Dia kicks a rock and watches it skitter to a halt. He doesn't know how long his been walking for but the school is long behind him. He has no direction or destination. The episode in the hallway seems like a bad dream but it still feels so real that he knows it actually happened.
Behind a black SUV with tinted windows drives by him very slowly. Dia stares at it as it passes and watches it till it's out of sight. He's trying to make sense of what happened. That's the third time he's seen her and the only thing that's clear to him is that all she does is make him feel worse than he already does.
The sun is high in the sky and the heat it's expelling is not helping Dias headache. A police car drives towards and slow to a halt when it reaches him. The window rolls down and a man with a small beard and a bold shiny head stares at Dia. He licks his lips and stares back at him.
The mans stare is intimidating and makes Dia feel very uncomfortable. He opens his mouth to speak but the man cuts him off.
"Dia Floyd" he says.
Dia nods unableto speak. The mans steps out of the car and seeing him in full view only makes Dia more uncomfortable. He's very tall and extremely well built like a wrestler. He's wearing a brown shirt and khaki formal pants that have a gun and handcuffs attached to them.
"I need you to come with me" the mans says.
"Who are you?" Dia asks finding his voice.
"I'm detective Martin with the FBI and I need you to ask a few questions" he says.
His tone indicates that Dia has no choice in the matter. That doesn't stop him from resisting.
"I need to get home. Besides my mom warned me not to talk to any police officers without a lawyer present." Dia says and begins walking away.
The man grabs his arm so hard it makes him yelp.
"I'm not a police office and I'm not asking" the detective says.
...........
The door of the little room detective Martin put Dia in closes. He's been here for only a few minutes but he already wants out immediately. He's seen rooms like these in series with the huge one way mirror and camera in the corner. The desk his sitting on is metallic and cold.
Dia embraces the cool environment, it actually helps his head feel better. The car ride over was silent, the detective sat silent and refused to answer any of Dias questions. Which he had a lot of. The door opens and he steps in.
"You can't just keep me here without my parents knowing" Dia protests.
Detective Martin doesn't even look Dias way when he speaks.
"Your parents have been informed and are on their way here soon. In the meantime you and I are going to have a little chat." He says.
Dia sits back in his chair and folds his arms.
"I'm not answering any questions" he says.
The detective looks him dead in the eye and the false confidence Dias presenting fades away.
"Well that will not benefit either of us" Detective Martin says.
Dia licks his lips.
"I want to help put together the pieces of what actually happened between you and Tori that night"
The sound of her name makes Dias blood run cold. So far no one has explicitly said her name to him yet.
"I thought you already knew what happened" Dia says trying to hide how affected he is.
Detective Martin puts a binder on the table and makes eye contact with Dia again.
"We believe your statement about that night will help us" he says.
Dia takes a breath.
"Well sorry to disappoint but I don't remember. Everything tgat happened 3 weeks before that night is a complete blur to me." He says.
"Well maybe I can help with that" Detective Martin says.
He puts his hands on the table and grabs a notebook from his pocket.
"Can you tell me your name" he says.
"Dia Floyd"
"Dias your full name?"
Dia nods. Martin writes something down before continuing.
"What was your relationship with Tori Valentine?"
"She was my best friend" Dia answers.
"Would you say the two of you were close?"
"We had our differences sometimes, but there is no one in the world I loved and trusted more than Tori"
He notes something down again. He reaches for the binder and lays a picture on the table.
"Do you remember where this picture was taken?" He asks sliding it over to Dia.
Dia looks at it. It's a picture of him and Tori wearing their "red dragons" t shirts smilling with cartoon dragons painted on their cheeks. In the picture they both look really happy and it almost makes Dia cry to remember what life was like before all of this happened. Behind them there's bits of confetti falling and the silouets of people celebrating.
He clears his throat and looks up from the picture.
"I'm guessing at school" he says.
"That picture was taken and uploaded to Toris instagram page three weeks before she died. It was at an assembly your school held to celebrate your lacrosse team winning their last game of the season." detective Martin says.
Dia looks back at the picture and his stomach turns. It feels wierd to look at a picture of himself and not remembering ever even taking it.
"The two of you look very happy there"
Dia nods.
"I guess we were. Tori always loved assemblys like these even though she would never admit it." He says.
But Martin has already moved on to the next photo in the binder. This time it's a picture of Tori alone sitting on the edge of a table her legs open looking over at the side. Toris always been beautiful, it was the first thing people said to her when they met her. Her lips are black and she has a white chocker and black jean shorts.
"That's Tori right?" Detective Martin asks.
Dia nods. He hands him another photo where they've zoomed in on Toris thighs. Dia looks down at it and sees little healed cuts that seem to spread further up Toris thigh.
"What are these?" He asks.
"Cuts. The autopsy revealed that Tori had them all over the more hidden parts of her body"
Martin lays down three more photos of Toris cold nacked body. He's right. She has them all over her lower chest and waist and up and down her inner thighs.
"Was someone hurting her?" Dia asks shocked.
"Due to the stroke patterns and general nature of the cuts the coroner believes they're self inflected."
It takes Dia a second to understand what that means.
"Self harm? You think Tori was cutting herself? That's not possible." Dia looks back at the photos and refuses to believe it " Tori was a lot of things. But she would never resort to cutting herself, it's not the kind of person she was"
"Whats makes you so sure?"
"She looked down on behaviour like this. She said it means your weak and Tori was not a weak person" he says.
