This Is How It Ends by Jen Nadol

the police aren’t going to figure it out? This is what they do .”
    He looked down, then nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I saw him yesterday, though. Last night.” He looked at me hopelessly. “What if they think . . .”
    â€œMoose,” I looked at him carefully, not even sure I wanted to ask the next question. “Did you do it?” I whispered.
    â€œGod, no!”
    â€œDo you have anything . . . any drugs on you?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œThen be honest,” I said. “What do you have to lose?”
    â€œYou don’t get it, Riley,” he said, shaking his head angrily. “I’m already on probation. For last year?”
    I frowned, but then it came back to me. The girl who’d OD’d. Moose had been involved in that somehow. He’d been out of work a bunch of days after it had happened. It’d been right after first snow, and I’d gotten stuck picking up dead mice almost every time I’d come to work, since he hadn’t been around to take turns.
    â€œI could go to jail if they nail me for anything,” he said. “Basically, I’m fucked.”
    I thought it sounded like he kind of was. “Well, Jesus, Moose, why’d you go up there?”
    He looked at me hard, then shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
    George pushed through the swinging doors, and stopped when he saw us. “Riley,” he said. “The police want to talk to you.”
    I felt a flutter of nerves at how that sounded. And I hadn’t done anything wrong. I couldn’t imagine what Moose was feeling.
    â€œI know this must be hard for you, Riley,” Bob started gently once he’d closed the office door behind us. “You bein’ friends with Natalie Cleary and all.”
    â€œI didn’t really know her dad,” I said.
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou never met him?”
    â€œNot really.”
    Lincoln, who’d been writing notes, looked up. “Either you did or you didn’t. Which is it?”
    â€œWell, I saw him at the mountain yesterday,” I hedged. “Just like everyone else.”
    Bob nodded, like he’d expected that. “How did Natalie seem to you before that?”
    â€œI didn’t see her before,” I said. “She was already with the ski team when I got there.”
    â€œWhat about in the days before?” Bob asked.
    â€œShe seemed fine.”
    â€œReally?” he pressed. “Not worried about anything? Acting strange? Upset?”
    I thought about the bruise on her face. “She was upset on Monday morning at school, but she was fine later on that day. Fine all week.”
    But Lincoln leaned in. “Upset about what?”
    â€œI—” I paused. “I don’t know, actually.”
    Lincoln frowned. “Well, how do you know she was upset? Tell me exactly what happened.”
    He was watching me closely, and my brain was churning through how she’d looked, hair hiding her face. Her reaction when I mentioned the night at the cave. “She was just really quiet in homeroom,” I said. “When I tried to talk to her, she wouldn’t look at me, and then I saw she had a cut on her face. And a bruise.”
    Lincoln’s eyebrows lifted. “Did she say where she got it?”
    â€œShe said she tripped and banged into a wall.”
    He studied me for a minute. “You didn’t believe her.”
    I shrugged uncomfortably.
    He exchanged a look with Bob. “Did she often get hurt like that?”
    â€œSometimes,” I said.
    â€œMore than you might expect?” he pressed. “More than other people?”
    I shrugged again, unsure of the right answer.
    Lincoln exhaled, hard. “Could you help us out a little, Riley?” he said, clearly frustrated. “We’re trying to get a sense of the Clearys’ home life, and I feel like you’re not