The night before Regionals, my roommate announced she was going to the abandoned camp by the lake with Jax to blow off some steam. I spent twenty minutes telling her it was a bad idea. The access road flooded after rain. The docks were rotted through. There was no cell signal past the tree line. I pulled her back into the dorm room and kept her there. She made weigh-in the next morning. The team took first at Regionals. Two months later her Penn letter came in. Mine came too. Yale, full ride, cheer recruit. But at the senior banquet that summer, she and Jax drugged my drink and drove me out to that camp. They walked me down to the old waterfront and pushed me into one of the storage pits behind the boathouse. The ones that used to hold equipment. Deep enough that I couldn't pull myself out. Chloe stood at the edge and looked down at me. "You had to get involved," she said. "Jax missed his connect that night because of you. You know what that cost him?" She crouched at the rim. Pulled out her phone and took a photo of me down there. "This is going in the group chat. I'll caption it later." Then she stood up and dragged the wooden cover halfway over the top with her foot. "Have fun, Carter." Jax kicked the rest of it shut. I was in there for three days. No signal. No one came. By the time someone found me, my heart had already stopped. That's how I died. In the dark. Twenty feet from a working road. Then I opened my eyes and the dorm ceiling was over me again. The clock on my phone said the night before Regionals. This time, I put down my pen and went to my dresser. Bug spray. A box of condoms. I set them on the edge of her bed while she was spraying dry shampoo into her hair, already wearing the black lace top she saved for Jax's parties. "Have fun," I said. "Watch out for the splinters on the dock." She wasn't my problem anymore. Chloe picked up the condoms and dropped them into her bag without looking at me. She grabbed the bug spray, twisted the cap and ran it up her shins twice. "Thanks." She slung the bag over her shoulder, cracked the door, listened, and slipped out into the hallway. I heard her sneakers go quiet down the hall and then the stairwell door swing shut. I waited a minute. Then I unlocked the door and left it on the latch. She could go wherever she wanted. I picked up my phone and texted her: "I'll leave the door for you." She replied in under a minute. "don't wait up lol, back before you know~" I screenshotted it. Last time I hadn't kept anything. This time I wasn't leaving gaps. I set my competition bag, my warm-ups, and my taped wrists by the door and checked everything twice. Outside, the insects were loud. June ran thick and close in this part of Ohio, the kind of heat that sat in your throat at night. I turned off the light. All I could see was dirt. Handful after handful, filling my mouth, my nose, the inside of my eyelids. Chloe at the edge of the pit, looking down. Still smiling. Phone up. "Ellie," she said. "You should have stayed out of it." Then the cover came down. I sat up hard. The dorm ceiling was white and flat. The clock on my phone said 1:42 AM. I got up and drank some water. It was fine. This time, I wasn't the one going into the pit. My alarm went off at six-thirty. I looked at her bed first. Untouched. Pillow still centered. The morning came through the open window smelling like cut grass and lake water. Chloe hadn't come back. I already knew she wouldn't. I washed my face, pulled my hair into a high pony, taped my wrists, got dressed, went downstairs and bought a coffee and a muffin from the cart outside the dining hall. The bus to Regionals was already loading. Parents holding signs. Coach Daniels by the door with her clipboard, hair still wet from the shower. My mom didn't come. She was on shift at the warehouse and couldn't get the day off. She'd called the night before. "I believe in you," she said. "Just do your best out there." I told her I would. The team was on the bus. I climbed up the steps. Twelve girls in matching warm-ups. The empty seat was three rows back. Chloe's seat. Bag still there from yesterday's practice. No Chloe. Coach Daniels was on her phone, walking up and down the aisle, the muscle in her jaw working. "Chloe Crawford?" Her voice came down the bus. No answer. "Has anyone heard from Chloe Crawford?" Nobody had. She circled something on her clipboard, checked her watch, and told the driver to go. The bus pulled out. I sat by the window with my hands folded in my lap. Last time my hands shook the whole bus ride. I missed two stunts in the first round. Lost my spot on the pyramid. Came home with nothing. This time, my hands were steady. You don't get nervous about a competition after you've already died once. We hit the floor at noon. I nailed every stunt. We took the regional title and I got the recruit packet from the Yale coach's assistant in the parking lot before we even got back on the bus. Got home that night. Ran into Coach Daniels in the parking lot. She had her phone jammed between her ear and her shoulder and her lanyard was twisted sideways. She grabbed my arm when she saw me. "Ellie. Have you heard from Chloe?" "No. She wasn't in the room when I got up this morning." "You didn't see her last night?" "I saw her leave. I texted her to check