Bree Johnson meets me outside the police station the next day. She’s a senior at UCLA now. We ended up staying on the phone until 5:00 a.m., until our eyes were empty and our throats were raw. Like me, she admired Mr. Connelly. He told her she was special, that she had a talent for debate he’d never seen in any of his other students. He used that to build trust with her, which he then violated during a tournament in San Diego, when he came up to her hotel room. She let him in, thinking he just wanted to run motions, but instead he cornered her and kissed her.
We hold each other in the police parking lot, clinging to the flesh-and-blood confirmation that we weren’t alone in what we went through, that it wasn’t our fault. I look down at my watch. I was hoping Claire would be here too. I told her we would be here at 5:00 p.m. Where is she?
“You ready to do this?” Bree asks.
I smile at her. I can’t believe I did this with my words. I brought us together.
I try Claire once again on my phone. I have been texting her all day to see if she wanted to come with us, but she hasn’t replied. A car pulls up, and I think it’s her but instead, it’s Ming and Florence.
“I couldn’t let you do this alone,” Ming says.
I turn to Florence. “Is Claire coming?” I ask.
Florence shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says.
I scan the parking lot one last time, at all the cars and the hot sun reflecting off the windshields.
C’mon, Claire, where are you?