Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

GRAHAM KELLY SITS in his living room alone in the dark, tense, sipping a whiskey. He's been a mess all day. He's been swinging like a pendulum between his shock and grief about what's happened to Diana and his anxiety about the position he's in – his uncertainty about what he should do.

His wife has gone to bed, and his three kids have scattered to their various bedrooms to spend far too much time on social media and computer games that are doing them no good at all. He no longer enquires. He has lost control over them, and now all he can do, it seems, is hang on for the ride and hope it all turns out okay in the end. Parenting has been something of a nightmare for him and his wife. They have not been easy kids, but he loves them fiercely anyway. They have caused him personal heartbreak and professional embarrassment as a principal. It has certainly made him more empathetic to parents going through difficulties with their kids. He's done his best. He's come to believe that children are born with certain traits and temperaments and the most well-intentioned parenting in the world can't fundamentally change that. You do what you can. He doesn't judge.

But this.

He must go to the police station tomorrow morning and talk to them. Because Paula is right. And he's a little afraid that if he doesn't tell the police, Paula will.

They're going to want to question Brad. But it will probably be all right, he tells himself, gripping his whiskey glass tightly. Brad didn't kill her. Brad will have an alibi – he'll have been with his fiancée, no doubt – they're such lovebirds. Brad won't have to worry about any serious questioning on that point, at least. But Kelly, like the coward he is, hadn't wanted to bring up the matter of an alibi on the phone.

He knows he has always been someone who avoids bad news, skirts conflict. He's never been one to face things head-on – not in his work, or in his personal life either. It was a bit of a surprise, even to him, how he ever made it to the level of principal. But then he realized that it's all about working within the system. No one at the board level wants a maverick for a school principal. It's all about not rocking the boat, really.

He hopes this matter of Diana's complaint doesn't come out publicly, because he doesn't want to be under scrutiny for the way he handled it. He should have reported it, even if he found it unbelievable. It's not always easy to do the right thing, or to know what that is.

It's late when Joe Prior hears the familiar knock on his apartment door. He wonders what took him so long. Joe gets up from his chair where he's been watching the news on TV and opens it.

It's Roddy, whom he met on the job at the construction site earlier in the year. Roddy is a bit of a drifter too. He's half Canadian and spent part of his early life in New Brunswick. He's lean, as if he's underfed, but Joe knows how strong he is – he's seen him lift things at work. He's usually pretty amiable but can sometimes be a mean drunk. He lives by himself in a small trailer on the outskirts of town. Joe never goes there because he can't stand trailers. Too many miserable memories of growing up. He'll never set foot in another trailer again if he can help it.

‘Hey, Roddy, come in,' Joe says. He mutes the TV.

Roddy enters the room and slumps down on the tattered black-leather couch and puts his feet up on the worn coffee table. Joe goes automatically into the tiny kitchen and comes back out with a cold can of beer, which he tosses to Roddy, who catches it expertly. Joe reaches into the fridge again and pulls out another cold one for himself. Roddy is glancing around the shoddy apartment, taking in the dirty clothes in the laundry basket by the front door, the books on the shelves.

‘So, did the police call you?' Joe asks.

‘They came to visit me. At my trailer.'

‘Yeah?' Joe sits down in his recliner.

Roddy takes a long swig of beer. Then he lowers the can and looks back at him curiously. ‘Pretty fucking intense when all you did was flirt with her.'

‘Yeah, no shit. Imagine how I feel. My picture all over the fucking place and all I did was talk to her. I should probably sue them.' He raises his can and drinks.

‘Yeah, maybe you should.' Roddy belches and says, ‘Anyways, they'll leave you alone now.'

‘They'd fucking better.'

Friday, Oct. 21, 2022, 11:45 p.m.

I can't sleep. It feels like I might never sleep again. So I'm back on my laptop.

Writing is how I process things. Mrs Acosta, our creative writing teacher, has been encouraging me. She knows I want to be a writer someday. That's why I started writing this journal, just for myself, because you've got to start somewhere. ‘Writers write,' Mrs Acosta says. She also says I have to find my voice. And I don't know, maybe writing about what happened to Diana will help me deal with all this.

Of the four of us, Diana was the one with the most energy, the ideas, the enthusiasm. She was the only one who understood my ambition to be a writer someday, except for Mrs Acosta. Cameron and I used to be closer, but when he became Diana's boyfriend at the end of the summer, he spent more time with her, and we've drifted apart. He's a walking cliché – tall, strong, ruggedly good-looking, captain of the football team. Who else would date Diana, who looked like she should be a cheerleader? But she was too busy for that. She was beautiful and kind and a star runner, and so smart and funny too. And now my tears are falling onto the keyboard again.

Riley and Diana were always close, ‘besties' as the girls like to say. I like Riley. She's smart, too, and ambitious and very competitive, especially with me. We compete for top marks in every class we're in together, which is most of them. Now our little group will fall apart. Diana was the heart and centre of it; she's what held it together. And now Riley suspects Cameron might have killed her.

I'm miserable at home. Mom is great, but my dad is an asshole. He's narrow-minded and has no interest in anything outside his own puny life. It's just hunting or watching TV and hitting the booze. He watches a lot of sports on TV and drinks beer after beer – come to think of it, he's a walking cliché too. Mom reads books to get away from him. They wanted more kids, but it didn't happen. I guess that makes me all the more disappointing, so I wish they'd had more kids too. They're obviously disappointed in each other. I don't know why they stay together – it can't be for me. Dad obviously had hoped his only child, his only son , would be a star athlete, like he was in his youth. He peaked in high school. But I'm hopeless at team sports and have no interest in them. I don't think my dad has ever gotten over that.

Instead, I'm applying to NYU for English and creative writing. What the hell you going to do with that? Dad said. Mom just looked sceptical. I think she blames herself. She always encouraged me to read. She's always read a lot herself, and our house is full of books. For as long as I can remember I've seen her sitting somewhere with her nose in a book. I tend to read the classics – In Cold Blood , by Truman Capote, is my favourite. I've read it three times. I think Mom maybe now wishes she hadn't encouraged my reading so much, taking me to the library all the time.

Being a big reader is a bit unusual in my peer group. Except for Diana. She read good books, and we talked about them all the time. God, I'll miss her.