in." I handed her my phone. The thread was right there on the screen. She looked at it for a second and her mouth went flat. Then she went back to her call. I picked up my bag and walked toward the dorms. The sun was on the front steps and I squinted into it. Last time, Chloe was on that bus. She nailed her stunts. The team won. She got her Penn letter in the mail. And I, the one who had pulled her back and kept her there, ended up at the bottom of a pit six weeks later. The team had a celebration dinner at the country club the next night. Chloe wasn't there. I was walking out the front of the club when I saw Jax's truck at the curb. Black, lifted, exhaust the kind you could hear from the other end of the block. Everyone at school knew that truck. Chloe was in the passenger seat. Her face was swollen on one side. Red scratches up her neck and arms. Her hair was tangled and the strap on her lace top had snapped and been tied back together with a hair tie. Someone's old hoodie was thrown over her shoulders. Jax cut the engine and said something to her. She climbed down from the cab and her legs almost went out when her feet hit the ground. She caught herself on the side mirror and stood there for a second, getting her balance. She looked up. She found me across the lot. Her eyes were swollen and red. "Ellie." She said my name like she was pushing it through her back teeth. I didn't move. "You," she started. She took a step toward me and her knee buckled. She went down on the asphalt. A girl from the team moved to help her. Chloe shoved her off. "Why didn't you call me?" Her voice came out loud. Loud enough that the parents waiting by the curb all turned around. I looked at her on the ground. Last time, I was the one looking up at her from a hole in the ground. "I texted you," I said. "That's bullshit." "Your phone died." Chloe pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket. The screen was black. She stared at it. Her shoulders started shaking, all the way down to her hands. Jax got out of the truck. He was taller than me by a head, close-cut hair, a small silver hoop in his left ear. Quarterback shoulders. Those were the same hands that had kicked the cover shut over the pit. I took half a step back. Not because I was scared. I just didn't trust myself if he got too close. Jax looked at Chloe, then at me, his eyebrows pulling together. "What happened?" I didn't answer him. I turned and walked away. Behind me, Chloe was crying. The sound mixed in with the parents and the car doors and got smaller as I went.
Coach Daniels called me into her office. Door closed. She sat. I stood. "Chloe says you encouraged her to go." "No. She decided to leave on her own." "She says you gave her condoms. To take with her." I nodded. Coach Daniels' mouth opened and closed. She took a while to find words. This was probably above her pay grade. "She's also saying it was deliberate. That you let her go on purpose so she'd miss Regionals." "Coach. She's 18. She wanted to go see her boyfriend in the middle of the night. It wasn't my job to tie her to the bed." She was quiet for a long time. She opened her desk drawer and touched a pack of gum, then seemed to remember I was still there and pushed the drawer shut. "You know her mother called the school board." "About what?" "Said the dorm should have stricter sign-out rules. Said you didn't stop her." "Chloe has her own key card. She can come and go whenever she wants. That's not on me." She went quiet again. "Okay. You can go. The school will handle it." Chloe was waiting at the end of the hallway when I came out. She'd changed into clean clothes. The scratches on her face were covered in ointment, pink and white in patches. I walked past her. She grabbed my backpack strap. "Ellie. Did you do it on purpose." I stopped and looked at her. I'd been looking at this face for three years. Locker neighbors freshman year. Roommates for two years after that. I used to spot her on her tumbling passes. I used to stay after practice and run her routine with her until she got it. Last time I did everything for her. She paid me back with three days in the dark. "What do you think, Chloe?" She stared at me. Her lips were shaking. "You look different." "I'm not different. I just don't want to look after you anymore." I pulled my strap out of her hand and walked away. The weeks waiting for the rest of the recruiting calls were quiet. During the day I helped my mom sort inventory at the warehouse. At night I sat at the kitchen table and went through college brochures. Last time I played it safe and stayed in-state. This time I wanted out. The official Yale offer came through on a Thursday evening in July. Full athletic scholarship. Cheer recruit. Pre-med track if I wanted it. My mom came home from her shift and saw the screen and sat down on the kitchen floor and cried. She kept saying, "Your dad has to hear this, he has to hear this." She called him right there. The construction site was loud. My dad's voice came through the phone at full volume. "What does it say? Read it again." "Full ride, Dad. Yale." A few seconds of quiet on his end. Then he said something I hadn't heard in eighteen years. "That's my girl." My eyes stung. I looked down at my bowl. At ten o'clock that same night, Chloe's mom called.
