Or she'll, like, immediately go public. We'll be on The Today Show in four days talking about child predators. She'll put Mr. Jernigan's face everywhere. I can see the Instagram caption now: THIS IS THE FACE OF A MONSTER. MY BABY IS A VICTIM."

She wasn't wrong.

"Please don't make me do that. Don't make me lie on television."

Would that really be so hard for you? I wondered, but didn't say it out loud.

We never talked about it again. I tried not to think about it, either, other than the occasional times I googled Aiden Jernigan over the years. Last I checked he was running an SAT prep course out of his house in the Midwest. Now, on the phone with Ashlyn, I think of him for the first time in a while. About what Evie had done, what I had let her do.

Had Evie thought she was being watched? Stalked? And if she had, why didn't she tell me—the one person who would have taken it seriously right away? Or did she make it all up to win Ashlyn back?

"So, what?" I say, doing my best not to sound annoyed, panicked, angry. "You just didn't reply?"

"No," Ashlyn says, and she sounds genuinely ashamed.

"And you didn't tell the detectives either?"

"I was scared," she says. "I thought maybe I would be implicated somehow, or…I don't know…maybe I was just embarrassed. I told myself that if the police reached out to me for questioning, I'd tell them then. I'd explain that I had genuinely thought she was making it up. It's not that I didn't care about her enough to be worried, even though we weren't in a good place…I just thought there was nothing to actually worry about."

This part doesn't make me feel any better, but I do understand it. There are things I've waited to tell the detectives, too. Things that I've told myself must not be important if no one else is bringing them up. Even if that is the more convenient version of things for me.

"And then the Instagram post and detective statement happened…" Ashlyn says.

"So, what?" I sneer. "You just thought, ‘well, I guess I'll just continue to keep my mouth shut.' What a relief, huh? That you never had to really involve yourself…"

I don't care if she knows I'm angry now, that I resent the fact that she protected herself instead of protecting my sister. That she didn't assume the worst-case scenario, too.

"It's just…" she starts. "That's what she said she wanted, right? In that post? If it's her that's saying it, then what else was there for me to do?"

"So then why are we having this conversation now?" I push. "Why call me at all?"

"I needed to tell someone," she says, her voice small, wavering. "I needed someone else to see the emails, the texts. I couldn't just…sit with it forever."

I think of why that someone couldn't be the detectives. "Someone who didn't have the power to hold you accountable? And when the world is already paying less attention than they were three days ago? Convenient."

There's a beat of silence, and when she talks again her voice is still small, but confident. Steady. "Ignoring a text isn't a crime," she says. "And neither is leaving your family."

I'm stunned by how matter-of-fact she seems. And angry that this whole conversation feels centered on Ashlyn unburdening herself instead of on Evie.

"You know, as fucked-up as the emails were, I thought that telling you about them might help. That you'd want to read them and then you'd see that Evie was more complex than you thought. That she was smart," Ashlyn says, somehow managing to sound warm despite the bite behind her words. "That maybe there is a lot you didn't understand about her. That you couldn't understand. I thought maybe we'd have that in common."

I don't reply, stung by what she's said. Is this how Evie talked about me? How she thought I felt about her?

"Look, I'm not asking you to look at the texts and emails and have some epiphany about me or her or anything. Just read them, okay?"

"Fine," I say, too deflated to push anymore.

"Thank you," she says, and something in her voice feels lighter, like she's been treading water and has now finally peeled off a layer of clothing, a pair of boots.

It's not that she sounds happy, really. But sunnier. Like she's going to hang up the phone and run or jump, take long strides into a lake. She reminds me of a golden retriever.

And suddenly it isn't just her or the memory of her tan or her perfect hair that makes me wish I was a little more like her, but instead it's the weightlessness, the ability to pass something along to someone else and know your job is complete. To wash your hands of it, shrug your shoulders, and be done. To tell the truth, and have that be enough.