XV.I

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Have you ever had a bad feeling about something? Like something just doesn't feel right, but you can't quite place your finger on it? Nothing seems abnormally wrong. Nothing seems like it should be investigated or 'figured out.' But you have this feeling in the pit of your stomach that something is so wrong.

            I felt that way driving along the road the night of the accident. I've felt that way a few times since. But I don't think that's saying much. My life has been a constant cycle of bad things happening and not knowing exactly why they had to be happening to me.

            Trusting people had always come easy to me. I had never had a reason to mistrust someone close to me before. I was blessed enough that my family had always been honest with me about important things. I was blessed enough to have friends that had always had my back—mainly because they had been so few and far between that it was statistically improbable for one of them to backstab me.

            College had changed that for me. Specifically, my sophomore year of college had changed that for me.

            My two best friends started hooking up without telling me about it. My one roommate was so incredibly obnoxious that she only used me to get into parties thrown by my new friend. And said new friend used my car to kill a random person on the road in a town eight hours from our own.

            The last one of those three was slightly worse than the other ones. Looking at them listed out like that, I want to laugh. Because in my head, when everything was going absolutely ridiculously insane in my life, they all seemed kind of comparable to each other. You can think that I'm a bad person for that. You can think that I'm a bad person for anything, honestly. I wouldn't blame you.

            Here's the thing, though: once people start lying to you, you stop trusting everyone. Including the people you inherently trusted for a long time. And those who you inherently trusted for...not as long of a time.

            And here's where it starts snowballing, ya'll. I feel like I've been dragging this out, and it's only because I want you to have the full background. I want you to understand what happened, but I also want you to understand what led up to it. It's just as important, if not more important.

            But when things start heading towards hell, they don't take too long to arrive there.

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            Rebecca was so used to waking up on Kennedy's couch that she was slightly surprised to find herself waking up on the floor of Kennedy's bedroom, an empty cup in her right hand and her phone laying a few feet away from her.

            She grabbed her phone, ignoring the pounding in her head as she did so. The room was dim, the curtains not allowing much light to get in, so nothing was too terribly painful. Just slightly terribly painful.

            11:01 AM.

            Rebecca rolled onto her back, inwardly congratulating herself for having enough foresight to permanently stop her Sunday shift at the grocery store. With the amount of money she was making from their Instagram ad campaigns, she wasn't too concerned about dropping her work hours from 38 hours a week to 32.

            She checked the room slowly. There was another girl on the floor a little bit away from her, still out cold. Rebecca could tell that there were people on the bed above her head, but she didn't pay much attention to them. As far as she could tell, there were maybe five people in the room, including herself.

            Rebecca slowly stood up and left the room, walking down the stairs until she was able to safely place her feet on the main floor of the apartment. The light streaming in through the windows made her squint slightly as she looked around. There were more people scattered around the living room, but no sign of Kennedy.

            She waited a second before hearing voices coming from the room that the apartment usually reserved for their Airbnb guests.

            Rebecca walked towards the door slowly, pressing her ear against it to try and gauge whether one of the voices belonged to Kennedy.

            "I don't know what you mean."

            Sounded close enough.

            Rebecca gave the door one quick knock before opening the door and walking into the room, looking at a sight she was slightly unsurprised to see. It was terrible that she wasn't surprised. Rebecca knew that. She knew that about quite a few things in her life.

            Kennedy was sitting up in the queen-sized bed, laughing at the guy laying next to her. Her head shot up when the door opened and her eyes grew wide as Rebecca stood in the doorway, unmoving and stone-faced. The guy next to Kennedy looked up slowly, his speed of progression in stark contrast to hers. Rebecca nodded slightly in his direction as both of them stared at her in silence.

            "Doug."

            Kennedy jumped out of the bed and walked towards the door, wrapping a bathrobe around her waist as she went. She nudged Rebecca out of the doorway and stepped out into the living room, closing the door behind them.

            "Follow me." She muttered, grabbing Rebecca's arm and leading her towards the porch door. The two stepped out onto the porch and Rebecca felt like she was about to be reprimanded by her mother as Kennedy ensured the sliding door was completely closed behind the two.

            "I don't know what you think you saw—"

            "You're sleeping with Doug." Rebecca shrugged, "I know what I saw."

            Kennedy shook her head adamantly.