It came through on speakerphone. My mom thought it was the warehouse calling and picked up without checking. Chloe's mom's voice hit the kitchen like something breaking. "Is this Karen? Your daughter cost mine her shot at Penn, do you understand that?" My mom flinched and nearly dropped the phone. "What? What happened?" "The night before Regionals your daughter handed mine condoms and sent her out the door. On purpose. To get her benched. You people owe us an explanation or I'm calling the school board." My mom hung up and looked at me. Her face moved through surprised, confused, scared, all in a few seconds. "Ellie. What actually happened?" I put down my fork. "Her boyfriend invited her out the night before Regionals. She wanted to go. I couldn't stop her." "And the other thing?" "She was going to spend the night out there. I didn't want her to be stupid about it." My mom opened her mouth and closed it again and didn't say anything else. She hadn't finished high school, but she knew where the line was. The next morning Chloe's mom pulled up in a silver SUV. We lived in a small house on the edge of town, one story with a front yard, the kind of fence you could see over from the sidewalk. I was washing dishes in the kitchen when she pushed through the gate. Floral dress, blow-dried hair, white heels that caught in the gap between paving stones the second she stepped in. She yanked her foot hard. The heel snapped off. That doubled her anger. "Ellie." I looked up. Chloe was behind her, head down. The scratches on her face had mostly faded but there was a fresh scab at the corner of one eye. "Get your mother out here." My mom came out of the house wiping her hands on a dish towel. Chloe's mom didn't wait. She got her finger in my mom's face. "Do you have any idea what your daughter did. The night before Regionals she hands my daughter condoms and sends her out the door. So she'd miss the bus." My mom stepped back. "Let's just calm down for a second—" "Three years. Three years of 5 AM practices. Three years of summer camps and physical therapy bills. Penn was locked in. Locked in. And your daughter ruined it." The neighbors across the street were already watching. Chloe's mom turned the volume up another notch, making sure the whole block could hear. "Karen. I'm giving you two options. One, your daughter gives up her Yale spot. Two, you pay eighty thousand dollars. Recruit consultant, retake fees, emotional damages. Pick one." My mom went white. Eighty thousand. My dad worked a full year at the construction site and barely cleared that. "Pick one." Chloe's mom stood in the middle of the yard with her hands on her hips, her foundation cracking in the heat. She reached over and grabbed something off the porch table. My acceptance letter. It had arrived two days ago. My mom had put it in a clear sleeve and set it in the center of the dining room table with a bowl of fruit next to it. She squeezed the sleeve and the plastic made a sound. "You don't pay, I tear this up right now." My mom moved. Fifteen years on a warehouse floor will do something to a woman's hands. She grabbed Chloe's mom by the wrist, knuckles white, yanked the letter out of those pink-polished nails, and held it behind her back. "Try it." My mom's voice was shaking but her hand wasn't. She looked straight at the other woman. "My daughter earned this herself. Whatever happened with yours has nothing to do with us." Chloe's mom just stood there. Two red lines pressed into her wrist. She didn't move. I walked over and put my hand on my mom's shoulder. "Mom. I've got it." I turned to face Chloe's mom. "If you want to go to the school board, go. I have three copies of everything." I took out my phone and opened a video. I turned the screen toward her. Chloe's mom leaned in to look. Chloe's face went still.
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