Looking back, when I went to the party the other night Rachel and Nick had seemed surprised to see me. At the time I hadn’t thought much about it. I thought they were my friends then but we hadn’t been friends for years.

I decide to go and visit Rachel. I can remember her address, hopefully she’s still there. I find Maida and we set off, it's a short drive to Rachel’s place. We stop in front of large black gates, even bigger than my own, a camera is mounted underneath a gargoyle on the right. There’s an intercom, Maida presses a button, a buzz follows and the gates open. Maida drives through, Rachel's house is much closer to the road than mine. Pine trees line the driveway, we stop in front of a large two storey stone house, four tall pillars stand out the front before a large arched doorway. Maida parks and we walk to the entrance, the doors begin to open and Rachel pokes her head out.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” She asks.

“Can’t a friend come to visit?” I answer.

“Come in, hurry, it’s freezing! You’re letting the cold air in.”

Maida and I follow her inside. Rachel slams the heavy door behind us. The house looks half empty, I only visited a handful of times but I remember it being full of furniture and antiques.

“Are you moving?” I ask her.

“What?” Rachel continues on to the kitchen.

“Most of your furniture is gone.”

“Ohhh. Yeah, we, uh, we sold it.”

“Really? Are you redecorating?”

“No, not exactly. Are you hungry?”

“I am.” Maida says. She’s always hungry. I don’t know how she’s so thin.

When we get to the kitchen we sit on stools in front of the counter. Rachel grabs some snacks from the cupboards on the other side, placing some bowls before us. She swiftly fills them and then leans against the counter, she looks straight at me.

“Ok, no BS Elena, why are you actually here?” She asks.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Oh, come on, you’ve never just showed up at my house before, what do you want?”

“Do you remember that day, at the beach, the night we graduated?”

“Uhh, yes.” She groans, frowning. “Why do you want to bring up that again?”

“I was just thinking about it lately, that’s all.”

“I regret lying for Nick, I was so stupid. He was a jerk. Still is.”

“Esther always protected him too.”

“Everyone did, it didn’t help him. I covered for him the night your dad died, I don’t know why I bothered.”

“What? Why? Nick wouldn’t be a suspect.”

“He went to your house that night.”

“Why would he go to my house?”

Rachel doesn’t say anything. She looks off to the left, wraps her arms around her chest.

“What?” I ask more forcefully.

“He thought that your father was seeing someone.”

This was news to me. “Why would that bother Nick?”

“He was with Esther at the time. It was before we got back together again.”

“What would that have to do with my dad?”

“He thought that your dad was seeing Esther too.”

I start to laugh, this sounds ridiculous.

“I’m not making this up,” Rachel is defensive, “Nick was caught on camera at your house that night, I told the cops that he was with me after that.” Rachel looks offended that I’m not taking her seriously.

“And he wasn’t?” I ask.

“No, I don’t know where he was, he never told me. He called me up that night and said he needed me to cover for him. It was the last time I did. Go ask Esther if you don't believe me. Why are you digging this stuff back up anyway? I thought you'd left town for good.”

“I just need to finish some things. Why are you still here, weren’t you going to be a doctor?”

“I didn’t finish my degree, my parents ran out of money and I had to come back home. That’s why we’ve sold some of our furniture, we can’t sell the house. Don’t tell anybody, okay? It’s been on the market for ages and nobody will buy the thing. It seems like I’ll be living out the rest of my life in this hellhole.”

“It’s hard to get out of this place. It’s like it won’t let you leave.”

“It’s weird, we finished school ages ago and we’re all still here. It’s like nothing has changed, I still feel like a teenager. Nick is here, Esther is here. So many people from my childhood are still around. I bump into them in town and it’s like why can’t we get out?” She laughs. “Do you know Nick has a law degree? Paid for by his Dad obviously, you know what he’s doing with his life?”

I shake my head.

“He’s a pizza delivery driver.”

“No!” I laugh.

“Yeah, his dad finally cut him off. He can’t hold a job down for more than a couple of months. I remember thinking that we’d achieve amazing things when we were all in school. Do you think that might still happen? Is there still time?”

“Of course.” I can see how unhappy Rachel is, she just wants some hope. There's a voice coming from the front of the house, a door slamming.

“That’ll be the real estate agent showing people around again,” Rachel rolls her eyes, “they won’t buy the place. You guys better go.”

