6
KEEGEN
I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE.
I can’t go back there tomorrow morning so here I am, shoving stuff in a gym bag, only the shit I think I’ll need. I know it’ll make me look guilty taking off, but I know what she’s doing and I can’t be here when she does it. I’m the guy who didn’t realize he was playing this game of cat and mouse, or maybe knew, but didn’t think he was the goddamn mouse.
Paxton told me I had to show up. Not to let Deveraux get under my skin, that he has questions for her witnesses and for Tabby herself that will answer a lot of people’s questions. But I’m not gonna be around for that.
They have nothing on me. They have nothing on me. They can’t possibly. Nobody’s going to believe Kyla over me.
The only person who would’ve stuck up for me isn’t here anymore. Mark stood up for me when we first became friends, when he could have easily ratted me out for smoking at recess, except he said the cigarettes were his. Mark stood up for me in high school when I got accused of cheating off him on a test. (Truthfully—not that I ever told him this—I was cheating off him, not because I hadn’t studied but because he always knew more than me, no matter what I did.) Mark tried to plead my case when this chick Lorena, who I had a thing for, wanted him instead—I still remember every detail about that pathetic night, all of us in the backyard at her dad’s place, Mark being like, “You know my friend Keegan, he’s such a great guy.”
But I’m not a great fucking guy. And when it comes down to it, neither was Mark. He ended up banging Lorena a week later.
I toss more shirts into my bag, even ones I haven’t worn in ages. I have no idea where the hell I’m going, but I can’t stay here. Maybe I’ll take off to Mexico and disappear on a beach. Maybe I’ll buy a boat and live in the middle of the ocean where I won’t ever meet another girl.
I’m literally on my way out the door when I see him standing in front of it. My buddy Stewart, wearing a shit-eating grin.
“Keegan Leach,” he says. “Some of my colleagues did a bit of digging yesterday, and we found something very interesting that belongs to you.”
There’s no way they could have found anything.
But I know they did.