"You had a very bad accident last year" detective Martin says.
Dia looks up confused.
"Yeah." He says.
"It seems you were hurt very bad. You want to tell me what happened" he says.
Dia sighs and looks at his reflection in the one way mirror.
"Tori and I were on our way back into town, but the guy who was driving us ditched us at a gas station. They were these boys with motorcycle, they were cute so we asked them for a ride back into town. The guy I was with was going too fast so when he hit a speed bunp I went flying off the bike."
The accident was one of the things that haunted Dia since it happened.
"Your records show that you broke your jaw and arm and you had hairline fractures on one of your ribs"
"It was a very stupid accident" Dia says softly.
"Clearly. You spent three weeks in the hospital and it looks like ypur parents are still paying off your medical fees for it"
Dia looks at the detective.
"How do you even know about that? Doesn't doctor patient confidentiality exist anynore?"
"Your parents filled us in" Martin opens the binder again. "Toris father Herald Valentine is in jail"
"What??" Dia asks "what for?"
"Fraud. It seems he let sone very illegal transactions happen at the bank he worked for in exchange for money" detective Martin says.
Dia looks away his mind racing. Toris dad was always a mystery to him. He used to be around a lot more and he'd even give them rides and buy them stuff sometimes. But for the past 3 years his been absent, Tori barely saw him and when she did she always said he was too tired to pay her any real attention. But now he's in jail for fraud.
"What does any of this have to do with Tori and I" Dia snaps.
Detective Martin puts another photo on the table. This time it's Tori and Dia posing together in front of a bonfire wearing the same outfit. Dia recognises in immediately, it's the same sparkly two piece he saw on Tori that day in the car with his mom and brother. The outfit Dia has on in the picture is exactly the same except his skirt and shirt are purple.
"Where is this?" He asks.
"That photo was taken at a bonfire party your classmate Henry Hale throws every end of year. It was taken the night Chloe died and you were shot"
Dia scans the picture over and over again. They look happy and drunk out their minds. Toris make-up is smudged and Dias shirt is slightly out of place. They pose laughing completely unaware of what is to come.
"Read the caption" Martin says.
'Live together, die together'. Dia has to read it several times. His breathing grows more uneven and he pushes the photo aside.
"What does this have to do with anything?" He asks angrily.
Detective Martin glares at him clearly not amused by Dias attempt at being clueless.
"You want to know what I think Dia-"
"I think you're full of shit" Dia interrupts him. "No matter how bad things got Tori and I would never-"
Once again Dia can't say it.
"Commit suicide" Martin says.
"We would never" Dia says staring him dead in the eye.
"Your parents were deep in debt, you for your accident and Toris father for the crime he committed. Tori resorted to hurting herself but you...you went a step further"
He slams a police report on the table.
"In the last six months you have had 4 drunk driving cases. Your parents have paid more than 10000 in bail"
Dia looks away shame filling his chest.
"I got it under control" he says.
"Really? Because according to Toris autopsy and your test results when you reached the hospital your blood alcohol levels were a lot higher than hers that night."
"That doesn't mean anything" Dia argues.
"I think it means a lot. Just admit it Dia. You and Tori were depressed, you blamed yourselves for your parents money problems. So you both tried to cope as best you could, you with booze and her with a razor. But that night at that party the two of you were drunk..."
As hw speaks Dia begins to remember pieces of that night. Tori and him laughing uncontrollably and the chest burn only alcohol can cause.
"It felt like the problems would never end, so you decided to make them stop. So you walked away from the party-" he drops another photo of Dia and Tori in the background of another photo walking off into the darkness together.
Dia can remember it. He was tipsy and Tori was helping him walk.
"You walked for a few hours dazed and confused. Tori showed you the gun she stole from her father-"
Martin lays down another photo of a gun with a little number written on yellow paper next to it.
"So you both agreed to end the suffering-"
Dia can hear Tori laughing and the sound of stones cracking under theur feet as they walk in the moonlight.
"-the depression the only way you knew how. So when you were far enough away at an old basketball court in the wrong side of town Tori proposed the idea to you. You hesitated at first but soon agreed. Then she pointed the gun at you and fired-"
A BANG! a very loud one that made Dias ears hurt.
"She was afraid so her hand shook and she missed you"
Dia is trying to remember if what he's saying is true, but he can't. It's like a block, a giant walll keeping him from the truth.
"the bullet hit enough of your head for you to fall to the ground." detective Martin continues "Then Tori put the gun in her own mouth and-"
"STOP IT!!" Dia yells getting up and slamming his hands on the table.
Dias head hurts agian and his eyes burn from tears he didn't notice were there till now. But dispite all of this he looks Martin in the eye and speaks with all the conviction he can manage.
"That didn't happen" he says slowly.
Before detective Martin can say anything else the door barges open and Dias mom stands at the doorway. She's extremely angry and alll her anger immediately falls on Martin.
"Dia. Lets go" she says her eyes still on Martin.
Dia walks towards her silently.
"Detective, my son is underage. That means you cannot speak to him without his parent or lawyer present. I would remember that for next time if I were you" Dia mom says and leads him outside.
Once in the car Dia breaks down sobbing like he's a kid again. The tears and cries refuse to be held back. His mom holds him tight and he cries into her shoulder. Behind him he looks back and sees Tori standing at the rear window. She looks more like a reflection than a person.
"What happened to us?" He screams at her.
"I don't know honey" his mom answers as Toris reflection disappears "I don't know"