“I know we didn’t always get along but I hope you get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Rachel half smiles, “you too.”

We say goodbye and me and Maida leave the house. Walking past a young couple and a real estate agent dressed head to toe in red.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

We get into the car and Maida starts the engine. "Where to?"

"I need to go see Esther."

Maida puts the car into drive and we head towards town. I give her the directions to Esther’s house, I’m hoping she’s home.

“So, Nick killed your dad?” Maida says,

“I don’t know, this whole thing is crazy.”

“Well, I don’t think you can really trust Rachel, from what you’ve told me about her. She's probably not be the most reliable source of information."

“What if it’s true though?”

“Did you want me to go and talk to her?”

“No, it's fine.”

“It’s up to you.”

"This is the place."

Maida stops the car in front of Esther's place. Unlike the rest of us, she lives in a modest house, directly behind the diner on Main Street. I loved going there after school, we’d watch cartoons and eat popcorn while we attempted to do our homework. I get out of the car, Maida says she’ll wait for me. I walk up the house's worn wooden steps and knock on the door. It swings open as I reach the top step, the woman from the diner stands before me, her short brown hair is neatly brushed back in a ponytail and her black rimmed glasses are sitting high on her nose. “Hey there, Ellie!” Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles down at me.

“Hey Talia!” I can remember her name. A warm cloud of memories hits me as I look up at her. She wraps her arms around me.

“It’s so good to see you again.” She says and yells for Esther to come downstairs. It’s only a second before I hear the creaking of floorboards above me. Shortly after Esther’s feet appear, rushing down the stairs. She stops halfway and leans over the railing.

“Hey! Come on up.” She races back towards her room.

“Are you hungry? I can bring you some food if you’d like.” Talia says.

“No, that’s okay.” I never feel hungry anymore, eating and sleeping are now just a habit, not a necessity.

I walk upstairs, it’s all so familiar, the house still smells the same as I remember. I’ve walked up these stairs a thousand times, as a kid, a teenager and an adult. Nothing has changed. The same stairs creak under my feet. I see Esther’s lilac door, left partially open, a sign bearing her name hung in the centre. I nudge the door open and walk inside, Esther’s at her desk using her computer. I sit on her bed, sinking into the mattress.

“Hey, I was just thinking about you, you remember this?” She swivels around in her chair and faces me, a photo in hand. She pushes it in front of my face. I take it from her and look down at it. It’s a photograph of Esther and me on my eighth birthday, we’d had a party at my house. Esther had been the first one to arrive, I look at us both, big grins, missing teeth. It was a bleak day, cloudy and cold. My mother had had a cake made, a doll in the middle, the cake serving as her dress. She had planned a scavenger hunt in the garden and had hidden gifts wrapped in blue and pink tissue paper for the children to find. After the scavenger hunt some of the kids hid from me as a joke. I asked the other kid’s where they'd gone but they said they didn’t know. I walked around by myself outside to look for them, there was a lot of ground to cover. Then I went into the house and looked for them there, but couldn’t find them anywhere.

When I went back outside I heard laughter and saw that the other kids had come back. I walked over in my pretty red dress, my black shoes slipping in the mud. I yelled over to them. “Where did you guys go?” My voice sounded so weak, the wind stealing its power. They looked towards me and said nothing, I kept walking towards them and finally my balance gave out, I slipped and fell to the ground. My dress was covered in mud, my fancy new shoes had betrayed me. The roar of laughter from the kid’s was deafening. I heard Rachel loudly say “What a loser!” and everyone laughed even louder. I slowly got up, continuing to slip and slide in the mud, I finally regained my balance and looked down at my dress, ruined. I looked over at the kids, they were still laughing at me. I ran back to the house, as soon as I got inside the front doors I burst into tears. I ran up the stairs and into my room, slamming the door behind me, I didn’t care about the mud I’d left all over the floor. I got a stool and placed it in front of the bookcase, I rose up on my tiptoes to pull the book down so I could open the door. I placed the stool back where I had found it and went inside. This was my safe place, even back then. My bedroom used to be my Dad’s as a kid, and he showed me the secret room. My family had a lot of secrets and seemed to need a room to hide them in. Eventually I ran out of tears. I felt so stupid and was too ashamed to go back out there. I sat at the table and grabbed a book I'd left in here, Alice in Wonderland, her life seemed so exciting. What a shame I couldn’t escape to another place like she did. I heard a loud clunk, the bookcase door, my body filled with dread, somebody had found me. Somebody politely knocked at the door. “Can I come in?” It was my dad.

