Free Modern Monsters (Entangled Teen) by Kelley York Page B

of plot? Is Autumn downstairs calling the cops and telling them I’m here?
    She wrings her hands together. “I just…I had to see you. I needed to apologize.”
    “A-apologize?”
    “Things…moved really fast.” She won’t meet my eyes. “Autumn convinced me to tell my parents, and…the police were here and asking me questions, and they kept pushing. They wanted a name, any name. I was afraid if I didn’t think of something to say, they wouldn’t investigate at all and so—”
    “So I was the scapegoat,” I finish drily.
    Callie lifts her eyes a little, shoulders slouched. “You were the only thing I remembered.”
    I want to be angry with her, and I can’t manage it. I’m not Callie. I don’t know what she went through those first few days, or what she’s still going through. Not for a second do I think she named me out of malice, but because she felt it was the only choice she had. This is going to scar me until they find who really did it, yes.
    But it’s scarred Callie Wheeler for life.
    “The lab results d-don’t fully clear me,” I point out, leaning back against the door. I feel like distance between us is good, so I refuse to move farther into the room. “S-so what makes you sure now that I, you know, didn’t do it?”
    Callie sits back down on the edge of the bed and hugs her knees to her chest. “I remember throwing up and you taking me upstairs. Then it gets kind of fuzzy…but the more I think about it, the more I remembered you leaving. Like, I remember opening my eyes and seeing you walk out the door. The next time I woke up…” She trails off and it’s then that I notice how pale her face is, how accented the dark circles under her eyes are, and it’s not because she isn’t wearing makeup. She looks…haunted. “I couldn’t see him…”
    She leaves it at that and I don’t push. Honestly, I’m not sure I want to know all the details. “I’m s-sorry, Callie.”
    She shakes her head. “I don’t know why you’re apologizing.”
    “B-because…I should have stayed. All of this could have been avoided.” If I’d found another girl at the party to look after her or something, anything. This is just as much my fault as it is anyone’s. Callie doesn’t correct me, either. She just looks at me with sympathy and regret because undoubtedly she wishes I had stayed, too.
    “Everyone involved has regrets,” she says quietly. “I regret drinking. You regret leaving. Autumn regrets not going. She was supposed to come with me, you know, and when she found out what happened…she hasn’t stopped blaming herself. In reality, it’s no one’s fault but the person who did it.”
    “A-and you’re certain now that person wasn’t me?” I have to ask, because this—her answer—could determine a lot in the coming weeks or months or even years.
    Callie admits, “Completely? No. But it’s a feeling, and I’m tentatively trying to go with it for now. Sorry, I’m afraid that’s the best I can offer at this point. I’m looking at you and I just don’t feel like you were capable of it.”
    Not the best response, but… “I’ll take what I can get.”
    She brushes the long blond hair from her face and turns away, a haunted look passing over her eyes. “I think that’s all any of us can do right now.”

    Autumn drives me home without saying a word. I can’t think of anything to say to her, either, so I don’t bother trying to make small talk beyond giving her directions. She pulls up to the curb—where there are no reporters waiting for me, thank God—outside my house and stares straight ahead. “I guess I owe you an apology, too.”
    The sullenness of her tone almost makes me smile. “No, you don’t. Y-you didn’t know.”
    She presses her lips together thoughtfully and then turns off the engine. When I get out of the car, she does, too, and begins to follow. I don’t ask what she’s doing because it’s obvious: she plans on coming in with me. Holy shit. I’ve