The End, page 10
“We helped each other get away from the square.”
“You said she was angry and upset. Had something happened?”
“I don’t really know. She said people were hypocrites.”
Maria looks up from her notepad. “What do you think she meant by that?”
I glance at Stina. “Tilda was . . . she partied a lot and . . . there were rumors.”
“About what?” Maria asks. “Drugs? Sex?”
I shrug.
“Was there any truth to those rumors?”
A vision of Tilda’s glassy eyes.
One hundred percent fucked up.
I don’t want to land her in trouble when she gets back.
But should I tell the truth? Maybe someone can help her.
“Simon?” Maria says.
Tilda would never forgive me.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Did she think you were a hypocrite, too?”
Did she? Am I?
Shut up, Simon. You’re not exactly a saint yourself nowadays.
“I don’t know,” I say again.
“Why are you asking him these questions?” Stina says. “It’s their business, isn’t it?”
“We’ve been told Simon and Tilda had a fight in the square. Some people tried to intervene.”
Stina turns to me on the sofa. For the first time, I can tell that she’s worried.
The prickling in my fingers spreads to my arms.
“Some guys came up to us,” I say.
Is everything okay? You can tell us. We’ll protect you.
“I don’t know who they were,” I continue. “They were wearing identical windbreakers. Black.”
Anger gleams in Stina’s eyes when she turns back to Maria.
“You know as well as I do that those pathetic citizen militias have an agenda.”
“Yes,” Maria says quickly. “I’m not a fan. I just have to follow up on what they’ve told us.”
She looks at me. Brushes some dog hairs off her jacket.
“They claim you pulled her arm.”
“I didn’t want her to walk away alone. There was so much going on downtown and she was . . . she was pretty wasted.”
“I understand,” Maria says. “Then what happened?”
“We walked into that side street, what’s it called . . . toward the tracks?”
“Gamla kvarngatan?”
“Yeah. We met some friends there. Elin and Amanda, who I told you about. And Ali and Hampus. They wanted us to go to Ali’s for an after-party.”
“So did you?”
“I went there by myself later on.”
“After you and Tilda had parted ways?”
I nod.
“Where was she going?”
“I don’t know. She said she wanted to talk to someone, but she didn’t say who.”
“And you have no idea who she could have meant?”
“No.”
Maria studies me, and I suddenly realize that she doesn’t believe me.
She knows something I don’t.
I’m afraid now. Really afraid.
“When did you arrive at the after-party?”
“I don’t know what time it was. I walked around for a while. Just to clear my head.”
“Did you meet anyone you knew on the way there?”
I shake my head.
I need to get hold of Tilda. She has to say that she’s okay, that she was fine when she left me.
“What were you arguing about at the pool party?”
“Arguing?”
“Yes. You told her she’d be sorry. When you were talking to each other in the changing room. Remember?”
“Yeah. But I didn’t mean it like that, that she’d be sorry. It was more . . . I meant that she . . .”
The skin on my back starts crawling when I realize that Maria and her colleague weren’t in the changing room at that point.
But Elin and Amanda were.
Have they spoken to Maria already?
Is that why no one has responded to my messages all day?
My mind is racing, and I can’t steady myself.
Stina puts an arm around my back. It feels too heavy. Makes it harder to breathe. I twist away.
“I was talking about the comet,” I manage. “I meant that she’d be sorry if she didn’t give us another chance before . . . before it was too late. No one wants to be alone when the world ends, do they?”
It feels like I’m making things worse. Something shifts in the room.
My palms are sticky with sweat. I feel a desperate urge to wash my hands.
“I was drunk,” I say. “I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“Were you angry with her for leaving you?”
“No. I was sad. I missed her.”
“Missed her? You don’t miss her now?”
My mind is racing.
“Simon is talking about how he felt back then,” Stina says coolly. “Since that’s what you were asking about.”
“She was seeing other guys,” Maria continues without taking her eyes off me. “Didn’t that upset you?”
I automatically shake my head.
“Not even when you caught her with another guy in the pool?”
“How do you know about that?” I say before I can stop myself.
Maria doesn’t respond. But now I know that she’s spoken to our friends. Who? And what have they said?
What do they think?
What do people think I’m capable of?
“It sounds like you’ve had a hard time accepting that it was over,” Maria says.
“That’s hardly unusual,” Stina interjects. “We’ve all had our hearts broken, haven’t we?”
“Of course.”
“I think it would be better if you leave,” Stina says, and gets to her feet. “You should be out looking for Tilda.”
Maria’s polite smile is tense. I can tell she’s come to some decision.
And suddenly, I know. But it’s impossible. It doesn’t fit.
I want to run away before she says it out loud. As long as I don’t hear the words, I can pretend that nothing’s wrong.
Afterward, it’s going to be too late.
Maria opens her mouth. My whole body tenses, ready to flee. But I stay seated.
