Chapter 7
For a split second, Jayden’s carefully constructed mask slipped completely. His face went through a series of emotions–shock, denial, then something that looked dangerously close to panic–before he managed to slam his defenses back up.
But his hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold his whiskey glass.
“That’s bullshit. You guys are remembering wrong.” His voice came out harder than he intended, desperate and angry. “She can’t be dead.”
The entire table went dead silent. Everyone was staring at him with expressions that made his stomach
turn inside out.
The silence dragged on until Ryan Parker cleared his throat and said quietly, “When it happened, her mom had to go to the town hall to cancel Arianna’s social security number. My mom works there–she said Mrs. Carter just collapsed in the lobby. They had to call paramedics.”
Jayden’s grip on his glass tightened until he thought it might shatter. His chest felt like someone was
standing on it, crushing the air out of his lungs.
“You’re all fucking crazy,” he snarled, standing so abruptly his chair scraped aga
know what sick game this is, but I’m done.”
he floor. “I don’t
He threw a fifty on the table and stormed out of the ballroom, leaving behind a room full of shocked faces
and half–finished drinks.
Jayden drove through the dark streets like he was being chased by demons, his hands white–knuckled on
the steering wheel. His heart was hammering so hard he could hear it over the radio.
They’re lying, he told himself. It’s some twisted joke. Maybe they’re all still pissed about what happened
senior year.
But even as he thought it, he knew it didn’t make sense. Why would they lie about something like that?
When he pulled into his childhood driveway, his eyes automatically went to the house across the street.
The Carter house.
It sat in complete darkness, and even in the dim streetlight, he could see that something was very, very wrong. The front porch was buried under what looked like years of unopened mail. Weeds had taken over the flower beds that Mrs. Carter used to tend with such pride. The windows were clouded with dirt and neglect.
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Chapter 7
It looked abandoned. Like no one had lived there in…
Ten years.
Jayden’s stomach dropped. He fumbled out of his car and walked across the street on unsteady legs.
The doorbell echoed through empty rooms when he pressed it. No footsteps. No voices calling “I’ll be right there!” like Mrs. Carter used to do.
Just silence.
He pressed his face to the living room window–the same window where Arianna used to wave at him every morning before they walked to school together.
The furniture inside was covered with sheets. Dust motes danced in the air.
Nobody had lived here in years.
Jayden’s breathing got shallow and fast. He stumbled back to his own house, his hands shaking so badly he could barely get the key in the lock.
Inside, everything was exactly as he’d left it a decade ago. Dust covers over all the fiture, stale air, the smell of a house that had been closed up for too long.
He needed proof. He needed to know for sure.
With trembling fingers, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number he’d memorized by heart but
hadn’t called in ten years.
The automated message felt like a punch to the gut: “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service…”
His phone clattered to the floor.
That doesn’t mean anything, he told himself frantically. People change numbers all the time.
Jayden grabbed his laptop and logged into his old Instagram account for the first time in years.
Her profile was still there: @AriannaC_2015.
The same profile picture he remembered–her laughing at something off–camera during lunch junior year, sunlight caught in her dark hair.
But her last post was from August 25th, 2015.
The day before the SATS.
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Tomorrow’s the big day. Nervous but ready. Thanks for all the good luck wishes, guys. Love you all
The comments were full of heart emojis and “you got this!” messages from classmates who had no idea she’d never make it to that test.
Jayden scrolled through her older photos with desperate urgency. Months of posts he’d ignored because he’d been too angry to look.
And now he could see what he’d missed–how her smile got thinner in each photo. How her face grew paler. How the candid shots gradually disappeared, replaced by carefully posed pictures that tried to hide how sick she was getting.
How the fuck had he not noticed?
His vision blurred as he typed out a message, his fingers flying over the keys:
Arianna, please tell me this is all some sick fucking joke
Why weren’t you at the reunion tonight?
Why is everyone saying you’re dead?
I don’t believe them. I won’t believe them.
Please just message me back
I’m waiting
The messages sent immediately, but no response came. No “read” notification. Nothing.
Just the same silence that had been haunting him for ten years without him realizing it.
His mom’s ringtone cut through his panic. He answered without looking at the screen.
“Jayden? Did you make it to the house okay? Make sure you open some windows before you try to sleep
there…”
He looked around at the dust–covered furniture and stale air. “Yeah, Mom. I’m… I’m dealing with it.”
After he hung up, Jayden went through the motions of uncovering furniture and opening windows, but his mind was spinning in circles/
When he reached his old bedroom, muscle memory guided him to his bookshelf where he’d kept all his important things.
His graduation photos were exactly where he’d left them, tucked between comic books and old textbooks.
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With shaking hands, he pulled them out and spread them across his bed.
Kindergarten through senior year, lined up like evidence in a case he was too terrified to solve.
In every single photo except the last one, he and Arianna stood side by side.
Kindergarten: two tiny kids with missing teeth, his arm around her shoulders like he was already trying to protect her from the world.
Elementary school: awkward growth spurts and bad haircuts, but always together.
Middle school: braces and teenage awkwardness, but their friendship solid as rock
Senior year: the entire graduating class between them. Him in the back corner, her in the front.
Maximum distance.
Looking at that last photo now–really looking at it for the first time–Jayden saw what he’d been too angry to notice before.
How thin she was. How pale. How her smile looked like it was taking tremendous effort.
How she looked like she was already dying.
“This one. Could you print this one? 12 by 16 inches.”
“Honey, that’s funeral size…”
“I know exactly what it’s for.”
The memory hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. Arianna at graduation day, asking for that portrait. The photographer’s shock. Her calm acceptance.
And Jayden, so consumed by his own pain, walking away instead of asking why.
No. No, no, no.
This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.
Suddenly frantic, he remembered something else–a package that had arrived right before he left for college. Something from Mrs. Carter that he’d shoved in a drawer and tried to forget.
Jayden tore through his old desk like a man possessed, throwing papers and old school supplies
everywhere.
There, in the bottom drawer, covered in ten years of dust: a brown paper package with his name written in Mrs. Carter’s careful handwriting.
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With trembling hands, he tore open the tape and peeled back the paper.
Inside was a thick, worn diary with “Property of Arianna Carter” written on the cover in her familiar handwriting, and an old SD card in a small plastic case.
