"A fucking baby!" Diana says as she shakes her head vigorously looking out the windshield. "A whole goddamn baby, and they lied about it. They lied about it from the very beginning of this mess." 

She's been going on a tangent about this since the moment we stepped into the car. She hits the wheel aggressively and pulls the car over. I look out the window of the dirt road and fields of cows as she rubs her temples and sighs. "Válgame Dios!" 

"Not the Spanish," I say as I reach my hand over and squeeze her shoulder. She only speaks in Spanish when she's frustrated. Truth is, I'm frustrated too. It is a big deal that they kept that from us. We would have never backed up Briar's story had we known about the baby. We probably would have fought a lot harder. 

Or maybe we would have done the same thing. Now Maggie is dead. And these are the sins that we have to live with. 

"Girl, you can't let it get to you this bad," I say. 

She turns to me and looks flabbergasted. "What the fuck do you mean, Ezra?! Maggie was pregnant. A whole-ass baby was chilling in her uterus. Ezra, what if we could have-"

"But we didn't," I say coldly. "We didn't and we can't change that. The only thing this does is cause more division and the killer or whatever the hell is after us wants exactly that. We're stronger and smarter together." 

She bites her lip. "We've all talked so many times since that night, Ezra. They could have told us. We needed to know what we were getting ourselves into." 

"Kind of hard to get something like that in when we all fell off the communication other than a few times a year, Diana. What were they supposed to say? 'Merry Christmas! By the way, remember our dead friend?! I knocked her up!'" 

Diana snorts and then covers her mouth quickly. "That was disrespectful."

"So was Maggie."

The color drains from Diana's face. She instinctively looked behind her as if the ghost of Maggie Evans was going to reach from the backseat and grab us by our hair. She clears her throat and looks at me. The same fear in her eyes that we felt when we were in high school. "Ezra, we can't speak ill of the dead." 

She puts her car in drive and pulls off the side of the road. We used to take this same route to the high school every day. Declan would swing by in his truck and we would sit in the back and eat our breakfast while he sped throughout the town so we wouldn't be late. 

I adjust my back in the seat. "Let's be honest, Diana. Maggie was far from a great person. I'm tired of all of us walking around like she was the patron Saint of Goodness and Grace. Maggie Evans was a bitch." 

Diana's facial expression speaks what her words can't as she clears her throat. She turns into the parking lot of the school and parks in the spot closest to the door. "Let's just get through this meeting." 

She gets out of the car without another word, and I know I've upset her with what I've said. But I'm done sugarcoating this shit. Maggie was the one who left me in fear of my parents finding out about my sexuality the night she walked in on me and that random guy. Friends wouldn't sit on that. Had it been Diana, Briar, or even Declan they'd have reassured me that everything was okay and they still loved me. 

Shit, they did do that for me. 

To Maggie, secrets were her currency. She used them to get what she needed and would cash in the moment that she felt it would suit her best. Had the night not gone the way it did, I wouldn't have been surprised if someone had snapped and finally done her in themselves. 

Maggie was a life ruiner. And with this baby news, she apparently didn't exclude herself from that. 

The high school was just as I remembered it. The old entrance to the school still had the distinct odor of Victoria's Secret perfume and the cafeteria food the second you walk in. The same old reception desk's polished wood shined in the ceramic lighting. They even had the same receptionist sitting behind the desk. 

The students in the school are quickly walking to their first class of the day. The receptionist's, Ms. Welch, eyes light up when she sees us. She claps her hands together giddily as the tardy bell officially sounds. The once-packed halls are now desolate and empty. 

To quiet for a high school building if you ask me. 

"Well, do my eyes deceive me?! Ezra King and Diana Garcia?!" She gets up from behind her desk and reaches out to give each of us a hug. It was a bit warmer than I was anticipating given we hardly spoke to her during our time at Groverview High, but it's better than the crazy stares and cold dispositions we've been getting since the murder and the funeral. "What do we owe this pleasure?"

"Hey, Ms. Welch," says Diana with a charming smile. "We're here to see Principal Clark. I made an appointment last week," She pulls out her phone and pulls up the email she had been using to correspond with Principal Clark. "Today at 8:30!" 

I look over at the giant clock on the wall that sits behind Ms. Welch. It was 8:10. We were still a little early, but that's the way that Diana ran things. Promptly and efficiently. 

"Well, you're a little early, Darlin'," says Ms. Welch with a grin. "However, I'm sure he expected nothing less from the two of you. Let me go and let him know you're here. You can have a seat on those two benches by the door until he's ready for you." 

She points to the old wooden benches right at the front of the school. Diana and I make our way over. Her charming disposition while talking to Ms. Welch fades away as she bites her lower lip. She's contemplating if she should say something. I can tell by the tension in her shoulders. 

"I'm not stupid," she says finally. "I understand that Maggie wasn't perfect. The thing is though, Ezra, she was eighteen when she died. Who amongst us wasn't awful at that age? I'm an entirely different person from the time I was that age. I know you are, and clearly, Briar and Declan are as well." Her eyes well with tears and she quickly wipes them away. "I don't mourn who she used to be. I mourn her because she never had the chance to be the person we all saw in her. Regardless of if she was a bitch or not, I loved her. So did you. And in her own twisted way, she loved us too." 

