Page 3 of We Are All Guilty Here

Madison looked up at the sky again, as if she could find the answer there. The sun had dimmed another few watts. The stars were faint points of light. She looked toward the old oak. No one was there. She let her gaze bounce over the crowd again, down to the lake. Swimmers were getting out, toweling off, heading toward their spots on the hill. It would be pitch dark soon. A feeling of excited anticipation filled the air. Everybody was ready for the fireworks to start.

She looked at the time. Forty-seven minutes late. Cheyenne wasn’t coming. Something must’ve really gone wrong.

Madison had to go find her.

She felt a sense of purpose as she walked up the stairs toward the parking lot. There was just enough light to help her find her bicycle. She bumped the tires up the rest of the way, then rolled the bike along the sidewalk, scanning the lot in case Cheyennehad run into a guy who had a bottle or a bong. The cars were parked so close she couldn’t get between them with her bike, so she had to follow the sidewalk parallel to the first row.

Madison needed her own plan.

She would lift her bike over the yellow caution tape that was meant to keep people from driving onto the practice field beside the parking lot. She would go down the hill, hit Long Street, then take a left onto Carver, then cut across the big yard with the pond to get to the backroads. This was exactly the reverse of the route Cheyenne was supposed to be taking. Maybe her bike had gotten a flat tire. Maybe she’d taken something and been too high to do anything but lay on her back and stare up at the sky.

Madison was about to get on her bike when she heard the first crackling flare. The fireworks show was finally starting. They had set up on the opposite side of the lake, far from the crowd. Madison heard a low whistle, saw a single line of bright white burning upwards into the night sky, then watched it explode into a thousand pinpoints. She heard clapping and shouting as the sparklers sizzled and hissed like tiny snakes, then slowly flamed out.

There was a brief interlude. Then another crackle. Another low whistle. Another line of fire bursting into a sphere of swirling blues and whites, the school’s mascot colors. The crowd cheered as a third firework went off, this one letting out a loud whir as it spun into the shape of a smiley face.

Madison momentarily forgot her worries. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of wonder. When she was little, back when her mother was still alive, back before Hannah had forced herself into their lives, the family would spend every Fourth watching the fireworks together, just the three of them. Her mother would pack a small cake and chocolate ice cream for Madison’s birthday. Her father would take her swimming in the lake. When the fireworks started, he would put his arm around Madison so she wouldn’t be scared. Then he’d call out each type of firework: the crossette, where stars broke into fours and crisscrossed each other. The diadem, with its stationary stars at the center. The ring, with its halo shape and smiley faces. The long cylinder of a Roman candle, or the nearly 1,000-shot cake that was half a dozen Roman candles combined. Then there were the flowers—the willow andpeony, and her favorite, the chrysanthemum—all colorful explosions that could take your breath away.

They still took her breath away.

Madison wiped her eyes, mad at herself for crying. She had told Hannah that she was too old for fireworks, but the truth was, she missed the way she felt when her father put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close to his side, made her feel safe. Everyoohandahhfrom the crowd, everyboomso loud that it shook in the back of her throat, reminded Madison of everything that had been lost.

She was so caught up in her sadness that she barely registered the car turning into the parking lot. Her eyes took their time adjusting. The headlights were off. She couldn’t see the driver as the car rolled down the first row. He wasn’t stopping. The brake lights stayed dark when the front end bumped over the curb and nosed through the yellow caution tape. It wasn’t until another explosion of light illuminated the field in all its green glory that she realized what she was looking at.

Cheyenne!

Finally, thank God, she was here.

Madison’s cry of relief turned into a startled laugh. Cheyenne was going to drive her dad’s precious, brand-new Jetta across the soccer field. She’d wedged her distinctive neon blue bicycle into the trunk. The hot pink sparklers swayed from the handlebar grips. The snap-glows on the spokes sparkled like Christmas tree lights. She hadn’t tied down the lid tight enough. It popped open when the back tire hit the curb, then slammed down onto the bike so hard that Madison could hear the sound of metal crunching over the sizzles of a yellow peony firework burning itself out.

“Shy!” Madison sprinted alongside her bike, hunkered down over the handlebars, racing after the car. She saw the brake lights glow as Cheyenne neared the center of the soccer field. Madison couldn’t bring herself to put another break in the caution tape. She jogged down and went through the spot Cheyenne had already broken apart. Her teeth clattered when she bumped the bike over the curb. She accidentally bit the inside of her cheek. She was so elated that she barely registered the pain.

Typical Cheyenne. She’d obviously changed the plan withoutletting Madison know. She’d decided to get the Jetta and the scotch andthenmeet up at the park. Which made so much more sense. They should’ve thought of this earlier. Why double back when Cheyenne could swing by her house on the way to the park?

The car stopped on the edge of the field, pointing toward a bunch of trees. Madison could hear the engine idling. She started crying again, this time from relief. Only now could she admit how truly terrified she’d been. Cheyenne had said the plan was going to be easy, but nothing was ever easy. Especially when Cheyenne was involved. She could push people too far. Madison had seen it happen more times than she could count. Mouthing off to a teacher, pissing off the principal, yelling at a store clerk, screaming at her mother her father her little sister so loud that one time, probably not the only time, her mother had swung back her hand and slapped Cheyenne into silence.

“Shy!” Madison called again, but her voice was lost to thepop-pop-popof a chrysanthemum firework flowering open in bright purples, greens and whites.

She let her bike drop to the ground and ran the last few yards. The rapidpopswere so loud she felt them crackling in her teeth. The strobe of light made every move look stuttered. She reached out her hand. Found purchase on the back tire of Cheyenne’s bicycle. The chain had slipped. She could see it draped across the spokes like a discarded bracelet.

The night went black.

The chrysanthemum had flared out. In the silence, Madison could hear her own sharp breaths—one, then another, then another, before the next low whistle drowned it out, the whir so loud that it shook her eardrums. She turned toward the lake, watching two trails of light zip up into the blackness, their dual reflections mirrored in the surface of the water. Then she heard the cascade ofbooms. Then she saw the bursts of large tendrils dropping into the shape of two massive palm trees.

The roar of the crowd drained away. Thepopandsizzle, thehissandcrackle.

There was another sound. Faint, but definitely there. Much closer than the crowd. Almost closer than the sharp intake of her own breaths.

A whimper.

Madison looked down into the trunk of the car. The bright light from the palms picked out every detail in front of her. The neon blue frame of the bike. The bent rear wheel. The broken chain. The blue tarp lining the trunk. The stretched clothesline hanging from the lid.

The look of terror in Cheyenne’s eyes.

“Oh,” Madison whispered.

This wasn’t Mr. Baker’s Jetta.

The sky went dark. Another interlude.

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