To My Dearest Enemy

Another Divide

September 23

"So what did you do?" Jill looked at Stella. The four friends sat in the lounge area at Evelyn and Ivory's.

"I got overly defensive and very snippy. Told him you were crippled and couldn't do shit. I also said that me forgiving Matt was not us getting back together and he should question Matt on his bruise and not my alibi." Stella said.

"You fucking dumbass!" Ethan barked.

"I was asked how I found out Hayden slept with Wesley. I said Ethan overheard him talking about it." Jill said.

"Which I didn't know so I said I didn't know how you found out and he told me what you said and I told him that I told you I overheard Wesley saying how he slept with a girl and it happened to be the same night he kissed Hayden so you put two and two together." Ethan explained.

"So I'm the only one in the clear here, great." Alana rolled her eyes.

"Alana this is serious, we need to figure out our answers for everything they might ask us. Matt's on his own now. He's gone rouge so he can figure out his own answers. No bringing up videos or texts or anything." Jill said.

"Let's go somewhere else." Ethan said. All four stood up, grabbed their drinks, and walked out. Stella took a sip of her iced coffee as they walked to Ethan's car.

"Someone has to talk to Matt." Jill said. Jill, Stella, and Ethan all looked at Alana.

"Fine, but if he hits me or accuses me of kidnapping Hayden or accuses me of being JD, I'm out and we can let him be arrested for this." Alana said.

"None of us are going down for this." Ethan said.

"Well, they will when they poke holes in our made up stories about stuff that JD did." Stella said.

"Or when JD supplies the cops with fake evidence that we kidnapped Hayden." Jill added.

"What if Hayden really was kidnapped? By JD?" Alana asked.

"Let's just not even think about that." Ethan replied. He might be telling his friends not to think about it, but he himself couldn't stop thinking about the possibility.

———

Matt sat on the floor in Hayden's bedroom, leaning against her bed. He hated the thought of Hayden being missing. Maybe she was kidnapped? He didn't want to think of that possibility because it would make him think worse things. Could Hayden have been kidnapped? Was it even possible? It would be if she was drunk. She could've passed out and Wesley kidnapped her. Or Stella. Or Jill. Or Ethan. Now he was crazy. To think that any of his friends had anything to do with it? How? Matt did remember Hayden saying she deleted her research, but did she? He stood up and sat at her desk and opened her laptop. He typed in her password; A-ZsHaKespeaRe27. A-Z for her favorite mystery books as a kid, Shakespeare for her favorite playwright, the uppercase HKR in Shakespeare stood for Hayden Kathleen Randall, and the twenty seven stood for her birthday, February seventh. He opened the trash and saw that it was empty. She had two files on her computer; one labeled pictures and the other labeled school. He sighed and closed the laptop. Hayden always knew how to hide something. He reopened the laptop and clicked on the school file. Sure enough, there was one document labeled "Jillian DeVitto." Hayden never did something without a purpose. Clever, since she had said JD stood for Jillian DeVitto. He clicked on the file and frowned when he saw the contents. It was blank. She had deleted all the JD research. He sighed and closed the laptop before standing up. Hayden had to have written in her diary. If only he knew where she kept it. He began pulling books from the bookshelf, looking at the covers, and sliding them back into her place.