A Week with Katherine

Two Weeks After

About two weeks after the night it happened the police stopped their investigation.

Katherine's death was ruled an accident.

The official story was that after a late-night rendezvous, Katherine had tried to go for a midnight swim and got caught in a riptide leading to her hitting her head and drowning.

But that story is bullshit and anyone that believes is kidding themselves.

I mean, it didn't even make sense.

Katherine couldn't swim. She told me that herself.

I still can't figure out why the police had been in such a rush to close the case.

I have my doubts about the Sheriff but even he couldn't have pulled that off so quickly without help, right?

When I found out the case had been closed I was a mess. I remember going to Kat's secret place and just screaming.

I didn't care who heard.

It was all so unfair.

I wasn't just mad at everything and everyone else anymore, I was mad at myself and I was mad at Katherine.

How could she just come into my life if she was gonna leave? And why hadn't I had the power to help her?

When her funeral finally came around all that was left inside of me was an awful numbness.

Everyone in town attended. It was strange, people were either seriously crying or just stone-faced. Or maybe that's normal?

I don't know. It was the first time I'd ever been to one of those.

If I was a mess then Katherine's mom was even worse.

Which is understandable. At that point, it had only been a year since she had to bury her husband and 15-year-old daughter and now she was back in the same cemetery watching her eldest and final child join them.

It couldn't have been easy.

After the funeral, there was a wake at the nearby church.

My mom and I went, of course.

We were probably there for about ten minutes before I couldn't handle it anymore.

I remember rushing out a side door to get fresh air and running into them.

Sara Park, Andrew Andrews, and Craig Williams were outside leaning against the building smoking and passing around a flask.

Sara smirked as she noticed me.

"What are you even doing here, New kid?" Sara asked me, cooly. The others laughed.

"I'm here for the wake," I explained. I mean it should have been obvious.

"Well, duh. But you don't belong here. You barely fucking knew Katherine." Sara barked at me.

"I was more of a friend to her than you were." I snapped back. The anger I had been feeling lately was too much to hold back.

Andrew snorted back a sarcastic laugh. "Look we get it, Katherine had a way of making people feel special and noticed but whatever you had with her wasn't real. She was like that with everyone and would have gotten bored of you in a week. If she had lasted that long." He said cruelly before taking a drink.

"How about you shut the fuck up? You don't know what you are talking about!" I yelled getting closer to them.

It wasn't my finest moment.

Andrew held up his hands in mock surrender.

"You're the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. Katherine was a slut who did whatever she wanted without caring about anyone else around her." Sara laughed.

Before I could reply Bridget came stumbling out the same side door I had. Her eyes were red and her face was tear-stained.

"What are you guys doing out here?" She asked as she looked around us in confusion.

"Leaving," Andrew said with ease before putting his arm around Sara and walking away with her.

With their exit, Bridget turned to me. "You and Katherine...you two hung out a lot toward the end, right?"

I nodded my head as I looked away from her.

"What did she say about me? Did she hate me?" Bridget asked me in a rush. Craig laughed.

I looked toward him but he didn't look at us. Instead, he pretended to look at the wall.

"She never mentioned you," I answered honestly. "Oh, somehow that feels worse," Bridget mumbled softly.

"What did she say about me? Did she hate me?" Craig said, repeating Bridget's words in a sarcastic voice.

"Kat never mentioned you, either," I answered him anyway. He rolled his eyes.

"Of course, KAT didn't," Craig said, putting emphasis on the nickname.

"There's no point caring about what Katherine did or thought anymore. She wasn't worth it. All she had going for her was the fact she looked cute with pink hair." Craig sighed.

"How did you know her hair was pink?" I asked back quickly.

It didn't make sense. He shouldn't have had a chance to see her with her hair colored.

"I noticed that night. When you two walked by. Let me just say, you two were adorable." Craig said with mocking ease.

Bridget just stared at her brother.  "We could barely see them. It was so dark." Bridget argued.

"Maybe from where you were sitting. But, I had a great view. Excuse me, now." Craig muttered before pushing passed us back inside.

I'm still not sure what to think of that conversation. I felt like he was lying but I couldn't prove it.

Bridget turned back to me. "I heard you've been asking around about Katherine. You heard about the photo leak?"

"Yeah,"

"I'm the one that leaked the picture. Do you think that somehow this was my fault?" Bridget asked me genuinely, waiting for an answer.

She didn't get one though as I turned around and went back inside.