1987 [BoyxBoy]

Chapter 11 - I Like You, Billy

"I'm not sure if I want to do this. If Brenda had a stalker, who's to say the stalker isn't her killer? What if they come after us?" Denise pleaded, sitting criss-cross on her bed.

Billy and Sarah walked into her bedroom, Sarah holding the box filled with pictures of Brenda. Their personal investigation into what happened to their friend came to a halt when they hit a dead end with Sally and Bradley.

"We could have missed something. None of us looked through these in detail. It's been with me since the morning you and Billy got it," Sarah explained.

"Come on, Denise. You're still a person of interest in their investigation. We have to find something because right now, you're their only suspect. We have to find the actual killer, or at least give them another suspect to look at before they can formally charge you," Billy added.

Denise nodded and gave a simple "ok" and her two friends joined her in sitting on her bed. Sarah opened the box of pictures and each of them took a small stack to scan. They each shuffled through their stacks, noticing a pattern in each photo-Brenda being unaware of the photo being taken. Seeing their deceased friend completely blind to her stalker in the photos left them feeling creeped; as if the same could happen to them.

"Look at this one." Billy held up a photo of Brenda, sitting at her vanity in her bedroom, seemingly writing something.

"There's a lot of them of her in her house," Denise started. "This freak was everywhere. She wasn't even safe in her own house."

"Speaking of freaks, do you know when Peter's coming back?" Sarah asked, garnering a playful push from Denise.

"He said he's coming back on Thursday."

Billy hadn't heard from Peter since the night he kissed him. He barely remembered anything from that night, only what Bradley told him the next day, but he couldn't forget the kiss. It replayed in his head on a loop. He kept trying to convince himself it was the alcohol, but that was the only moment of the night where he felt sober. Peter leaving for a week the day after it happened made it clear how he felt about it.

"Did he tell you where he went, or why he left to begin with?" Billy knew Peter wouldn't tell Denise about their moment, but he wanted to know where Peter was for the last week.

"He went to Virginia. Something about his aunt and uncle needing help or whatever. It just seems suspicious. I think he was getting overwhelmed with the Brenda stuff. I feel bad. He's new here and we roped him into our drama."

"I don't know. He didn't have to help us, so if he's overwhelmed, that's his fault," Sarah insisted.

Denise rolled her eyes at her friend's snarky comment. "Do you just lack empathy?"

Sarah shrugged off her question and went back to shuffling through photos, each being as creepy as the last. None of them could make out any tiny details that could link a new suspect to the crime.

"This creepo had been following Brenda for at least a year." Billy held up one of the photos, showing him and Brenda holding hands walking down a seemingly snowy street. "This was last Christmas."

"This one was at Dominic Anderson's Halloween party," Sarah added, showing the photo she was holding.

"Okay, I am officially freaked. Can we do this another time? It's getting late and I'd rather not have anymore of this in my nightmares." Denise worried, grabbing the photos and putting them back in the box.

"Alright. We can look at the rest tomorrow after school. I'll also bring Brenda's bag." Billy grabbed the box of picture and got off of Denise's bed, getting ready to walk out. "I only found a change of clothes and school books in there, but I didn't really go in depth because I got sad looking at her stuff."