May 9th, 2017

Kinsky, California, USA

Grim Trigger

With a bottle of water and a sparsely-filled backpack Lukas walked along the southern shore of Goldberg Lake. He had the vision of the place in his mind, however faint, and kept cycling through it in his head. He knew there was a hill, a grassy one, steep, somewhere close by. He knew the tree had a large trunk, bigger than the others around it, and didn’t have many more branches beyond what held the house up. He knew that, when his father would take them there, he’d follow a little path of cairns he had set up himself, but Lukas wasn’t sure if the cairns would even still be there.

It took him about an hour until he noticed an old toppled set of boulders in the distance. All of a sudden a million memories came flooding back and he dashed towards the set of rocks, almost tripping on a fallen log in the process. From there, finding the old treehouse became simple.

It was barely standing, but it was there. The wooden planks had become eroded by wind and rain, and human debris – nails and screws from the pieces with which Lukas’ father had fashioned the house – now littered the ground, still untouched since its collapse. As he inspected the area around the tree he found a few dried-up, barely legible drawings done by Kat and Cole years ago. Wedged in part of the stump his eyes came across an old dinosaur toy of his he had long thought gone forever. It was one of his favorites.

Lukas noticed that the entrance to the house had now enlarged to a gaping hole in its floorboards. To make sure he wouldn’t injure his hand, Lukas procured an old mitten from his backpack. He then took a nearly boulder and rolled it underneath the house’s entrance. Standing on top of it, he reached his arm up into the hole and was able to pat around and feel for anything out of place.

It didn’t take long until he had found it.

Slowly, carefully, Lukas grabbed the object and lowered it into eye level. It was a chest – one clearly newer, cleaner, out of place with the other objects. Unlike the other chest, this one had no lock. The boy felt his heart begin to pound as he opened the top. Inside was a flash drive covered in a few notecards. Lukas looked at the notecards first.

Lukas –

I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. Earlier today at school I saw you and Kat sitting together and I couldn’t even approach you. I just felt sick. I feel lost.

I know there’s a You read the journal, didn’t you? The one I left you. If you shared it with the others, it’s fine. I don’t think you would’ve, though. You’ve always been a lone wolf, just like me.

I’ve written and rewritten this note again and again and again and I’ve lost track of what I even wanted to tell you. Maybe I just gave you the journal in hopes you might still like me even if you knew the truth. That sending you and the others on some wild stupid goosechase would make things hurt a bit less. But I know there’s no point. No one is gonna do that once they find out.

I know why Anita killed herself. At this point I think Maria knows too. I should’ve known since the beginning but I was too afraid to admit it to myself.

It was all

I did

It was because of me. I touched her. I sex I did all of it. Every night I would feel sick, like I knew it was wrong, that I was wrong, but I would just do it again. I thought she loved me. I thought she enjoyed it as much as I did. So I kept doing it. I was scared so I told her not to tell Maria or her parents. I thought it was our special secret.

And then she died. She died because of me, Lukas. That whole thing opened up the pit. My life was ruined. I started staring at myself back in the mirror and realized it was all my fault. That I should’ve never done any of it. That there was something wrong with me, something wrong with me to the point that I should have never existed.

I want you to tell Maria that I wasn’t tricking her that I was just tricking myself. I would’ve never blamed Lorenzo for all this knowingly. I think it just came as such a shock that I desperately clinged to the idea that it had to have been someone else’s fault. I really loved her, Lukas. I really did. I know it sounds disgusting, horrible, terrible, but in my mind I was going to help her grow up and eventually marry her. That Maria and you and Kat would be there and we would all be happy. Anita would be happy, too. We would have a big beautiful wedding with all the flowers she loved and all our friends would be there and

Lukas dropped the cards. He didn’t notice it but his hand was shaking vigorously. He felt like he was going to faint. As the notecards began to flow away with the wind he quickly snapped out of it and caught them before they went away. His eyes felt glazed over but he tried desperately to find where he had left off.

We would have a big beautiful wedding with all the flowers she loved and all our friends would be there and we would all be happy. How stupid that all was. But she really was the only girl I ever fell in love with. I can’t explain it. I never had a thing for girls our age but I also never had a thing for anyone younger, either. If it were that simple I would’ve been able to catch it easier. It was just Anita.

And I never wanted to trick you, either. Or Kat. Or Maria. Or anyone else. I promise you. I never wanted to be a bad person. I never wanted to be bad to anyone.