NAME: LUCINDA
TELLUS #0392811002
POST 0013
Dad came home from the hospital and told me.
She’s dead.
Tilda is dead.
I’m staring at the words, and still can’t understand them.
SIMON
We found Tilda’s body this morning,” Maria says.
“Oh my God.” Stina sinks back down next to me on the sofa. “Oh my God.”
I can’t speak. I’m frozen. Even my chest is still. The seconds tick away. It’s like my body has forgotten how to breathe.
“Where did you find her?” Stina asks.
I try to force air into my lungs. Every breath requires effort.
“Someone left Tilda’s body behind the old glass factory over on North,” Maria says. “We don’t know if that’s where she died.”
North Gate—the old industrial park on the other side of the highway. The glass factory is a large box covered in blue corrugated metal. It’s surrounded by stores selling kitchen tiles and cars, a printer’s, a gas station that shut down long before this summer. No one lives there. Hardly anyone passes through it. It’s the perfect place to hide a body.
I hear Stina ask Maria why we weren’t told at once. I hear Maria reply that she wanted to hear what I had to say first. Their voices sound faint. My thoughts drown them out.
Someone left Tilda behind the glass factory.
Someone left her there.
Were her eyes open or closed?
Don’t think about that. Don’t think at all.
“Do you want to change any of your statement, Simon?”
“No,” I say, but it comes out like a whisper.
Stina takes my hand. Squeezes it tightly.
“As I’m sure you understand, getting hold of a medical examiner isn’t easy,” Maria says. “An ordinary doctor has examined her and determined that she’s been dead since the night of the game. She’s still wearing the same clothes.”
Relief pours through my body, releasing it from its paralysis.
“Then it can’t be her,” I say.
“What do you mean?” Maria asks, and I almost want to laugh.
“You saw it yourself. She wrote to me yesterday.”
The koalas. Our koalas.
“You saw our messages,” I continue eagerly. “She’s been in touch with other people, too. It can’t be her.”
What kind of useless police officer doesn’t get it? Why do I have to be the one to explain everything? Why is she subjecting us to this for no reason when—
“We know we’ve found Tilda.” Maria’s words slow and clear. “She didn’t have her phone on her. Someone else has been using it to text you and her friends.”
“But it has to be her. That koala at the end, that was our thing,” I say, and hear how insignificant and silly it sounds.
How could Maria understand the history behind that emoji?
“I understand that it’s difficult to take in,” she says. “But it would be easy to go through her old messages and figure out how to imitate her.”
I shake my head. Start to feel desperate. “Tilda always locks her phone,” I explain. “She’s really careful about it.”
“She unlocked it with a thumbprint, is that right?”
Maria waits. After a beat, it begins to sink in.
Someone took Tilda’s dead hand, pressed her thumb against the screen, and then changed her password. So simple.
My thoughts start racing again. Way too quickly, now. My brain feels electric.
That image of Tilda’s dead hand finally makes my brain process it.
She’s gone.
The whooshing in my ears turns to a roar, then fades to little more than a whisper.
Pulse. I still have a pulse. Tilda doesn’t.
“Then you know it wasn’t Simon,” Stina says. “He received messages from Tilda’s phone.”
Maria looks at me. Seeing if I understand why it doesn’t exonerate me. And I do understand.
“If I’d been the murderer, I would have just sent messages to myself so I could show them to you later. Right?”
Maria’s face is blank.
“That’s what you’re thinking?” Stina asks her.
“First of all, we don’t know if it’s a murder. Tilda was killed by a blow to the back of the head.”
The back of the head.
I see Tilda’s neck before me, her thick hair. It must have been soaked with blood.
It turns my stomach. My mouth fills with cold metallic saliva. I swallow hard.
“It could have been an accident,” Maria continues. “Or manslaughter. There’s nothing to suggest it was premeditated.”
She watches me carefully. I realize that she’s trying to make it easier for me to confess.
Murder or manslaughter, what does it even matter? And even if it was an accident, someone placed Tilda in North Gate. Someone didn’t want her to be found.
“I shouldn’t have let her go.” My voice cracks like I’m going through puberty again.
“Is this an interrogation?” Stina asks.
“Not officially,” Maria says.
“So what is it?”
I look at Stina. If this were an American television show, we would have demanded to speak to a lawyer by this point. But this is real life. And in this reality, there are no lawyers to call.
Maria sighs. “You know our situation. We won’t be able to investigate this properly. I just wanted to find out more. For the family’s sake. And Simon happens to be the last person seen with Tilda.”
Stina glances at me. Is there a hint of uncertainty in her eyes?
Mom. You can’t think it was me. It wasn’t me.
“Simon,” Maria says. “Could I take a look in your room?”
I nod, exhausted. I just want this to be over with.
“No, Maria,” Stina says. “That’s enough. I’d like you to leave now.”
“Mom, it’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t,” she says firmly.
