The Telling by Alexandra Sirowy

to see Maggie’s face all gigantic and about to pop like a zit. She was always bending down right in front of Tyler freshman year, and I swear his staring at her butt was why we broke up.” Kristie tries to hold in an explosive laugh with her palm. “Oh my God. That doesn’t make me a suspect, does it?”
    Liddy covers her mouth in mock horror. “No way would you survive prison.”
    â€œOnly if I was the bitch of some lesbo gangster hottie like in that show about girl-jail,” Kristie says, eyes shining as Rusty chuckles. “Swear it wasn’t me, though, so who?”
    â€œThe cops don’t have any real suspects,” Ford says, shifting forward. “That’s what I heard my dad telling Duncan’s earlier.” Ford’s dad is Gant’s lawyer. “Gant PD is full of college dropouts used to giving parking tickets.” Ford thumbs the tiny animal emblem on his designer shirt like he’s reminding himself why he thinks he’s better than the cops. “Even the detective they called in from Seattle is an incompetent halfwit.”
    â€œHe was all over us at the police station,” Rusty says. Liddy andKristie make sympathetic noises. I narrow my eyes at Rusty’s lie and attempt at impressing them. “Yeah, I was like, no way did I kill a girl. I don’t have a motive. I should have been like, maybe Ben McBrook’s ghost did it, dude?” The others laugh at this.
    My mouth goes dry. I miss what follows. I stare at Rusty, and eventually his eyes meet mine and he grimaces, equal parts uncomfortable and sheepish for mentioning Ben. It was a stupid thing to say. Brain-dead for a billion reasons, not the smallest being that ghosts, ghouls, specters, all the stuff of childhood make-believe, do not exist. And yet, I sneak a glance at the shape-shifting shadows cast on the walls.
    â€œWhat did Ben ever see in Maggie anyway?” Becca asks.
    Rusty snickers, his perma-sunburned face deepening a shade. “I know what he saw in her.”
    â€œI’m just wondering because there were so many hotter girls who wanted a piece of that,” Becca explains. “ I sort of wanted a piece of that, but he never looked at me, not even when I streaked at a Halloween kegger here and I ran right past Ben.”
    â€œThat slut got what she deserved,” Ford says. “For Ben,” he adds, dull brown eyes waiting for my reaction. What does he expect, a swoon? I’ve thought the identical thing, minus the girl-shaming insult. The words are so much cruder and more violent coming from Ford, who’s cracking his knuckles in another round and failing to swallow down a beer burp.
    Liddy looks up from adjusting her cheer uniform and blurts, “You didn’t even like Ben, Ford. He and your brother were feuding.” She presses her lips flat and looks uneasily away.
    Ford’s smile hardens. He takes a sip of beer, the red cup’s rim cuttingoff all except his glaring eyes. I know what he’s thinking about.
    Gant High has this tradition where they donate the profits from homecoming tickets each year to a charity of student gov’s choice. His junior year, Ben proposed that our school use the money to help Fitzgerald. Ethan Holland, Ford’s older brother, and Max Riley were at that same meeting, both trying to convince student gov to donate the money to their baseball team. They wanted to hire some trainer to come in and give them a swing lesson. Ben argued with Max and Ethan. The money was supposed to go to charity, not to help pay some ex–pro baseball player’s fee, especially when the team could have just asked their parents to cough up the money. Right there in student gov, in front of almost thirty kids, three teachers, and Max’s and Ethan’s girlfriends, Ben told the two boys that if they needed lessons on using their bats , he’d help them out. It was stupid and beneath Ben. He’d just wanted