Free Shade Me by Jennifer Brown

making typical Facebook jackass jokes. Only one stood out, from a girl named Liz who I’d seen clinging to Peyton’s orbit.
    I heard about you and the band. Is it true?
    But Peyton hadn’t responded to her, and nobody else seemed interested. I scrolled through the comments again, looking for anything I might have missed, wondering what it was that Liz had heard about Peyton and the band. What Peyton was trying to “win” against Gibson Talley. Was he joking or threatening? I’d assumed he was threatening, becauseof his bad-news reputation, but with Facebook, you never could really tell who meant what they were saying. Facebook made my head hurt. It was like a jumpy mishmash of colors. This was why I didn’t hang out on it much. It was impossible to follow anyone’s true thoughts there. It was impossible to block out the rainbow.
    I wondered if Detective Martinez had been through Peyton’s Facebook yet, and, if so, what he made of Gibson Talley’s remark. Or did the police only do things like that if someone died?
    I scrolled down farther, past a few more parties and one throwback picture of Peyton in a black leather fringed bikini.
    Wait a minute. I went back to the bikini. It might or might not have been black—it was the photo itself that was black-and-white. Peyton was standing shin-deep in a sparkling swimming pool, her hip cocked out to one side, the rope of a life preserver draped over her shoulders and snaking down her hip. Her hands were on her hips, the life preserver ring draped casually around one wrist, the letters SO a soft glow across the top of the ring— SO, yellow, pink . Peyton’s face was dwarfed by sunglasses, her lips painted a deep color that came across as slick black in the photo.
    She looked amazing.
    As usual.
    I clicked on the picture, and it took me to a photo- and art-sharing website. Aesthetishare.com. Peyton had beenposting for three months. I scrolled down to her earliest posts. One of a moppy little dog. A nearly nude bathroom mirror selfie. One of a pair of shoes—a scuffed and worn pair of cherry-red Chucks—with kneesocked legs still in them. The toe of one of the shoes was lifted by a sizable rock. Pretty standard. I’d seen a zillion photos like these on Instagram.
    I scrolled up to the next one. Peyton, with Viral Fanfare. She was grasping a microphone, her mouth wide open in one of her high notes. Her eyes were scrunched shut, her hip jutted out. I scrutinized the other band members, but they all looked totally in their own zones. All except Gibson Talley, whose eyes were on Peyton as he played his guitar. I stared into the photo, trying to glean anything I could from it—love, anger, scorn—but got nothing. If Gibson Talley was battling Peyton over something, which his post suggested, it could have been any number of things. I continued to scroll. The three photos above that one were similar—more Viral Fanfare performances—and in none of them did anything look abnormal.
    But the one above those was different. They weren’t performing. Instead, they were standing inside a recording studio, in a line, their arms wrapped around one another like a bunch of kids at camp. The bassist and the drummer were smiling like it was their birthday. But it was Gibson I couldn’t quit looking at. His face was set in a smug look ofvictory, his eyes looking away from the camera. His guitar was draped across his body—the word Hendrix , printed on the strap, jumped out at me in tie-dye letters. His left arm was casually resting on the drummer’s shoulder, but his right arm . . . his right arm was crooked around Peyton’s neck, his fist practically under her chin. A pose of conquest.
    Peyton was the only one in the photo not smiling. Her eyes were pointed toward the floor. I could practically feel the tension coming off her. Whatever had been eating Peyton had already been going on when this photo was