Maria gets to her feet. Boomer raises his head to look at her.
“I really am sorry,” she says.
It’s directed more at Stina than at me. But Stina doesn’t respond. She just puts her arm around me again, and this time, I let her.
Boomer struggles to his feet and shuffles after Maria into the hallway.
I hear the coat being pulled from the hanger again. The door opens and closes. Then I hear the footsteps in the stairwell. Boomer remains standing in the hallway, panting.
Suddenly, I remember Tilda’s eerie, singsong statement—Something terrible is going to happen tonight—and goose bumps spread across my arms.
3 WEEKS, 4 DAYS LEFT
NAME: LUCINDA
TELLUS #0392811002
POST 0014
Now that it’s too late, I realize how much I’ve missed her. I’ve missed her all along. And somewhere, somehow, I’ve always thought we would find our way back to each other again.
I dreamed about her last night. She was waiting for me in the bleachers by the pool. We were the only people there. Everything was dark except the water. Outside the windows, night had fallen. Her face was still marked by her swimming goggles. In the dream, I knew she was dead, but it didn’t matter. I was thrilled to see her.
Everything was quiet. The only sound was the water lapping at the pool’s edge. Even the clock on the wall had stopped. Tilda hugged me. Her cold, wet body pressed against mine, and she held me so tightly the air was squeezed out of my lungs.
She exhaled with me. Nodded once. And then we fell into the water. She wrapped her legs around me when I landed on the pool’s floor, keeping me close. I wasn’t scared. Not until I woke up.
The day has felt unreal. All my movements have slowed down, as if I’m still underwater.
Was she heading to my house when she died? In that case, what did she want from me?
If we’d still been friends, she might not have been out that night. She might still be alive. I can’t stop thinking about it.
Dad stayed home from work today. He knows the doctor who examined Tilda. She died of a fractured skull. She doesn’t appear to have been raped. That should be a consolation. That she didn’t have to endure that, too.
I tried to find out more, but in the end, Dad asked me to stop. That’s when I noticed he was crying.
I haven’t cried yet. I haven’t quite grasped that by the time I’d sent her that message, Tilda was already dead.
SIMON
Ilie perfectly still in my bed. I’ve only been up once to go to the bathroom. I haven’t been hungry or thirsty. I just drift in and out of sleep.
I don’t want to be in a world without Tilda. I just want to stay in this increasingly unreal state.
Occasionally, I take out my phone to read what people have written about her.
Thinking of you and your family.
Heaven has gotten a perfect angel.
See you soon, sweetie.
Poems and song lyrics. Broken-heart emojis. And pictures. Loads of pictures. In the afternoon, new kinds of comments start making an appearance.
Sad, yeah, but not totally unexpected.
tilda wasn’t doing well, she’s been out of control for a while.
As if Tilda brought it on herself. And worse, they’re trying to veil their judgment with concern.
I write to our friends. Johannes is the only one who replies. He promises to come by tomorrow. No one else bothers to get in touch. But I can still see all of them commenting on social media.
They must have seen my messages.
I fall asleep, but wake up when Judette knocks on the door and places a sandwich and a cup of tea on the bedside table. She lays her cool hand against my cheek.
“It feels like you have a fever,” she says.
Roaring voices wake me up later. The room’s dark. Through the window, I can see it’s already evening. I fumble along the lamp’s cord until I find the switch. New howls—an infernal chorus—and I remember: there’s a game tonight. The second semifinal. The voices are coming from the apartment beneath ours. I turn the lights off, put my headphones on, and find a playlist on my phone, raising the volume until my ears hurt. It doesn’t help. I can still hear the voices, real and imagined.
The light from the screen hurts my eyes when I read the new comments on Tilda’s last selfie.
It must have been the ex, he was totally obsessed with her.
I feel cold. I click the unknown account, but it’s locked, so I return to the picture and read the replies:
He always seemed weird.
This from a girl who just started the ninth grade the other week. She was also on the swim team.
Simon would never do something like that.
Johannes is defending me. The person who wrote the original comment replies.
Not like you’re biased, he’s just your best friend.
My heart is beating so hard, I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep again, but I startle awake when the music suddenly goes quiet. I check my phone again. The battery is dead. Light’s coming in through the window, and the bed is way too hot. I take my headphones off and turn around, jumping when I see Stina lying next to me, one cheek pressed into the pillow, her glasses crooked.
The heat is making me claustrophobic. I tear the covers off, accidentally waking Stina up. She casts a confused look around the room.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she says, rubbing her eyes.
“Aren’t you supposed to be working tonight?”
“I took the evening off. I was hoping we could talk about what happened.” She straightens her glasses.
What would I have done if she hadn’t been there when Maria came knocking?
I suddenly want to talk to her. I need to talk to her.
“Do you think I did it?” I hear myself say.
Stina blinks. Props herself up on her elbow.
