The Last to Die by Kelly Garrett

Author:Kelly Garrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Inc.
Published: 2017-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

Wednesday Evening, Continued

My tablet fit easily against my knee as I leaned back in bed. Deep breath, I told myself. Breathe deeply. Let it go. Ignore him. I was just waking the tablet up when my phone buzzed with a text from Paisley:

Did you see the tribute?

What?

SchoolF.

I opened a web browser and navigated to the ridiculous school-run social media site, “SchoolFriends.” I hadn’t visited for months, probably not since we set up our profiles on the first day of school while being lectured about how this was the safest place for us to congregate online since it was just registered students of the school. Gin had mock-lectured me for weeks about using the school site when he saw me using non-school approved apps. “Don’t let me see you messaging with perverts and pedophiles, young lady,” he said long after the joke had become boring.

My phone buzzed again, this time with a SnapPic of a red-eyed Paisley with her mouth open wide, as if she was in shock.

I took a selfie with my left eyebrow quirked up and sent it before returning to the tablet. I logged in, getting the password right on the second try.

My notifications bar said 99+ messages, but my eyes quickly went to the center of the page and the words “Farewell, Sarah,” complete with her yearbook photo. I knew everything about the picture. The emerald-green sweater she’d borrowed from me and hadn’t returned for two months. The way her brown hair fell onto her left shoulder but was tucked out of sight on the right. We’d exchanged photos, along with Paisley, the day we picked them up from the school’s photography service.

Sarah had loved her photo so much I’d asked if she was going to tattoo it across her butt.

I clicked on the link to the tribute. Our classmates were posting photos; Paisley had uploaded one of the three of us from the fourth grade with the words “BFFs Forever.” I sighed when I saw it; even if I hadn’t seen her name attached I would have known it was something Pais would write.

The yearbook teacher had posted a photo from soccer last fall. Sarah, me, and two of our teammates all grinned at the camera in muddy uniforms on a field with barely any grass left. Sarah had freaked out when she realized there was dirt smudged under her eye, almost like the sunblock football players use. “Own it, Sarah,” I had told her when we saw the photo. “Act like you meant it.”

The back of my eyes felt scratchy as I clicked through the rest of the photos. Sarah in the stands at a basketball game, cheering on Alex. She and Paisley drinking to-go cups of hot chocolate on the bench in front of the school. One from track our freshman year, when Sarah had run the 400 meters for JV. She’d taken third in one of the combined meets with Varsity, coming in behind two seniors. The coach had tried to get her to come out her sophomore year but she’d decided to focus on spring soccer.

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