I’m heading to Ednas bridge. I’m going to jump off it so you all never have to look at me again. If the police never find me, that’s where my body is. I’m putting this in the treehouse on the way there.

Cole

Lukas didn’t know what to think. He had lost feeling to his hands and his ears turned numb from the cold. He tried to reread the notecards but he couldn’t concentrate hard enough to understand any of the words. In a dizzying montage at the back of his head he replayed every association he’d ever had with Cole, every interaction, with himself, with Kat, with Maria, with Anita. He thought back to how he felt earlier that summer, when Cole felt like his rock when Kat rejected him. He thought about that autumn, when he and Cole and all the others had bonded over Anita’s death. He thought about how, in January, he had heard the news, the terrible news, and just couldn’t believe it. Not just about what Cole was, but whether he was even dead at all. Some days he’d walk to school smiling thinking about telling Cole what he had saw or read the day before, and not even realize how silly the thought was until hours later. He thought about all his friends who thought he was stupid for trying to protect Cole’s legacy in the first place. He thought about how he now knew they were all right.

Lukas put the cards back into the box, and closed it. He didn’t know what to do. Not about the chest, but about his life. He didn’t know who he wanted to become anymore. He didn’t know if he even wanted to become anything at all. He thought, for the first time very seriously, that he had lived enough of his life.

…

Kat was riding her bike back home when she got the phone call. It had been the first chance she’d gotten to ride it since last summer, now that the weather had warmed up. She had picked up a few pastries from the bakery, with the intention of sharing some with her family and perhaps Lukas if she had the chance to meet him later that day.

Feeling the vibration in her pocket, she slowed the bike down and took pause near an oak tree.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked rather neutrally.

“Uhh… Kat?”

It was Lukas. His voice was weird. Not sad, not angry, not upset, just weird. She hadn’t heard him like that before in all the years she’d known him.

“Everything all right, Luke?” She spoke again, now much more concerned.

“Umm…” There was a long pause. “I don’t know.”

“…Lukas?”

“I’m just… I’m really out of it, right now.”

“Lukas, what’s wrong? You’re starting to scare me.”

“I guess I’m…” She could hear sniffling on the other end of the line. “I’m worried I might do something stupid, is all.”

Kat’s heart went into overdrive. “Okay, I’m- I’m coming there, right now, okay? You’re at your house, right?”

“Yeah. In the basement.”

“I’m… I’m gonna be right there, in just a few minutes. Please, baby, just… just stay right there, okay? I’ll be right there. I promise you, I’ll be right there.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, Luke-”

She was cut off by the dial tone. Lukas had ended the call.

Kat had never biked faster in her life. By the time she reached the Schrodden residence she felt as though all the air had evaporated from her lungs, and yet still she haphazardly threw down the bike and stumbled across the sidewalk. It was clear from the driveway that Lukas’ parents weren’t home. She walked up to the door and almost pressed the ringer, only to notice that the door was slightly ajar. With her heart rapidly thumping in her chest, she opened it.

At first nothing seemed out of place. But as her ears adjusted she heard the sound of voices downstairs. It sounded like it was from a video.

She walked towards the basement steps, noticing that the door was closed. Every step downwards felt like it hurt. As she got closer she realized she knew the voices. One of them was hers. The others belonged to Cole and Lukas. When she finally got to the door, she took one deep breath, turned the knob, and opened it softly.

Lukas was sitting on the hardwood ground. The entire room had been cleared, and he was looking quietly at the other wall. A projector was playing footage from a laptop that was close to Lukas’ feet.

“…Lukas?” Kat asked meekly.

Lukas simply turned to take a look at her, then looked back at the wall. Kat took a few steps into the room and saw that he was playing old videos, home movies which Cole had made when they were in middle school and early into Kinsky High. Kat knew the videos had been made but she was unsure if she had ever seen them before.

“Where’d you find these?”

Lukas reached over to the laptop and turned the videos on mute. “Cole left them for me. There’s a ton. I thought he had lost all of them.”

“I thought he did, too.” Kat took a few more steps until she could sit right next to Lukas. She looked at him. “How are you feeling right now?”

“Better. I guess.”

Kat reached her hand down towards his, interlocking her fingers into his palm. “What… what made you feel this way? Have you been thinking about it for a while now?”

Lukas never broke eye-contact with the projector screen. He shook his head. “It just all hit me at once. I started thinking that… maybe I’m not as strong as I thought I was. That I’m not good enough for all this. That I’ll never be good enough.”

Kat reached up, wrapping herself around Lukas’ right arm.

