What could have been.

- Chapter 23 -

“You almost died Sienna...” Brody whispers as we walk down an aisle of the library to reach our go to secluded spot. I told Brody the truth yesterday during lunch as I trust him to help and honestly, I need him by my side. However, it seems that now that I have admitted to him that I want to know what happened he has become adamant that we take my concerns to the authorities. I see his point and I get that it’s bad, very bad. But I truly believe that if someone did intend to spike me it wasn’t supposed to lead to me having an overdose. This isn't a potential murder mystery or that I was targeted and was supposed to die. I know that much. What I don’t know is if I was intentionally drugged or if it was all an accident. I want to believe it was an accident, I don’t want the truth to be that someone had intended to hurt me. 

“I don’t think that was the person's intention. It was probably an accident.” I whisper back to Brody, hoping not to raise my voice enough for anyone else in the library to overhear. 

Stopping in his tracks, Brody stands still and folds his arms against his chest, determined to change my mind, he proceeds to argue his point. “It doesn't matter. You overdosed and nearly died. We should go to the police again.” 

I turn around to face him and shake my head, “No,” His shoulders tense as he shakes his head in disapproval of my answer. “We won’t get anywhere if we went to the police.” I continue. It's true, we won’t. All evidence pointed to me being guilty, so their case was closed. Nothing will change that so why waste their time or mine. 

We reach the round booth table in the far corner of the room. I slump into the seat, happy to finally be off my feet, I start to scoot around so that there is more room for Eden and Jocelyn when they join us. I rub my shoulder after sliding my bag off and dumping it on the floor, underneath the table. The tension from the last few days is only making my shoulders ache and my patience short. The swelling on my ankle has subsided in the last two days. I've been wearing Brody’s ankle support from when he sprained his ankle playing tennis which has been helping, although the bruising has gotten progressively worst, now it’s a deep shade of purple and pink. I’ve taken a few painkillers when the pain becomes too unbearable so that I’m not drawing more attention to myself by crying in the back of a lecture hall. Instead, I’ve just drawn a small amount of attention with the slight hobble that I’ve become accustomed to when I walk.

I send a text to Eden and Jocelyn in the group chat to tell them where Brody and I are. We plan to meet to go through a plan of action on how to figure out what happened. “Look, we all knew you were drugged but we stopped pressing after the investigation was done because you told us-me, you told me you wanted to move forward...I’m sorry I didn't try to help more.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, I did want to move on, it just took time for me to realise that for me to move forward I need all the answers.”

“Still...”

“Brody. You’ve been nothing but a great friend to me and I can’t thank you enough. Don’t let this eat you up, I made a choice, ok?” 

“Ok-”

“Good.” I smile and Brody returns a small smile. 

I reach down into my bag and pull out my pencil case and a new notepad that I bought on the way to campus this morning. Brody shuffles to the end of the booth and stands up, he asks if I would like a coffee and anything to eat. I take him up on his offer of a coffee but decline any food, I’m having trouble stomaching anything at the moment. He takes Jocelyn and Edens order from me then heads back through the many aisles of tall wooden bookshelves, sectioning the small spaced room. 

I open up my notepad to the first double page. I take out my black pen and section the page into eight parts, four square sections on each page. I rummage through my pencil case to find eight different colour pens which I do successfully after scribbling on a spare piece of paper to ensure they all work. In bold writing, I write down the name of each person that was there that night in a different colour. Blue, is used to write out Darcey’s name. She was there with her boyfriend Brent which I use the colour purple to write his name. Orange, green, pink, brown and turquoise is used to write down the five frat boys that stayed that night to have a few drinks with us. And, red is used to write Joseph's name. Out of all eight names, his name was the hardest to write yet the easiest to dismiss. He wouldn’t have done this to me. That I know for a fact. 

It's been an hour and we’ve noted down the reasons why any of the seven people there that night would want to drug me, if there were any. For each person using their assigned colour as well as going through the likelihood of who could have obtained drugs that night, I attempt to write out some sort of timeline. We take into account what I can remember from that night, to see whether anyone had an opportunity to slip anything in to my drink. The only real way we could think for someone to slip me something would have been by putting it into my drink. 

After an hour, of writing, we come out with nothing. 

What was I expecting? To miraculously remember or have a clear-cut answer to who would have done it. I got my hopes up and now I feel stupid for even attempting to find out. 

“Maybe Greg did it, he’s known for taking drugs at parties,” Eden suggests. 

“Or, Lucas?” Brody adds. 

“Ok, I’ll put a star next to their name.” I hesitantly draw a star by their name. 

“If it was one of them...do you think it was an accident?” Eden asks. 

“I hope so. They have no reason to do it intentionally...” I say, yet, I still can’t imagine this being either of their doing. From what I can remember Lucas and Greg were barely in the room, they were in and out of the house, going outside to smoke. They didn’t seem to be on anything. I've seen them at parties when they’ve taken something and how they behaved that night didn’t reflect that. 

“So those two idiots probably put something in your drink, thinking it was theirs and was scared to come forward with the truth. What an assho-” 

“What about Joseph.” Brody cuts Jocelyn off. I feel all of their eyes on me as they wait for my answer. 

What about Joseph?...

“What about him?” I can’t help but say defensively.

“He did get kicked out for taking-”

“Steroids. Not ecstasy.” I interrupt Edens accusation because although Joseph's name is written down, it does not make him a suspect. We had a rocky relationship; I can admit that but in no way possible could he have been behind this. 

The group remains silent. But it doesn’t bother me. I close my notepad and begin to pack up my things ready to leave. 

“Sienna, we didn’t mean anything by it-” Eden says quietly, inching forward in her seat to pass me a pen she’d been using. “-it’s just he was there and he has a history with, well...having access to buying drugs.” 

I don’t say anything else. We all stand and walk out together; I don’t join in on any small talk while we leave the library. 

I hug Brody goodbye and thank him for his help. We agree to pick up where we left off and meet up next week. Jocelyn, Eden and I walk to the car park and I get a lift home with Eden as Jocelyn is going to Bruno’s place for a shift. 

Eden puts on the radio so that it’s playing faintly in the background. I’ve barely said anything since the library. I can’t shrug off any annoyance I’m feeling. 

“Excited for tomorrow?” Eden says, in an attempt to break the silence.

Tomorrow there is an early Halloween party at the soundproof place. Liam invited us at my birthday party after he found out he’ll be the DJ for the whole night. I completely forgot about it. 

“It will be fun.” I exhale out, not sounding excited in the slightest. I don't know who I'm trying to convince more, myself or Eden.

“Do you know what you’re going as? The theme is a movie character. I think I’m going to go as poison ivy. I have an amazing green bodysuit that I can wear with my over the knee boots.” 

We spend the rest of the drive discussing plans for tomorrow and that I might wear a white milkmaid style dress and my angel wings from last year's Halloween costume so that I can go as Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. Eden insists that I wear one of her white corsets after googling the movie and seeing a picture of Claire Danes as Juliet. I try to refuse. Eden is persistent and argues that it will make my outfit sexier. I suppose it's not such a bad idea to put a little effort into looking sexier for tomorrow.