Blood on My Hands

on this cold floor instead of in my cozy, warm bed. It’s weird when you wake up from a bad dream and everything is still bad.
    Tired and stiff, I get up and unlock the door. Cool, fresh air pours in as Slade enters with a brown paper bag and stares at my jeans. I look down and see why: there are ugly brownish stains on the thighs, stains we couldn’t see last night in the dark.
    Katherine’s dried blood.
    Our eyes meet. He frowns. “What happened to your face?”
    I touch my face. In some places it stings. In others I feel the tiny ridges of scabs. “From running through the woods last night. I got scratched.”
    His forehead bunches. Is he wondering if I’m lying? “You don’t think I got them from fighting with Katherine, do you?”
    He shakes his head, slides into an old chair, puts down the bag, and grimaces as he massages his knee. “Chief Jenkins was on TV this morning. They want to talk to you. They’re calling you a person of interest.”
    “What does that mean?”
    He shrugs, as if he doesn’t know. But I have to wonder. “You think it’s a trap? Like they’re hoping that if I hear I’m a person of interest and not a suspect, I’ll just stroll through the front door of the police station and save them the trouble of looking for me?”
    Slade scowls. “You really believe they think that way?”
    “Yes.” I feel my heart twist. I remember the first time I tried to tell him that I wanted to break up with him. All I could do was stare at the computer screen with tears welling up in my eyes. And Slade, sitting on his bunk bed in Georgia with his laptop, asked what was wrong and I said that nothing was wrong and I’d merely gotten something in my eyes and it was making them tear. Of course he believed me, because I’d never lied to him before.
    “And if they are telling the truth and I really am just a person of interest, then it’s not going to hurt if I stay away a little longer, right?”
    He looks away and his mouth twists. I know him well enough to know there’s something else on his mind. So I ask, “What is it?”
    “Nothing.” He hunches over, elbows resting on knees, his hands together, fingers knitted.
    “Come on, I know you. Tell me.”
    Our eyes meet. He heaves a sigh. “That picture of you with the knife, kneeling next to Katherine’s body? It’s all over the Internet—Facebook, Twitter, everywhere. And this morning, when Chief Jenkins was on TV, they showed a photo of you from the yearbook. There’s not a single person in this town who doesn’t know who you are and what you look like.”
    It’s obvious that I’m their number one suspect. That “person of interest” stuff is pure bunk.
    Each May, just before Memorial Day, the PACE program put on its spring performance. Last year it was scheduled for the Friday night after Slade had left for National Guard training, and as a result, I was feeling pretty down. When Jodie, who was probably the sweetest and most thoughtful of Katherine’s group, texted to ask if I needed a ride to school, I texted back that I didn’t think I was going.
    A few minutes later the phone rang. It was Katherine—the first time she’d ever called me. Usually she just sent texts.
    “You should come,” she said. “It’s always fun and the cast party is a blast.”
    I felt my mood lift and instantly changed my mind. The mere fact that Katherine had made the effort to call and ask me to come was huge. She and Dakota were in the midst of the longest and biggest fight anyone had ever seen. Did it mean she intended to replace Dakota with me as her closest friend?
    The performance was a revue, with skits and dances. Katherine and Zelda had choreographed a modern dance. Jodie did a funny monologue about a family in which everyone stole batteries from each other’s TV remotes and toys.
    Afterward I went backstage for the cast party. It was the first time in weeks I’d seen Katherine and Dakota in the same room, but neither spoke or even looked at the other.
    It turned out that the backstage gathering wasn’t the party Katherine had been talking about. The real cast party was where we all went next—at Alex Craft’s house, where the punch was replaced by beer, wine coolers, and hard liquor.
    Usually at parties I didn’t drink more than a beer or two, but that night, because Slade had just left and I wanted to stop stressing, I let go and had a screwdriver. But the boy who mixed it made it too strong, so I went into the kitchen to add