“Yes.” I answer.

The door slowly eased open, the metal squeaked loudly.

“I thought you might be in here. People have been looking for you.” He looked down at me, concerned. He was tall, barely making it through the doorway.

“Why? Did they want to laugh at me again?” I asked.

“People were laughing at you?”

“Yeah, they hid from me and they laughed when I fell in the mud.”

“Ah, is that what happened to your dress. Are you hiding to get back at them?”

“No. Mum’s going to be so mad at me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her.”

I started to cry again, my Dad wiping away my tears, handing me a handkerchief from his pocket.

“I don’t have any friends.”

“What about Esther?”

“She laughed at me too.”

“Well, I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

“I hate school.”

“You should have gone to boarding school like I did. You never got to escape from the kids there.”

“Really? Were they mean to you too?”

“Occasionally. Kids aren’t very nice sometimes. Don’t worry about them. I’m always here when you need me and I probably won't laugh at you. Unless it's really funny.” Dad wrapped his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. “Everyone’s gone home, let’s go and have a real party.”

“Okay.” We left the room and went back downstairs. Dad lit the candles on the cake and told me to make a wish. I wished to escape like Alice. We put records on, played games and ate too much cake. It wound up being my favourite birthday party in the end.

“Yeah, I remember it.” I say, handing the photo back to Esther.

“That was such a fun day, remember your mum put all of those toys in the garden? I still have the one I found.” Esther reaches over and grabs a small toy pony from the window sill behind her desk. She smiles and puts the pony back. “So, what’s up?”

“I need to ask you something, it’s stupid.”

“Fire away.”

“I saw Rachel earlier today, she, this is so stupid, like, obviously she was making this up, but.”

“What is it?”

“Rachel said that you were seeing my father.”

“This again? She tried to spread that all around school after Nick dumped her.” She says. “She needs to grow up.”

“Rachel said he was at my house the night dad died.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Why do you always stick up for him?”

“I’m not sticking up for him. But you can’t just go around accusing people of things. It’s a small town.”

“I need to know. Then I can fix what’s happened.”

“You can’t fix something like this Elena. I know you’ve been trying to figure out what happened to your father for years now. I want to help you, I really do, but Nick didn’t do it.”

“Did you know he was at my house that night?”

“I found out after, he came back here and was furious, more at Rachel than anything.”

“Why?”

“Well, she told him the same thing she just told you. Of course he believed her.”

“What happened?”

“He just went over there to talk, I don’t really think he had a plan. He said that he knocked on the door and nobody answered, then he left.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Your dad just died. I didn’t want to upset you.”

“And to protect your boyfriend?”

“No! Of course not.”

“I can’t believe this, why can’t people just be honest with me?”

“I am being honest.”

“You hid this from me for years! Why?”

“Because I loved him!”

“Really? Where is he now, huh?”

“You know what Elena, I don’t need this today. You need to stop dragging this stuff up, at this point the only person you're hurting is yourself. Go home.” Esther stands up and ushers me out of the room, she glares daggers and firmly closes the door in my face.

“Everything okay?” Talia asks from the bottom of the stairs, laundry in hand.

“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I stammer.

“Don’t worry about her, she’s been acting weird all week. Since you got back actually.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Yeah, odd isn’t it? I’m not sure what’s up with her lately, out all hours of the night, I never know when she’s home.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

I walk down the stairs. “I better get going anyway, it’s getting late.”

“Lovely seeing you again, don’t be a stranger.” Talia smiles and continues on down the hallway. I leave the house, the fly-wire door swinging closed behind me, squeaking before it slams against the door frame. I rush down the stairs and jog over to Maida in the car. I open the door and jump in.

“How’d it go?” Maida asks.

“Not well. Turns out Rachel was half right.” I answer.

“What do you mean?”

“Nick was at my house. Me and Esther got in a fight.”

“What? Why?”

“She knew about Nick going over to see my dad that night.”

“No way.”

“She lied to me this whole time. This is exhausting.” I groan.

“You can’t give up now.” Maida replies.

“I have this feeling like I’m so close, like I’m just missing one little thing and it’ll all make sense. I just need to find it.”

“What now?”

“I need to go talk to Nick.”

“Is that safe?”

“I’m already dead. What's the worst he can do?”