“You’ll always be good enough for me,” Kat whispered. “Never forget that. No matter where you are, no matter who you are. You are my sun, my sky, my flowers. And you’ll always be loved, okay? Always.”

Lukas looked at her again. It was almost as if he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t say anything about it. He kept watching the footage.

“Cole admitted it.”

Kat’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I found a note – a note he left for me. It confirms everything Maria said. He raped Anita. It’s real.”

Kat let go of him. Her heart was torn in two different places at once. “He did, did he?” She looked down at the floor. She thought about the good part of it. “Well… I’m happy you did. You did a really good thing, Lukas. If we get that note to Maria, and her family, they’ll finally know for sure what happened. They’ll finally be able to move on, and so will everyone-”

“No.”

Kat looked back up at him. “…What?”

Lukas’ eyes kept looking at the screen. “I burned it. I burned all of it.”

In that moment, Kat felt mostly confused. In her mind she felt Lukas must have burnt it while he was upset. That he realized afterwards he had made a mistake, and that’s why he was so saddened now. He was asking Kat for help.

“Well… that’s still alright,” Kat said, in what she thought was an attempt to calm him down. “You still remember reading the note, right? So how about, while it’s fresh in your mind – we go over to Maria’s house, answer all her questions about it, and give her the closure she needs. Just the three of us.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

Kat stood up. “What… what do you mean?”

Lukas stood up to meet her. His face was now turned towards hers. Strangely, he looked at peace.

“All my life I spent letting life happen to me,” Lukas began. “When I was a kid, I did exactly what my mom told me to do. And if my mom wasn’t there, I’d listen to my dad. Or Cole. Or you. But never to myself. And now I’ve realized that it’s cost me a lot.”

He looked back at the projection.

“If I was perceptive, if I was proactive… I could’ve gotten Cole help. I could’ve saved Anita. But I wasn’t good enough for any of that. I wasn’t strong enough. And now, both of them are gone and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Lukas rubbed together the fingers in his right hand. He turned half his face back towards Kat, one side hitting the flickering reflection of the video while the other remained obscured in the shadow.

“But there is one last choice I can make. I can decide Cole’s legacy. I can decide whether people remember him as some sort of monster, or remember him as my – as our – best friend. A person who you could always rely on. Someone who always knew how to cheer you up, to make you laugh. Someone who meant something to the world.”

He turned fully towards Kat now. His entire face was obscured by the colors and motions of the film. Behind him he casted a large shadow.

“He always had my back. So now I’ll have his. I know I won’t be able to convince people either way, but I can make it so that they’ll only ever wonder. I will never let anybody know what I read in that note. I hope you understand.”

Kat took a few steps back.

“No, Lukas, I…” she looked away from him, giving a nervous laugh, hoping the whole thing was some sort of weird joke. “I’ll just tell her then. I’m going to tell Maria and her mom. I have to.”

“And I’ll deny it. It will be your word against mine. Just more rumors – nothing substantial.”

Kat looked at her best friend. She thought she was going to cry.

“Luke… I think this is a really, really bad idea.”

“I love you, Kat. I always will. Everything you’ve done means so much to me. But Cole is-”

“Cole isn’t you, Luke. Whatever he did is not your responsibility. How do you think I felt? Do you think I was just ready and willing to throw all these years in the trash? Cole did awful, terrible things. But just because he was our best friend doesn’t mean we have to take the fall for him.”

Lukas looked down. He shook his head.

“You don’t get it. It has nothing to do with defending Cole. It barely has anything to do with Cole at all. It has to do with taking action. This is the first time in my life where I am making a decision that is mine and mine alone. Nobody told me to do this. Nobody wants me to do this. And nobody did it for me. It’s the first time in my life that I… that I did something that made me a person. And I’m proud of myself. I’m glad I did it. I’ve never felt this way in my entire life.”

Kat was crying now. Her tears began to fall to the hardwood floor.

“Wh-what about the others, Lukas? What about Maria? What about her family? There’s so much more to this than just us.”

“You’re right.” Lukas looked up into Kat’s eyes. His face was stoic. He didn’t waver. “I’m sorry. But this time, I chose me.”

Kat closed her mouth. She shook her head, causing her tears to slide down her cheeks. In a barely audible whisper, she began to speak.

“I thought I knew you. I thought I knew Cole. Turns out I don’t know anyone.”

Lukas said nothing. He just turned back to the projector, sitting down and watching as if nothing happened. Kat stayed for a few moments, watching the memories flicker on the wall. But at some point it was too much for her, and she ran back up the steps.