Chapter Five
Rita Emerson

Rita’s dad is on a business trip, leaving her alone in her house for the first time since the night of the dance. Under normal circumstances, she would be at Miranda’s house for the weekend—which is where she’d told her dad she would be—but the word normal had been taken out of Rita’s quite extensive vocabulary exactly three weeks and four days previously.

The point of this is the following: Rita is now sitting on the couch in her living room, staring blankly at the TV, which is blasting some reality TV show. In her lap is a thick, pink binder that is labeled Rita and Randa (with some Michael & Aaron & Asher & Riley). The book presses down on her legs, a burning weight. She picks up the remote and hits mute in the middle of one of the girls’ rants.

She looks down at the book and clenches her jaw, steadying herself. With the determination of someone about to walk to the gallows, she flips the cover open, revealing a picture of two gothic fairies with long hair and wide smiles. The corner of her mouth quirks upward—a reluctant smile. The caption reads Rita and Randa – Halloween 2005. Gothic fairy princesses!!

The picture beneath it is another of Miranda and Rita, this one a close up of the two of them smiling widely, revealing purple and pink braces, respectively. Rita and Randa – Braces twins! February 2006. Rita runs her tongue across her smooth top teeth, thankful that that’s one thing she won’t have to relive.

She thumbs through the pages, searching for the start of their freshman year. Finding it, she opens the book wide, smiling softly at the pictures. The first one is from our Spanish I class. It’s really a close up of Miranda smiling awkwardly at the camera, but I’m in the background, blurred and out of focus. I’d just looked up because I’d seen the flash of the previous picture. The caption reads, Randa, first day of Spanish! Hola, Miranda! Hola, random guy in background! ETA: Random Guy in Background is Michael and he’s totally mackin’ on Miranda. (Haha, bad puns, yay!) August 2006.

The next picture she flips to was taken at the Spot. Asher’s leaning against the counter. Miranda’s sitting on our side of the booth, mouth open in a frozen argument with Aaron, who has his back to the camera. I’m standing in the middle of the frame, near one of the back windows. My face is obscured by my own camera—my photography camera, not a disposable like the one Rita had been using at the time. Michael, Miranda, Asher, and Aaron. Michael is really annoying about never getting his picture taken. Idk if he does this on purpose or not, but he’s always blurry or y’know, holdin’ a big hulkin’ camera in front of his face. June 2008. Rita’s smile fades because she already knows all too well that out of all of these pictures, there are only one or two clear shots of me. “God, Michael,” she says quietly, and even I’m not too sure if it’s out of sadness or if she’s chastising me for not being photogenic.

A shadow passes over the window and Rita stiffens. Immediately, all kinds of CSI: Richardson images are flitting through her mind: Guy with a knife, guy with a gun, guy with a big fork and a salt shaker… She tries to make her movements casual as she sets her photo book on the table and reaches down under the couch. Her hand curls around the smooth, round grip of a metal baseball bat.

Okay—shoulders back, elbows out—or is it in? Oh, my gosh, how am I going to clock this guy if I can’t swing the bat? There’s a small spot of sanity in the back of her head that thinks she’s over-reacting, but the larger, more hysteric portion wins out easily. Bat in a ready position, Rita takes a deep breath and yanks the front door open.

No one is there.

The concrete of Rita’s front porch is freezing beneath her bare feet as she steps out of the house. All of the lights in the houses on her street are off. No one will hear me scream, she thinks morbidly. With that thought, she pulls her bottom lip in and bites down, trying to stop shaking.

There’s a motion to her left, and a sound—but Rita’s so tense that she just reacts. Shrieking, she swings the bat blindly, missing her target completely. Instead, as someone shouts, “Shit!”, the baseball bat crashes into the banister, knocking off several years’ worth of paintjobs and leaving a dent. The impact sends shockwaves of pain through Rita’s arms, bringing tears to her eyes.

“Oh, my God,” comes a voice. “Can we talk or are you going to try to bludgeon me again?”

Rita turns slowly to the source of the voice—Miranda, standing a few feet away with her hands up in a sign of surrender. “Huh,” Rita says, dumbfounded. “Well, you’re basically, like, the last person I was expecting.” She slackens her grip on the baseball back, feeling like an idiot.

“Yeah, I know,” Miranda sighs, pointedly not meeting Rita’s eyes. She taps her phone into the palm of her hand, biting her lip.

“Well, um, come in then,” Rita says after a moment, waving toward the open door with her free hand. She’s never really had to give Miranda permission to walk into her house—the two of them had grown up in each other’s backyards; they had a long-standing “walk right in” rule. Rita doesn’t really know what to think of the fact that Miranda hadn’t just come in to begin with.

