Free Lie in Wait by Eric Rickstad

liked her a lot, maybe more than she liked him?”
    â€œJessica never had a boyfriend. I mean, we’re fourteen. I am. She just turned fifteen a month ago. We didn’t really get into boys much till like the past year, you know?”
    Test knew.
    â€œSo never anything serious?” Test said.
    â€œUh-­uh.”
    â€œWhat about things that weren’t serious?”
    Rachel hesitated. “Maybe one kid. Jeremy Lang. She liked him. But he didn’t even know she existed. “
    â€œHow do you know she liked him?”
    â€œShe could barely even look at him let alone say hi. He moved away though. Like to Florida or something. Last year.”
    â€œAnyone else?”
    â€œShe and this one kid.” Rachel took off her glasses and rubbed a lens in her shirt, then set the glasses back on her nose. “We used to go to the movies and stuff. Our parents would drive us. She didn’t make out with him or anything. She’s not like that. I mean she’s kind of serious. She likes to get good grades and likes to work hard. I hardly even saw her myself that much the last few months.”
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œShe got a ­couple Bs on tests in September. She said she had to knuckle down. She doesn’t want to end up like her mom, you know? She wants to go to college. Be a veterinarian. We’re going to apply to the same schools together. Dorm together. And when we—­” She stopped speaking as if she’d been slapped hard across the face.
    She stared at Test then shut her eyes.
    She sat stock-­still. Then, slowly, she began to moan. It was a moan that came from some well deep within her, sad and tortured. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms over the back of her head as if to protect herself from a blow as the moan morphed into a howl too terrific and too ancient to come from such youth.
    â€œDo you want me to get your parents?” Test said.
    Olivia waved a hand. “No, no,” she said, her voice hitching. “Please. No.”
    Finally, her sobbing diminished to gasps and she wiped at her tears and her runny nose with the back of her blouse sleeve. She tried to smile but it would not come.
    â€œI haven’t been much help,” she said, hiccupping.
    â€œYes you have. You’ve been wonderful.”
    She closed her eyes again, and squeezed her small hands into tight fists. “She was my best friend.”
    Test put a hand on the girl’s knee.
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do now?” Olivia sobbed.
    A LL AFTERN OON IT was the same conversation with the students, at times with parents present, though most students preferred their parents not be in the room.
    â€œDid Jessica have a boyfriend?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHad she made any guys mad or jealous?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid she have a crush on anyone?”
    â€œNo.”
    Tears were shed.
    A boy named Eugene Franks had begun to weep before he’d even sat down. At first, Test had thought she might have a lead, as the young boy, through his hitching breath confessed, “I loved her.”
    Test had pressed. “Did you ever tell her this?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd what was her response?”
    â€œShe loved me too.”
    â€œDid she?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œShe told you this?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œDid other friends—­did they know?”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t they?”
    â€œNo one’s mentioned you.”
    â€œOh,” Eugene said.
    When she asked the next student, a girl, about Eugene, the girl said, “Eugene. He’s harmless. He’s gay. They were like, pals. Sister and brother.”
    Test asked each of the boys if he had feelings for Jessica. Two had. Secret little crushes. Not one of the students knew of a boyfriend. Why would Jessica keep a boyfriend a secret? Or maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe Jessica had lied to Bethany that night Bethany had seen a boy leave the house. Or