Chloe, End-of-Summer Party

9:15 p.m. My eyes tracked Tegan as she glided through her end-of-summer party like a queen. She was her best self when she was in charge, the center of attention, calling every shot. I understood because I felt the same when I competed.

I was standing beside the nachos, salivating even though I ate three thousand calories a day, and my eyes drilled into Tegan’s back. Winners had a glow that regular people lacked, but they made mistakes. Then they lost.

Tegan was going to lose tonight, and I couldn’t wait.

I grabbed a handful of the cheesy tortilla chips and fed myself. Chew and swallow. Chew and swallow. If I didn’t enjoy the food, it felt okay to eat junk. Chew and swallow. The processed cheese and salt flooded my system, calmed my nerves.

I first heard about Tegan’s bet the day after her Fourth of July party. Grady called and begged me to help him clean up the beach. Tegan and Shawna were hungover and he needed help. I brought my dog, Celeste, and we spent the morning tossing empty cans, bottles, plastic trays of half-eaten food, and expended fireworks into garbage bags.

Afterward, Grady cooked me breakfast and asked if I’d run upstairs to grab his laptop. There, through the door of their shared bathroom, I overhead Tegan on her phone.

“I’m going to kiss Jake,” she was saying. “No, I don’t want him back. Well, maybe…”

I craned my neck as her voice dipped lower.

“I’m not kidding, Shawna, I got fifty bucks riding on this kiss.” Tegan laughed. “I think I’m going to do it at my end-of-summer party.”

My stomach flipped over. What the hell?

“No, it’s not crazy. But look, I have to win this bet. Like, if I lose, you know, I’ll look really stupid.”

I slid my phone out of my pocket and switched it to silent, terrified a notification would go off and Tegan would catch me eavesdropping. I couldn’t believe she was talking about kissing Jake—my best friend’s boyfriend!

“No shit,” Tegan whispered into her phone. “Of course Jake won’t want to kiss me, but I have an idea. If it doesn’t work, though, no one can ever know about this. You got it?…Good. Come over later, okay?”

They went on talking about other things, and I grabbed Grady’s laptop and slunk back downstairs. I wondered who’d made the bet with Tegan, but it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that she planned to kiss Jake.

That’s when I came up with an idea of my own, because if I knew one thing about Jake Healy, it was that he was head over heels in love with Jessica Sanchez. Tegan was going to lose this bet, like I lost my shot at the Junior Olympics that day on the beam. A smile crept across my face. The only thing a winner hates more than losing is losing in front of a crowd.

9:35 p.m. After chatting with Jessica and Alyssa by the snack table, I hunted down Brendon Reed, found him in the basement, and pulled him inside an empty bathroom. “Is everything set with the TV in the family room? Are you sure it will sync to the camera?”

He blinked at me, looking drunk. “Yeah, it’s set.”

What Tegan didn’t know about Brendon was that he hated her. I knew this because Brendon and I had taken photography together the previous year. We’d partnered on a project, and one day he’d unloaded on me about how Tegan used him, teased him, and bossed him around. He put up with it for the social status—not how he verbalized it, but I got the drift. Brendon had sold his soul to be popular.

So when I suggested we live-broadcast her attempt to kiss Jake—a feat destined to fail, and fail big—the Cameraman was all over it. He showed me the motion-activated camera the day before Tegan’s party and went over how it worked. I went to Grady’s and slipped into Tegan’s room through their Jack and Jill bathroom—where there were no security cameras to catch me. I set the camera on her bookshelf between two of her old stuffed animals. It was so small, she’d never notice it.

Brendon had an app that connected to the motion-sensor camera. When Tegan and Jake entered her room, the camera would start recording. Brendon would get an alert on his phone and then switch the input on the big TV downstairs to the live camera feed. “You’re one hundred percent sure it will work?” I asked again.