Rita follows Miranda inside and shuts the door while Miranda goes to sit down on the couch. She leaves enough room for Rita to sit down next to her, which she does. Rita is turned to Miranda, close enough that their knees touch. Miranda sees the photo book—still open to the picture of all of us at the Spot—and instantly turns her attention back to her phone, which she’s turning over and over in her hands. Both girls are silent, for once, watching the tightly controlled, repetitive motions of Miranda’s hands. “They disconnected his phone,” she finally says, not looking up.

“Whose phone, Randa?” Rita asks. She doesn’t know whether to reach out to Miranda or to give her time. There’s a rift between them that has been growing ever since Rita had confronted Miranda about being emotionless, and Rita’s not quite sure how to repair it. She just knows that something is about to happen, and she’s got a vague idea what.

“Michael’s.” It’s barely a whisper, just loud enough for Rita to understand. Miranda raises her eyes to Rita, and Rita can see the way that they’re shining with all of the hysteria, pain, and sadness that Miranda’s been repressing for the past few weeks. Rita’s hands clench around the rough fabric of the couch, restraining her from reaching forward. “His parents disconnected his phone.” Miranda’s eyes focus on the pictures in front of her. She takes a shallow, wet breath before continuing. “He’s really gone, isn’t he? He’s gone, and he’s not coming back… He’s dead. Michael…Michael’s dead and he…he won’t…” Her voice cracks off into a cry, and that’s all that Rita needs. She leans forward and pulls Miranda to her, closing off the gap between them.

In the entire time that Rita has known Miranda, she’s never seen her break down before this. Rita, always prone for attention-getting hysterics, had been the more open of the pair—the one who cried and laughed freely. Miranda had always been the strong, steady presence in Rita’s life. Rita never could’ve imagined a situation where Miranda would be the one breaking—and now that she’s in that situation, she wishes more than anything that it wasn’t happening.

Miranda buries her face in Rita’s shoulder and sobs. Nearly a month of denial has done nothing but put off this inevitable realization—if anything, lying to herself had just made this moment so much worse. There are no perfect movie tears; there is no solitary droplet of water falling from her eyes. It’s messy, with tears and snot going everywhere. Her complexion turns from unevenly tan to blotchy red. Her tears leave tracks across her makeup and freckles. Rita rubs circles into Miranda’s back, voice thick with tears as she says, “I’m sorry, Randa. I’m so, so sorry…” They both know that neither of the sentiments will make a difference.

“Why did he have to die?” The words are muffled by Rita’s shirt, but the hysteria cuts through the air all the same. “God, Michael, why did you have to die?”

My name seems to be getting paired up with the big guy’s a lot lately. I’m not so sure what to think of that.

Miranda had stayed at Rita’s for the night. In the morning, she’d informed Rita that she wasn’t up to school—which was pretty bad, considering that Miranda is OCD about having perfect attendance. Rita had attempted to stay home, but Miranda had told her to go to school, saying, “There’s no use in both of us missing. Just get my homework, please?” Her eyes had still been red-rimmed and puffy, and Rita just couldn’t say no.

So now, Rita’s in the middle of the school gym, serving her time in third period co-ed PE. She’s chatting to the girl next to her about classes while they wait for someone on the other team to serve the volleyball. The intercom crackles to life without warning, startling the server into slamming the ball into the net, earning Rita’s team a point. Rita grins at the minor victory—one thing to actually go right so far.

“Students, we’re going to have a tornado drill now,” comes the smooth voice of our principal—a middle-aged black guy named Mr. Cohen. He’s not exactly what you would call fond of Asher and I, or, to be honest, most of the students. “There is not a real tornado threat, but I still expect that you’ll be on your best behavior as you report to your designated areas.”

Someone on the other side of the gym shouts, "I’ll designate your area!” A few people laugh, but the rest rub at their ears, glowering up at the speakers on the ceiling. The intercom system is already loud in the hallways—add that in with the amount of space in the gym and it gets pretty ridiculous.

Rita pulls the hair tie out of her loose ponytail as the girls are herded into the hallway outside of the gym. Rita snaps the black hair tie against her wrist and shakes her hair out, smiling across the hall at some douche that’s been leering at her for the past year and a half. She doesn’t see Riley, who plays off his half-wave as a stretch, or the redheaded girl behind her, who had just gotten a face full of Rita’s hair.

One by one, the kids are seated against the walls in the hallway. Rita sits down when it gets to be her turn and turns to continue her conversation with the girl next to her—Laura Banker, a sophomore who had just transferred in from Oklahoma. “But yeah, about Jefferson—it’s a hard class, but it’s so worth it, you know?” she says, not leaving room for Laura to answer. “It helped me pass the grad exam on my first try, so that’s always something, you know.”

“He sent me to AAP once,” comes a quiet voice from Rita’s right. She glances over, ready to tell the person off for eavesdropping, but her gaze immediately softens when she realizes who it is—Casey, one of the kids who had found my body. Casey is absently picking at her fingernails as she studies Laura and Rita. Rita gives her an encouraging smile, knowing that Casey hasn’t been the same since the night of the dance—maybe even seeing a little bit of Miranda in her.

