DUN-DUH.
Sorry. That’s the kind of thing that would have seemed deep and real if uttered out on the dock in the middle of the night, just you and me and the lake and the stars (and the occasional loon, plus crickets), but typed up it’s melodramatic and ludicrous. MY BEST FRIEND HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH HER BOYFRIEND’S MURDER AND I’M WRITING HER LETTERS I’LL NEVER SEND BECAUSE I MISS HER AND IT’S MY WAY OF MOURNING AND REMEMBERING OUR RELATIONSHIP. Okay, this whole situation is melodramatic to the extreme. Let’s just acknowledge that.
Carry on, chap. (Your British accent was the worst. I miss that too.)
If you’re wondering whether joking about this stuff is helping me freak out less, the answer is no, not really. It might be helping me hide it better, though. It seems important to at least try to hold myself together, though I don’t know why or for who. But writing these letters does help in general. Dr. Rita was right about that. I feel less alone when I’m writing to you, and it helps me focus. Looking at the words gives me something present and real to concentrate on. It gives me a break from picturing you in a jail cell, or Jackson facedown in the lake. It lets me stop spinning on the morning after, and the things you said, and the things you didn’t. It keeps my candle from blowing out in the wind.
Speaking of deep conversations on the dock, do you remember this one? It was after you got together with Jackson, but a night when only you and I were out. Maybe you guys weren’t speaking, or maybe you were feeling nostalgic, so we snuck out just you and me. We were lying on our backs, looking at the sky, making up names of constellations.
You: “What do you want your legacy to be?”
Me: “My legacy?”
“Yeah. Like, once you’re dead and gone, what do you want to be remembered for?”
“Besides discovering the Medium Dipper?”
“Yes, besides that.”
I said the first thing that popped to mind. (You were right: My brain is random.) “I used to be able to burp the whole alphabet.”
“Really? Wow.”
I couldn’t tell if you were teasing or being serious. No one has ever truly appreciated that talent, not even my brother. (I assume he was jealous.) “We can’t all cure cancer,” I said.
“I wouldn’t ask it of you.”
I paused before telling the truth. “Maybe I’d rather not be remembered.”
I felt you roll your eyes at that one. “I think it’s something we should be deliberate about,” you said.
“Our legacies? Now?”
“If you don’t decide and pursue it yourself, someone else will decide for you.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be dead. I don’t think I’ll care,” I said.
“I care.”
“Okay, fine. What do you want your legacy to be?” I asked.
You shook your head. “I don’t know. But I feel like I’m doing it wrong. Reaching for the wrong stuff. Failing at it.”
We were quiet for a minute. I stared into the Milky Way. “I love who you are,” I said. “I wish you did too. I wish you’d stop letting Jackson jerk you around. It’s a game to him, and you can’t win it. I hate when he makes you feel small.”
I felt you stiffen, and held my breath. You let yours go and didn’t fight me. “I know.”
The silence felt warm and pliable around us. Maybe I should have pushed you harder then. I didn’t.
I thought it was a turning point. I thought it was enough.
I pointed at the stars. “There’s Antelope’s Revenge.”
“Mmm. Right next to the Maiden’s Testicle.”
“I love that one. Hanging just off the edge of the Chastity Belt,” I said.
“I thought it was called Vulva’s Crest.”
“I think it’s regional. Like ‘pop’ versus ‘soda.’”
You sighed. “See, this is why I don’t believe in science.”
“Because dinosaurs claim the constellations were named through evolution?”
“Exactly,” you said. I thanked my lucky stars that you’d found me.
You were right, though. You were reaching for the wrong things. Jackson had thrown you off track. And because of it, you lost control of your legacy. No matter how the trial turns out, you will always be remembered for this.
It changed my legacy too, by changing the course of our friendship and cutting it horribly short. Though it looks like I’ll get my wish and be unremembered in the aftermath. No one ever remembers the role the sidekick played. I’m okay with that.
I only wanted to be central to and remembered by you.
That night, beneath the stars, I thought you would change course and follow a different constellation. Stop navigating by the light of Jackson and go back to shining bright on your own.
Not on your own—with me beside you. Two stars in Vulva’s Crest. (Ew. Never mind, let’s join the Medium Dipper.)
I want to believe this could still end differently.
Love,
Kayla
P.S. I heard from Nitin yesterday. Maybe you’re right, maybe he did have a thing for me. I don’t think so, though. I think he was being kind, or needed someone to talk to and flip out with.
Either way, I shot him down. I’m not supposed to talk to anyone but Dr. Rita or my parents about you, not without the lawyer present. Not that I’d want to anyway. I only want to talk to you.
I’m worried I’ll get called to testify. I don’t know what that would be like. Even with Dr. Rita, I’ve told the truth but not the whole truth.
I don’t like to think about some of it. I’d rather ignore the parts that don’t add up.
There are pieces of this story I don’t want to be true, and truths I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I don’t want to talk about those. It makes my throat close up and my eyes sting just thinking about it. And I’ve never been a good liar. Not compared to you.
September 10
Now Today
FROM THE OUTSIDE, ELAINE BAXTER SEEMS LIKE THE kind of girl anyone might kill to be, or be with: Friends say she’s more than just beautiful. She’s also smart, adventurous, entertaining, and fun.
But the charismatic sixteen-year-old is not only vivacious; she is also, by many reports, troubled. Some of her peers describe her as a skilled storyteller, while others paint her as having a loose relationship with the truth. Prosecutors in the Jackson Winter murder case have suggested there’s a simpler word to describe her: liar. They say the statement Baxter gave police the morning Winter’s body was found—a statement she later retracted when it became clear how many holes and errors it contained—was only one of many deceptions the suspect attempted to spin over the course of that fateful summer. They say the “disturbing pattern” of false and misleading stories Baxter is alleged to have told is “just the tip of the mountain of evidence” they will share with the jury at trial, as they work to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Baxter’s claims of what really happened between her and Jackson Winter the night of August thirteenth are not to be believed.
Baxter’s lawyer describes the police’s early focus on his client as the primary suspect in the investigation as a “witch hunt” and suggested Baxter should not only be found innocent, she should be considered, “if anything, the second tragic teenage victim in the case.”