“Yeah, it’ll work. I’ve got the remote.” He slid a thin black TV remote from his pocket and dangled it in front of my eyes. “You’re pure evil for coming up with this, you know that?” He leaned forward and tried to kiss me.

Our heads bumped, and when I pushed him away, he looked sad. Then he hiccuped, and I laughed because I was generous enough to pretend none of that weirdness had just happened. No one liked rejection, especially not assholes.

“This is going to be epic,” Brendon added. “You have no idea.”

“No idea about what?”

He laughed again, wiped his lips, and left the bathroom. “You’ll see.”

2:35 a.m. Brendon was right, it was epic! Tegan didn’t just kiss Jake and win the bet; she went all the way. And Jake was into it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t watched it on a ninety-inch screen.

I got Jessica out of that family room as fast as I could. What the hell was Jake thinking? What an asshole!

While Jess sobbed beside me, I shifted into full panic mode. I doubt anyone could tell by looking at me—I’d learned to control my face and body—but my mind was in turmoil. I almost couldn’t breathe because of the terror.

Tegan and Jake had had sex, and everyone had posted it online. I knew there’d be an investigation. Jake was underage and Tegan was a former senator’s daughter; those posts would spread like wildfire.

Brendon and I were screwed. We had texts between us talking about the live feed and both our fingerprints were on the camera. If either of us were caught, detectives would take our phones and figure out we’d planned this. We could be arrested, sued, fined! I’d be kicked off the team. I’d miss the college showcase.

Everything I’d worked for since I was two years old was on the line because Tegan and Jake couldn’t control themselves. My only consolation was that I’d succeeded in humiliating her—just not in the way I’d hoped.

But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was getting the camera back.

“I’ll grab us some food while we’re waiting,” I mumbled to Jess and Alyssa, and then slipped out of the guest bedroom.

I crept through Tegan’s house toward the utility staircase. The Sheffields’ security cameras blinked at me from all over the house, watching silently. Three years before, Grady had given me access to the system so I could take care of Boomer whenever his family was out of town. I opened his security app on my phone and disabled the Sheffields’ cameras at two-forty-two a.m. I didn’t want a record of what I was about to do.

I bumped into Brendon at the bottom of the staircase. He had just snuck in through the back door. “I thought you went home?” I asked. Right after the video had played on the TV, I’d seen him pull out his car keys and leave through the front door.

“I did, but this shit is blowing up online. I came back for the camera. If Tegan finds it, she’ll know it’s mine and fucking kill me.” A shadowed smile creased his face. “Told you it would be epic.”

My scalp tightened. “Did you know she planned to screw Jake, because I still can’t believe it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

Anger flared in my stomach. “Jessica is destroyed,” I added, crossing my arms. “And do you know how much trouble we’re in if anyone finds out?”

“Trouble with Tegan?”

“With the police,” I hissed. “Our fingerprints are on that camera. We need to get it and delete our texts too.”

“The police?” Brendon scoffed. “I doubt it, but I’m here to grab it anyway.”

I considered our options. Even with the security cameras disabled, there was the risk of a person seeing us enter Tegan’s bedroom. I wasn’t her friend, but Brendon was. “All right, you get it,” I agreed, and he tromped up the stairs.

On the way back to the guest room, I grabbed a few snacks for Alyssa and Jess.

3:16 a.m. Holy fuck! Jessica just crashed into Brendon with the BMW. Could tonight get any worse? Why was he bolting across the street like a fucking deer, anyway? It was dark and raining hard, and he didn’t stop. After the car hit him, he just kept going.

The lie slipped easily from my lips. “It was a deer, Jess.”

Later, at home, I texted Brendon: I saw you on the road, are you okay? Did you get the camera?

After a long pause, he answered: sorta okay and no i didn’t

Me: WHAT???