Laura leans forward to see past Rita, and asks Casey, “What’s AAP?” She’s frowning slightly now, her forehead creased. She’s the doe-eyed type of girl who seems like she would always be floundering the line between confusion and naivety.

“AAP is like…in-school suspension,” Casey explains. The volume of her voice doesn’t raise above its previous muted level. “I don’t know what it stands for.” She chews on her bottom lip for a moment, like she’s not used to talking for long periods of time, and then continues: “It’s in one of the portables. You basically have to go sit there with all of the thugs and gangsters. It was kind of scary. And, um, I wasn’t even late that time. I was out of my desk because I was switching chairs.”

“That sucks,” Laura replies, looking horrified. “Should I get switched out of the class? I mean, if it’s not even Honors…?”

“Nah, they won’t switch you unless you’ve already taken the class,” Rita says, leaning back and separating out a section of her hair. She splits it into three smaller sections and starts braiding. It’s something she does when she’s bored. I’ve walked into the Spot to see half of her hair braided more than once. “Anyway…he’s a fun teacher and everything. You’ve just gotta study. Like, a lot.”

Laura nods, glancing around the hallway. Her eyes land on a spot by Casey’s feet. Her frown deepens. “Hey…what’s that?”

Rita’s smile freezes in place. She follows Laura’s gaze—to the patch of tile with a red-brown tint to it.

Which is located right under Casey’s white tennis shoes.

Casey glances down and then can’t seem to tear her eyes away. The only noise that escapes her is a tight, “Oh, God.” Her breaths come in short bursts. Rita can only imagine what Casey is seeing—me lying there, bleeding out. Grabbing for my throat and, in my drugged haze, not being able to find it. She’s imagining me hitting my knees and slumping forward. Imagining me trying to drag myself away from my attacker.

The mental image is enough to snap Rita out of her fit of uselessness. “Casey! Casey, come on.” She stands up and grabs Casey by the elbow, pulling the taller girl to her feet. She puts herself between Casey and the wall, so that Casey can’t see the stain anymore—but it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. She’s started to cry horrified, panicked tears, and is mumbling, “No” under her breath.

The hallway lined with the prying eyes of the students, all whispering their theories, starting up the rumors before any real information gets out. Riley gets up, blowing off the teacher who hastily tries to make him sit back down. “What’s going on?” he asks, heading off the girls’ coach and a few of the administrators.

Rita shakes her head and points to the floor. Riley, getting it immediately, helps Rita to move Casey away from the hall. He waves off the teachers, saying, “We can take her home and be back by the end of class.” No one objects—it’s the benefit of living in such a small town. No one lives too far out of walking distance from the school, and the teachers know the students well enough to let something like this slide, especially with circumstances like these.

The girl is shaking and crying so hard that she can barely stand. Rita and Riley have to half-drag her down the hallways and out the door that leads to the student parking lot—the same route that I would have taken the night of the dance. The whole time, Riley is giving a constant stream of quiet, comforting words that don’t seem to have much of an effect.

They drop Casey off at Rita’s house, where Miranda, still in her pajamas, agrees to take care of her until her parents can pick her up. Not really wanting to leave but still needing to get back to school, Rita waves a goodbye and heads back to Riley’s truck.

“Thanks,” she says, sliding into the passenger seat and shutting the door hard enough to make Riley wince.

“Don’t worry about it,” Riley replies. He glances up at her with a half-smile for a moment before shaking his head slightly and putting the truck in gear. He clears his throat and continues, “I mean, she needed a way home, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Rita says, shrugging into the rough upholstery. She’d learned a while back that there wasn’t really a way to get comfortable in Riley’s truck. “But you didn’t have to be so nice. Most people would’ve just left her. You…you were good with her.” She watches him watch the road. Suddenly, she lets out a giggle, causing him to look over at her, confused. “I thought Ms. Downer was gonna have a fit. Did you see the look on her face when you stood up? Oh, my gosh, I thought she was going to lose it.”

Riley laughs, shaking his hair out of his grey eyes. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he says. Rita can tell that he’s glad to be back on a more normal topic. “You remember how she freaked out when she thought that me, Michael, and Asher snuck into her class during lunch and turned everything upside down?”

Rita frowns slightly, throwing a look to Riley. “I thought you, Michael, and Asher did sneak into her class and turn everything upside down.”

Riley smirks mischievously. “She couldn’t prove anything.” We’d had Aaron vouch for the fact that we’d been in the broadcasting lab, helping out with interviews. Teachers tend to trust Aaron, and, as his closest friends, we tended to help him abuse that trust. But Downer had it coming, I promise.

Rita giggles, and it fades to a sad smile. “I miss him,” she finally says, picking at the seat.

“Yeah,” Riley sighs, pulling into the school parking lot. “Yeah, I miss him, too.”