The Photograph
566 Words
Zara couldn't stop thinking about the figure behind the science block.
Someone had been watching them.
Someone who had another photograph.
And judging by the look on Jayden's face, that photograph mattered.
They walked back toward the main building without speaking.
Jayden kept looking over his shoulder.
Zara noticed.
“You're worried.”
“No.”
“You've looked behind us five times.”
Jayden sighed. “Okay. Maybe a little.”
“A little?”
He gave her a tired smile.
“You notice everything, don't you?”
“Usually.”
They reached the classroom, where a few students were still packing their things.
Jayden stopped outside the door.
“Don't mention what happened today.”
Zara folded her arms.
“You're really bad at asking people to keep secrets.”
“I know.”
“And you're not telling me everything.”
He looked at her.
“I want to.”
“But?”
“But I don't know who I can trust.”
Before Zara could respond, Jayden's phone buzzed.
He checked it.
A message.
His expression immediately changed.
“What happened?” Zara asked.
He turned the screen toward her.
There was only one sentence:
You should have left her alone.
Zara's stomach tightened.
“Who sent that?”
“Unknown number.”
She looked at him.
“Are you scared?”
Jayden stared at the message.
“I don't know.”
That answer frightened her more than anything else.
The next morning, the school felt completely different.
Whispers followed Zara everywhere.
By break time, another rumor had started.
This time, people weren't saying she and Jayden were dating.
They were saying Zara had helped Jayden steal the fundraiser money.
She stood frozen in the hallway as several students walked past her, whispering.
Amie hurried toward her.
“Zara!”
“What is happening?”
“I don't know.”
“Everyone is looking at me like I did something.”
“I know.”
Amie grabbed her arm gently.
“Come with me.”
They went into an empty classroom.
“Who started this?” Zara asked.
Amie shook her head.
“Nobody knows.”
Zara sat down.
“This is because of Jayden.”
Amie went quiet.
“What aren't you telling me?”
Zara looked at her.
For a moment, she considered telling her everything.
The note.
The photograph.
The warning.
But she remembered Jayden's words.
I don't know who I can trust.
“I can't,” Zara said quietly.
Amie looked hurt.
“Okay.”
She walked away.
Zara immediately regretted it.
But before she could follow her, someone slipped a piece of paper under the classroom door.
Zara picked it up.
Her hands trembled as she unfolded it.
There was a photograph inside.
It showed Jayden standing outside the fundraiser room on the night the money disappeared.
But that wasn't what shocked Zara.
In the corner of the photograph stood Amie.
Zara stared at it.
Her heart sank.
Amie had told her she knew nothing.
So why was she there that night?
And why had someone gone to such great lengths to make sure Zara saw this particular photograph?
For the first time, Zara wondered if the person she trusted most might know far more than she had admitted.
And somewhere across the school, Jayden was receiving a message of his own.
She knows about Amie now.
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