Brendon: Tegan was awake and super sick, like scary sick. i got the fuck outta there. Ill get the camera later

Later? The sun was about to rise, and once the town was fully awake, and the school, or Tegan’s parents, became aware of the posts, the shit show would begin. I lived on the other side of Blind Beach from Tegan’s house. I slipped on my hoodie and jogged back to the party. If you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself.

4:50 a.m. When I opened Tegan’s bedroom door, neither of them noticed at first. She and Jake were still here, on her bed. A sliver of light from her bathroom created a yellow stripe down Jake’s naked body. He was facedown, breathing deeply, passed out cold. Tegan sat beside him, her yellow hair clumped and knotted around her face as she angrily swiped her phone screen. I smelled vomit, saw it splattered across her bathroom and down her top—bright red, the same color as Shawna’s Jell-O shots.

Rage filled me, unbidden and unexpected. This wasn’t Brendon’s fault or mine or Jake’s—it was hers. Tegan had wanted Jessica’s boyfriend, and now she had him. She hadn’t changed a bit since fifth grade. I stepped out of the shadows. “Looks like you just won fifty bucks.”

She fell back, clutching her nightshirt.

I nodded toward Jake’s body sprawled languidly across her sex-stained comforter. “Congratulations.”

Her jaw worked in circles. Her spine tightened and her cheeks flushed. “Fuck you, Chloe. How long have you been in here?”

“Did you see all the stories? You’re famous.”

She started to pant. “Did you do this?”

“It was all you. Bravo!” I began a long, slow clap.

Tegan jumped on me, but I was stronger and she was clumsy from alcohol, even after throwing most of it up. We spun around the room and knocked into her desk, sliding it across the hardwood. Her hand clutched for purchase and landed on her floor-to-ceiling white curtain, and tore it down.

We smashed into her dresser, shattering the mirror. The glass cut Tegan’s arm, and blood splattered across her satin bedding. Jake moaned in his sleep, and Tegan gasped. “Look what you did!”

I gripped her arms, my fingers clawing into her pampered flesh.

“Let me go. That hurts,” she cried, her blue eyes tearful but furious.

The past bubbled up in my chest. I hated Tegan. I wanted to slap her, but instead I let her go. She clamped her hand over her wounded arm. “What do you want?” she rasped.

“This.” I snatched the hidden camera.

Her eyelids sprang wide. Her voice rose. “Did you—are you the one who filmed us?”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

Tegan shook Jake’s body. “Wake up!” He flipped over but didn’t wake up. She snarled and stumbled after me.

I raced toward the staircase. Tegan’s footsteps followed as we roared down the stairs and out of the house. It was still raining buckets outside, and I couldn’t see well in the dark. Tegan chased me past her swimming pool and toward the pool house. Eight-foot-tall iron security fencing edged the manicured portion of her property. I sprinted along the fence line like a trapped dog, looking for a way out.

“Stop!” Tegan shouted.

I glanced back at her dark house. Her parents were still out of town, and Grady had left with Chase Waters. Tegan’s friends were gone. We were alone.

I stopped behind the pool house and whirled, startling her. Tegan swept her wet hair out of her eyes. The muscles in her face twitched. “Why are you running? Just give me the camera, Chloe.”

The lens peeked from my pocket, cold and powerful, still recording. It could destroy me. I would never let her have it. “Over my dead body.”

“You’re kidding!” she screeched. “What are you, ten years old?” Obviously nothing had changed between us in all these years. Her eyes narrowed. “You still blame me for that beam accident, don’t you?”

I shifted my jaw.

She laughed at the wet sky. “Lord almighty, you could never take a joke, Chloe.”

“Looks like you can’t take a joke either.”

She stomped toward me, eyes brimming with rage and tears. “This is different. You hid a camera in my bedroom. My mother will put you in jail for that. Your gymnastics career, if you can actually call it that, is over. Now give me the fucking camera.” She dropped her phone and closed the space between us in one giant step.

My gut loosened as her eyes bored into mine. Tegan had always terrified me. I leaped onto the eight-foot security fence and climbed it.

