• AVAILABLE & COMPLETE ON THE YONDER APP UNDER THE TITLE FRATERNITY OF LIARS •
Despite what the police say, Kennedy Bryant knows her best friend's death wasn't a suicide. No, the fraternity he'd pledged undoubtedly has something to do with it. And t...
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It doesn't take longbefore I stop thinking of him as Sam and start thinking of it as Sam's body.
The pronouns have switched in the blink of an eye and he is now an it. This is not my Sam. This is what death leaves behind. This is Sam's body.
It lies in his dorm room bed, a twin mattress covered with the blue comforter I picked out for him. My bed in a room down the hall is the same size, but this one looks like it never should have fit living, breathing, exuberant Sam, let alone Sam's unmoving body.
My Sam always complained about his feet hanging over the edge. Sam's body does not say a word as its blue toes dangle towards the floor.
Sam is gone, and this is what remains.
✗ ✗ ✗
Sam's body and I aren't alone anymore.
First, it's the RA who walks in and asks me what I'm doing there. Then it's the campus police. Then it's the real police. And then it's a plainclothes detective with her hand on my shoulder, guiding me out into the hallway.
"You were the one who found the body?" The question is straight-forward, no padded edges.
"Yes," I tell her. "I found him." I found it.
"And what time was that?"
"I don't know," I say, and I really don't. It could have been minutes, or hours, or days ago, but Sam is dead and time has stopped. "I'm sorry."
My apology seems to soften her some, but it makes no difference to me. "What's your name?"
I tell her.
"Okay, Kennedy," she continues, the hand on my shoulder squeezing gently. "Can you tell me how you knew Sam?"
The past tense feels strange. I struggle with it as I explain, switching back and forth between past and present, a bit of future threatening to work its way in.
The detective nods again, brow furrowed. "So he was your best friend? Were you with him last night?"
Everything is swimming into focus again. It's all beginning to make sense in a way that it shouldn't, in a way that I don't want it to.
"If you know something, I need you to tell me," she says, soft and persuasive like a parent saying they're not mad, just disappointed. You won't be punished if you just tell the truth.
Just tell the truth.
So I do.
"Okay, he was at the Pi Sigma Theta house last night," she repeats. "Do you know why he was there?"
"He's a pledge." Was a pledge. "He was doing a favor for their president."
"And do you know the president's name?"
I do. I know more than that.
"His name is Reagan Matthews. He's the reason Sam's dead."
