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The words hit hard. My knees feel hollow. A ringing starts in my ears.

The quarry, deep and still, was a place of dares and ghost stories. But Cindy had walked into that silence and never come back.

“She was only fourteen,” Maurine says, her tone like a reprimand.

“You never really know what’s going on in someone’s head.”

I don’t remember leaving the store. Or the ride home. My father’s voice is a blur. My mind’s somewhere else, back in church pews and school hallways. Watching Cindy curl into herself like she’s trying to disappear.

I saw her just last week. At the gas station.

Arms crossed. Staring into nothing. Her skin pale against the heat.

She didn’t look at me. Didn’t say a word.

I didn’t say anything either.

Now I can’t stop thinking about her.

The first day of school feels like it’s wrapped in black cloth. The air’s heavy. The noise dull. Teachers whisper in corners. Girls cry in bathrooms. Even the football players walk like they’ve forgotten how.

Clyde doesn’t show, not the first day, not the next.

Someone says he’s sick. But I know grief when I see it. I’ve worn it long enough to recognize its shape.

At lunch, I sit with the usual crowd, listening as the rumors echo from table to table, soft as fog.

“She left a note.”

“Her daddy found her.”

“Maybe she was bullied.”

Then, a softer voice.

“I heard it was her uncle. A pedo. He’d been after her.”

That’s the one that cuts.

I stand, grab my tray, and dump it. I push out the doors before my breath can catch.

The stories keep circling like smoke, twisting her into something she never was.

But none of them say what I know now.

None of them say: We failed her.

When Clyde returns, he’s different. He walks like someone underwater, silent, heavy, far away. The teachers leave him alone. The other students do too. But they watch him like he might shatter.

I want to say something.

That I’m sorry.

That I should’ve said something sooner.

That I saw her. That I didn’t.

But every time, the words lodge like stones in my throat.