            "I'm not sleeping with Doug—"

            "Kennedy, I don't even care. I have to talk to you about last night."

            "Well, before we get into that." Kennedy interjected, "You absolutely cannot tell anyone what you saw in there. Do you understand me? You have no idea what's going on, so just...keep your mouth shut, Rebecca. Alright?"

            Rebecca took a second before nodding slightly. She didn't want to argue with Kennedy—it never ended well for her, and it was never worth her time. Plus, she had one specific memory of the night before that she felt was a bit more important than Kennedy being disingenuous towards one of her best friends.

            "Alright." She agreed, "Now can we talk about something that actually matters?"

            Kennedy rolled her eyes slightly at the not-so-subtle dig before crossing her arms slightly.

            "Sure."

            Rebecca looked around them for a second, trying not to appear too worried. There was no way for anyone to be able to hear them, but she walked over and checked to make sure the porch door was completely closed before returning back to stand in front of Kennedy.

            "Did you talk to anyone last night?"

            Kennedy immediately burst out laughing, a sound that made Rebecca nearly jump out of her skin. She remembered when Kennedy's laugh made her have some weird kind of butterflies in her stomach. Now it made her a different kind of nervous—the kind of nervous that felt like maybe they were minutes away from being discovered.

            "Of course I talked to people last night." Kennedy replied after a minute of composing herself, "I was hosting a Halloween party, Rebecca. I talked to everyone."

            Rebecca shook her head, trying to keep her frustration down but failing.

            "You know I didn't mean that. I meant, did you talk to anyone about...you-know-what...last night?"

            The smile disappeared from Kennedy's face as her eyes went to the closed porch door.

            "Why?"

            "Because someone came up to me." Rebecca replied, feeling her hands start to shake. She hated talking about this. It had been over a month since they had had to talk about this. But here it was again, popping up just when they thought it was going to be gone for good.

            "Who?" Kennedy asked, "Who came up to you?"

            "I don't know." Rebecca replied, "I think they said their name was Connor. They were wearing a werewolf mask..." She trailed off as she watched the color drain from Kennedy's face with every word she said, "So I guess that's a yes."

            Kennedy nodded slowly.

            "What did he ask you?" She whispered.

            Rebecca tried to think for a second. Things from the night before were blurry, but not completely gone; she felt like she was remembering the interaction with 'Connor' for a reason.

            "If I was friends with you." Rebecca replied, "It was the first thing he asked me, I think. He asked if I was friends with you, and when I said yes, he said he didn't think we seemed like the type to be friends. I think he knew I would get defensive, because I blurted out that we went on a trip together—"

            "Are you a complete moron?" Kennedy asked, throwing her hands in the air, "You practically handed him our guilt."

            "Shut up." Rebecca replied, "He seemed really interested in this trip, so I made an excuse and left."

            Kennedy shook her head.

            "I don't understand why you couldn't have just kept your mouth shut. Is your pride really that fragile that you had to prove that we were friends?"

            "Hey, I don't need this." Rebecca replied, "What's done is done. Now what did you talk to him about?"

            Kennedy cocked her head to the side and thought.

            "Well...he asked if I was friends with you."

            Rebecca felt her heartrate start to pick up again. It was too much of a coincidence to actually be a coincidence—this guy asking both of them about each other. But then again, maybe he was just looking to hook up with people and didn't want to double dip into the same friend group. It was possible.

            But it didn't feel very probable.

            "And what did you say?"

            Kennedy shrugged.

            "I...I said yes." She replied, nodding. "I said yes, and then I left to find Lyla."

            Rebecca looked at Kennedy for a second, trying to gauge whether or not she was telling the truth.

            "Alright." She nodded. "And that was it?"

            Kennedy nodded.

            "Yeah. I didn't throw us under the bus about going on the trip."

            Rebecca rolled her eyes and opened the screen door.

            "Whatever, Kennedy. I don't think you have much room to be pointing fingers in this particular situation."

            Rebecca walked into the apartment and closed the porch door behind her, leaving Kennedy out in the chilly November morning by herself. She didn't need to apologize. She hadn't done anything. She hadn't killed that man. She had drunkenly mentioned that she went on a trip with her friend.

            Her friend who she was pretty sure wouldn't claim Rebecca as a friend to anyone she was trying to impress in the least.

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