5:12 a.m. As the rain streaked from the sky, Tegan reached up and grabbed my leg, her face screwed tight, her mascara sending black rivers down her cheeks. “I think I will take that camera over your dead body,” she growled. Her anger sobered her and gave her strength.

But I was stronger.

I cocked my foot back and kicked her arm with it. She clawed at my jeans, trying to drag me off the fence. I twisted and climbed higher, swift and effortless.

“Get down here, you clown.” She paced below me like a tiger.

“Come and get me,” I taunted.

“I swear to the stars and back, I’m gonna kill you, Chloe Hart.” Tegan leaped into the air, rocketing toward me with all the jumping power of a varsity volleyball player. Her hand wrapped around my calf.

“Let go!” I kicked her, over and over, battering her arm with my free foot. She cried out but didn’t let go. I coiled and kicked again, and we heard her bone snap. Tegan let go and fell to the ground. She landed on her feet, reeled back, and then looked up at me in shock.

Her beautiful face, twisted with pain, kindled something rotten within me.

Still hanging from the iron fence, I lowered myself, swung my legs, and then kicked her like a horse would—a double-barrel shot to the chest that sent Tegan flying into the side of the pool house. Her head smacked the wood siding and then bounced forward. Her eyes spun around like a cartoon character’s. She slid to the cold wet concrete, as limp as a doll.

“Chloe,” she rasped. “Chloe…” And then her eyes closed.

I dropped off the fence and watched her, my legs trembling. Whatever had ignited inside me, now splintered through my body like buckshot. Oh fuck, what had I done? I dropped beside Tegan and listened to her chest, heard nothing. Nothing! Falling back, I covered my mouth to hold back a scream. I’d killed her.

The sun was rising quickly, and the panic I’d been struggling to subdue since the video had gone live spread its wings in my chest. Every somersault, every flip, every bruise and broken bone, every missed party, every missed kiss, every skipped dessert, and every golden trophy flashed before my eyes. At my feet, Tegan’s mouth had gone slack, and her skin had turned waxy and pale. I put my ear to her wet lips, felt nothing, heard nothing.

Tegan was gone, holy shit, but I wasn’t.

I lifted her long lifeless body. Should I drop her into the sea? I wondered. The ocean waves rolled and crashed below the cliff, but my stomach gurgled at the thought.

Right then Shawna stumbled out of the basement, jingling her keys, heading home. I thought she’d left too and I ducked. If she turned her head, she’d see me. I swallowed my breath and carried Tegan into the shadows beside the pool house. There was a dirty storage bench there, shoved up against the wall, almost big enough to fit Tegan.

I plopped her down, opened it, and pulled out a few abandoned chaise lounge cushions, thinking hard. No one knew I was here. The security cameras were off, and I’d been dropped off at home earlier. Not even Brendon knew I’d come back. I could put Tegan inside this bench and she’d be safe from the rain and sun until her family found her body. No one would ever suspect I’d killed her.

Decision made, I folded Tegan into the bench, bending her legs and arms as if she were a Barbie doll. Then I gazed at her. Even with a torn shirt, her arm bent at an odd angle, and her wet hair plastered to her skin, she looked pretty.

I covered her with the cushions, wiped my fingerprints, and closed the lid. I found her cell phone where she’d dropped it, noticed it had cracked, and then stashed it in Jake’s glove box since his truck was still in the driveway—that’s what he got for cheating on Jess. Meanwhile, the rain poured from the sky, erasing our footprints, our scent, erasing everything.

On my way home, I didn’t hurry, I didn’t cry, but deep within my chest, my heart pounded, and deep within my mind, a thought screamed, Don’t walk away! But I had learned to control my body and my mind, and I shoved those feelings aside and didn’t look back. What would be gained by getting help? Nothing. But everything could be lost.

By the time I got home, I was sure of only one thing—this was Tegan’s fault, not mine.