I lean my head against the wall behind me and close my eyes. That makes sense what she's saying. Maybe it's time I let go of the horrid thing she did to me so many years ago as a teenager. I always tend to think of Maggie as an entity that still has power in our lives. She was the glue in this friend circle. She held us together back then, and it was her death that cemented our lives together that night. 

"Besides, what was the point of coming back to honor her one last time if we don't believe she would have changed? I think that we need to just focus on why we came. Things are getting a little out of sorts, but we can still make this fundraiser thing happen!" 

The fundraiser had been Joel's brainchild. Diana had thought about having a private candle ceremony, and everyone seemed on board with that, but Joel had bigger plans. He wanted to have a car wash that could be annually done in Maggie's name. He thought it would be nice to give the money to a student who would need some scholarship for school. 

This is also a way to honor Joel as well. 

The click-clack of wooden heels on tile floors sounds in the hallway, and I look up just in time to see Principal Clark walk into the lobby area. "Ms. Garcia! Ms. King," he extends his hand to both of us to shake. His plump stomach and bald head haven't changed a bit since the last time we saw him. The only indicator that any time had passed at all was the greying of his mustache. 

"Welcome to Groverview. We're very excited to see you back. I trust that it's bringing back many nostalgic memories," he motions for us to follow him into his office and Diana quickly stands and follows him in. 

His office is very...red. Red furniture, red garnishes, red curtains on his window. It takes a lot to not raise my eyebrows in surprise when I walk in. "Your office is very nice," I say lying through my teeth trying to open up the conversation lightly. 

"Thank you! After my wife passed I decided that my office needed a feminine touch." We walk over to the two red chairs in front of his desk and before I can open up my mouth to respond Diana stomps on my foot.

"Mr. Clark," she says ."We just wanted to thank you again for squeezing us into your schedule on such late notice. We just wanted to check in briefly and make sure that the fundraiser was still okay and if we can do anything to help make sure it's a success." 

Mr. Clark's face drops. He fidgets with his fingers and begins to clear his throat aggressively. "Yes, the fundraiser," he says quickly. "So we've decided as a campus that it might not be the best idea to move forward with it." 

"I'm sorry," says Diana. "I'm confused. Why can't we move forward?" 

Principal Clark clears his throat again. "Well, the thing is, we just feel that as a community given your recent...events, it would be unwise to continue our close working relationship." 

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Surely this man can't be insinuating that because a stalker is after us we can't honor our friend. It was the whole reason we decided to go on this trip in the first place. Anger starts to bubble in my chest so intensely that it shocks me. I don't understand why I'm so mad, considering I just exclaimed Maggie was a bitch, but it's intense. 

"So because we're being targeted by a psychopath you're deciding that the entire focus of our purpose for coming back into town isn't going to happen anymore?" 

"We just fear that it could be dangerous-"

"No, you're not thinking. That's the problem," I say standing up. Finally, I identified the source of my rage. "I have felt like I've been bullied from the second that I got here. I have been outed to my whole family, disowned by my parents, and unable to contact my siblings, and now you're telling me that the whole reason that I came back to this God-forsaken town and gone through it was for nothing?"

"Watch your tone, Mr. King," says Principal Clark. His gaze straightened toward me. "I will not be spoken to like that in my office-"

"Then act like a man and let us follow through!" I say. "There is more riding on this than what you're trying to make it seem! We want to honor our friends. Joel had this idea and now he's dead and he can't do it. So we have to do it!" 

"I'm sorry, Mr. King," says Principal Clark sadly. "We just can't risk it." 

I roll my eyes and stick my middle finger up in the air as I walk toward the exit of his office. "Go fuck yourself, Principal Clark." 

Diana gasps but I hear her chair scoot away and she murmurs a quick apology before she runs out after me. I'm already breezing by Ms. Welch as she calls goodbye after me, but I don't stop to speak to her. I just keep moving until I'm standing on the passenger side of the car. 

"What the hell was that?!" Diana says. She quickly unlocks her car and I get in without saying a word. "Any chance that we had of getting the fundraiser up and running is completely done now, Ez, you realize that, right?" 

"Fuck Clark, fuck these people, and fuck this town," I say ignoring what she said. "We're holding this fundraiser. We're holding this fundraiser and it's going to be a great success." 

"Ezra, he said that we couldn't-" 

"You must have missed the part where I said I don't get a fuck what he says," I look at her defiantly. The rage continues to bubble inside of me as I close my eyes and try to take deep breaths. "We're doing the fundraiser. We're going to honor Maggie and Joel. That's the end of the story." 

"Okay," she says. She nods her head and still looks at me with an unsure expression. "Well, then it sounds like we have a lot to plan in a short amount of time." 

"Tell Briar we're going to need her," I say to Diana. "Tell her she owes us. I have a plan, and it isn't the carwash."