Broken Glass: Who Killed Olivia Khan

One

There are days that split your life clean down the middle—before and after.

For me, that day was the day Olivia Khan died.

Seventeen. Gone. Just like that.

One second she was my best friend, my almost-sister, the one person who could cut through all my walls. The next, she was a headline. A rumor. A ghost stuck inside the fluorescent hallways of a school already trying to forget her faster than people could even say her name.

But I didn't.
I couldn't.

Olivia wasn't just anyone. She was Olivia. You don't get to forget somebody like her. She lit up every hallway like she'd been born with a spotlight over her head—loud, warm, wild. She made everybody else look like background extras. People like that feel untouchable, like the universe has some invisible shield around them.

But the universe didn't protect Olivia.
It let her die.
Worse—it let her be murdered.

They said Parker Sun did it.

Parker.

I still can't wrap my head around it. The boy who held my hand while I cried over my dead cat. The boy who knew my middle name, my nightmares, the curse in my bloodline. That boy supposedly stole a life.

It didn't make sense. It shouldn't.

And yet here I am, writing this, still unsure what's real anymore.

Olivia was everything I wasn't. Where I had jagged edges and too many secrets, she had light. She soared on the cheer mat like she was born to fly. I used to sit in the bleachers pretending to scroll my phone but really watching her, mesmerized. She didn't cheer for attention—she was attention. People followed her because they literally couldn't look away.

And her laugh?

It was ridiculous. Loud. Unhinged. Perfect. The kind of laugh that made you crack up even when nothing was funny. She made everything feel like summer.

Even now, when I close my eyes, I can hear it echoing somewhere inside me, trying to survive in a world that doesn't deserve it.

And then there's me. Juliana Johnson. Dead mom. Deader dad. Heart full of knives. I didn't have people. Olivia was the exception. She never treated me like I was broken. She saw me—really saw me—and never looked away.

That's the thing about people like her: when you lose them, you don't just get sad. You get obliterated.

I remember the funeral. Too many flowers. Too many lies. Girls who bullied her sobbing louder than her real friends. Teachers who ignored her now calling her "remarkable." I wanted to scream. I wanted to burn it all down. But I didn't. I stood there, frozen beside her casket, biting my tongue. Olivia hated drama. She would've rolled her eyes at the crocodile tears.

The only one who seemed to get it—truly—was Parker. He stood beside me, hollow-eyed and silent. I remember thinking, he understands. That made me trust him more.

God, I was so stupid.

That summer was a void. A time-stretched wound. The rest of us—me, Jasper, Cameron, Emily, Promise—we turned into ghosts. Olivia's absence haunted everything. Her laugh was missing from every joke. She was the empty chair at our lunch table, the silence in the middle of every conversation.

And Parker? He was still around. Still texting. Still calling me Juju when no one else did. Still the one who knew about my bloodline, the weird stuff I kept buried. I trusted him with that too.

Then came the day.

It started normal—lockers slamming, backpacks swinging, half-hearted jokes. Until a gasp. A ripple of whispers.

Parker.
Handcuffed.
Two cops.
Expression blank.

I swear the hallway stopped breathing.

He looked at me—just me. Our eyes locked like he was sending me a secret message. Then he smiled. Not a real one. No warmth. No guilt. Just a twitch. Hollow. Like he wasn't even there.

I felt the cold snap through my bones.

That wasn't my Parker.

Or maybe that was who he was all along—and I was too blind to see it.

Theories flew like wildfire. A fight? A secret? Jealousy?

But one thing stayed the same: they all said Parker Sun killed her.

And I didn't know what was worse—believing he did it... or believing I never knew him at all.

Either way, this is where it starts. Not with Olivia's death, but with the day I realized nothing in my life was what it seemed.

And maybe? It never was.

I didn't go to class that day. I wandered the halls in a daze, stuck inside the echo of Parker's smile. Everything felt like static. I locked myself in the bathroom stall and scrolled through our old group chats.

The Six.
Me. Olivia. Parker. Emily. Jasper. Promise.
Memes. Dumb jokes. That one photo of Olivia barefoot on the fifty-yard line, wild and fearless.

A picture she'd sent two weeks before she died: glittered up in her cheer uniform, flipping off the camera with the caption:
"Tell the haters I'm built different."

I laughed out loud. Then I broke. Ugly, gut-wrenching sobs that turned me inside out. I missed her. I didn't understand. I didn't trust anyone anymore.

That night, I went to her house. Her mom didn't answer. I just sat on the porch where we used to talk about curses and crushes and futures that felt too far away. Grief makes you believe in ghosts.

Later, Promise called me. Her voice shook.
"Did you see the news?"
"I don't believe it," I whispered.
"Me neither. But, Juliana—he smiled. Who does that while getting arrested?"

She wasn't asking for facts. She wanted confirmation.
"I don't know," I said. "I don't know anything anymore."

But I knew this: I had to find the truth. Not the headlines. Not the gossip. The real story. If Parker was innocent, he deserved someone to believe him. If he was guilty, Olivia deserved justice.

That night, I opened my journal.
I wrote: Find out what really happened to Olivia.
Underlined it. Twice.

Because if no one else was going to uncover the truth?
I would. Even if it meant digging up secrets no one wanted exposed. Even if it meant questioning everything I thought I knew about Parker Sun.

This was where it began.
And I wasn't backing down.

Later that week, I dug through Olivia's locker. Not in some creepy, obsessive way—but because I had to. Because maybe she'd left something behind. A hint. A clue. A final word for the ones who knew her best.

I waited until after school, when the halls were half-empty and the janitor was half-asleep in his office. I still had her combination memorized—22-14-7. Her birthday. Her cheer captain number. Our favorite number from that dumb horror movie we watched too many times.

The lock clicked open.

Inside: photos. Gum wrappers. An old hoodie that still smelled like vanilla body spray and mint chapstick. My chest ached at the scent. Notes folded into triangles. A glitter pen. Her cheer calendar with doodles in every square.

And a notebook. Small. Spiral-bound. Purple cover with the word "STAY" scribbled across it in block letters.

I took it.

I read the first page standing right there in the hall:

"There's something wrong. I don't know what, but I can feel it. Something's coming. I just don't know if I can stop it."

My throat closed.
She knew.

I clutched the notebook to my chest like it was a lifeline. Because maybe it was.

This wasn't over. Not even close. And Olivia? She might've been gone. But she'd left breadcrumbs.

And I was going to follow them—wherever they led.