Kimbra Lott was not the richest of the Bisonette cheerleaders, nor the tallest, nor the prettiest. Despite her best efforts, she had the sort of chunky thighs that were made to hold up pyramids and catch the glamorous girls, holes in her jeans that weren’t there when she bought them, acne along the crest of her brow.
She wasn’t pretty, but she was smart—the cleverest girl in her class—and so when Alisha Stinson, one of the lithe fliers who stood on Kimbra’s shoulders at the games, texted the Bisonette’s group chat to say that Dylan isn’t at practice this morning wtf, Kimbra knew that something this past weekend had gone awry.
Bethany Tanner, the girls’ captain and the pyramid’s peak—not to mention Dylan’s bae—responded to the message in a matter of seconds:
Jasmine have you heard about this?
Jasmine Lopez, another middle-runger like Alisha, was the sheriff’s daughter and their surest source of solid news. She texted the group a minute later:
dad got a call super early. he’s been gone all morning.
what the fuck? wrote Nivea Poler. Aside from throwing people in the air, Nivea wasn’t good for very much.
Alisha wrote:
bethany are you feeling any better btw?
what the fuck?? Nivea wrote.
Bethany texted:
Kimbra, what time did KT get back from the coast last night?
Kimbra wiped her burning eyes—for the third night in a row she’d hardly slept, beset again by a dream which she refused now to even consider. Bethany, Kimbra noted with some interest, hadn’t answered Alisha’s question.
Kimbra typed a long response and deleted it. She realized that she might soon be asked to tell some very complicated lies. In the end she texted only, idk. late.
Where’s Dylan’s brother? asked Jasmine.
the gay one? wrote Alisha.
I saw him downtown on Sunday!! wrote April Sparks, one of Kimbra’s friends. April wore black nail polish that she buffed off every Friday afternoon to replace with glittery green, right around the same time she slipped off her nose ring and contoured her cheeks and replaced her grungy self, for a few hours, with a dazzling little Bisonette. April’s family, like Kimbra’s, always lived a tenuous step above broke. She asked:
Joel was at the hardware store wasn’t he K??
Thanks, April. Kimbra typed fast.
He just wanted to know when the guys would be back.
And then, to keep the conversation from lingering somewhere she couldn’t afford it to, Kimbra wrote:
Has anyone heard from Jamal Reynolds?
She exited the chat, opened the thread she shared with her boyfriend. Call me, she wrote to KT Staler. Now.
But he didn’t call. He didn’t pick up her calls. All the way to school, as the Bisonette’s group chat sizzled and snapped, Kimbra’s astute mind studied and prodded and resigned itself to a simple fact: her boyfriend might be hiding even more from her than she suspected.
KT Staler, bless his heart, really was not as clever as he thought he was, but Kimbra had always loved that about him. Unlike Bethany Tanner, Kimbra Lott knew her boyfriend lied to her on a daily basis. KT’s deception, in some odd way, was almost part of his charm. It was charming because Kimbra had a pretty clear idea of the sort of work he did on those weekend trips he took to the coast with Dylan Whitley. KT always thought he was fooling her. It had been adorable until today.
She skimmed through all the messages from the Bitchettes, began to type, and then there was her man, slipping through the door of the geography room with a heavy bag on his shoulder and black circles around his eyes. KT walked with a slouch to the back of the room, refusing to look up when she called his name.
the cops are here, wrote Alisha.
the fuck?!
omg omg omg
Kimbra went very cold. Before she could stand up and drag her boyfriend outside and twist his arm until he came very damn clean about what the fuck he had actually been up to this weekend, the bell rang. Mrs. Sparrows rose from her seat and even the wildest of students came to attention. None of them wanted to risk the wrath of Mrs. Sparrows on a Monday morning.
Which made Lady Cop all the more impressive. Stepping through the class’s door without a knock a few minutes later, taking in all of their frightened faces, Lady Cop said, “I need to speak with Kyler Thomas, please.”
Kimbra heard Bethany suck in a little gasp three rows away, felt her captain (Oh captain, my stupid captain) turn to stare at the side of Kimbra’s face.
“Class just began,” Mrs. Sparrows said, but KT had already pushed back his chair.
“It’s KT,” he said, and trudged to the door.
“Officer,” said Jasmine Lopez. “Is Dylan alright?”
Lady Cop didn’t blink. She didn’t say a word. She led KT out into the hall and left Kimbra staring at the door, her heart in her throat, her clever mind briefly gone truant.