I wake up in a cold sweat at 3:17 a.m. Today is my daughter’s first day of her senior year. It pains me that Jennifer is starting her last year of high school. I feel like we don’t spend any time together anymore, but I have been so slammed at work. I slip out of bed quietly and go down the hall to Jennifer’s room. She’s not in her bed.

I run downstairs to where I last left my phone. Why is she not in her bed? She has never snuck out before. I scramble over to the kitchen counter, prepared to call her and then 9-1-1. Will I have to put out an Amber Alert? What was she wearing the last time I saw her? I’m sure I’m going to throw up, but I don’t have any time, and why is my phone not turning on-

“Mom?” I whip my head around so fast I’m sure I have whiplash. I drop my phone and run over to where Jennifer is sitting at the kitchen table. She is in her robe and pajamas drinking a glass of water.

“Sweetie, you scared me! Why are you sitting down here in the dark?” My voice is getting higher and higher pitched. Jennifer shrugs, oblivious to the Usain Bolt pace of my heart.

“I couldn’t sleep, and I was thirsty. Good night, Mom.” She kisses me on the cheek and pads up the stairs. My heart starts to slow down, eons later. I head back up to bed, but I know I won’t be able to sleep.

  A few weeks have passed, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table working on a mountain of paperwork. Jennifer sits down across from me. She tucks her hair behind her ear and clears her throat.

“Mom, I have something I really need to talk to you about.” She’s looking at her lap and is playing with the bracelet on her wrist.

“Honey, I’m sorry. I don’t have time right now. How about we talk later?” She opens her mouth to say something else, but Daniel shuffles in, all in a bustle. He looks back and forth from me to Jennifer.

“Jennifer, you should get going. You have your date with Jordy tonight. You don’t want to be late.” Jennifer pushes back from the table so fast her chair tips over. She storms out and says over her shoulder, “You would know all about having dates, wouldn’t you, Dad?” She slams the door and speeds away in her car.

It is now 1:30 a.m. Jennifer’s curfew is 11:00. I have been waiting up for her, so we could talk. She hasn’t come home from her date. Daniel got home half an hour ago, saying something about working late and going to bed. He absentmindedly kissed me on the head and closed our bedroom door. All of a sudden, I hear a knock on the door. Who on earth would be here at this hour? I open the door to two solemn-looking police officers. My heart stops. This is not my life. I blink and clear my throat.

“May I help you, officers?” I say with trembling hands. The two look at each other, having a silent argument, until one of them speaks. “We are so sorry, ma’am. We have found a dead body in the river with multiple stab wounds, and we believe it is your daughter. We need you to come down to the station and identify the body.” I am numb inside. I will go down to the station and tell the officers that they are mistaken, because my daughter is not dead. She is just out later than usual. I walk down to the squad car in my pajamas. Everything will be okay. It has to be.

  It is Jennifer. She is wearing her bracelet Jordy gave her. But her face, so purple and blue already, doesn’t even resemble her. I collapse. The police take me to a conference room, while they call my husband. He gets there and sits next to me, anger burning his face.

“Why would Jennifer have been at the river, in the first place?” He says to me, banging his fist on the table. I ignore his question, because nothing else matters. Nothing will ever matter, until I found out who did this to my daughter.

The next day, I wake up and head back to the police station, where they already have three suspects in custody. How could more than one person want to have hurt Jennifer? I sit down and listen to the investigators interrogate Jordy, her best friend Sherry, and some other girl who is vaguely familiar. The investigators start with Jordy, who has a large bruise on his forehead and a black eye.

“I swear I would never have even hurt Jennifer. I loved her so much. After we went to dinner, Jennifer said she wanted to walk down by the waterfront to talk to me. We were walking when all of a sudden, someone punched me in the back of the head. I fell to the ground and Jennifer screamed. He punched me in the face, and again in my eye until I was unconscious. When I woke up, I was alone and there were police sirens going off down by the end of the river. I walked down there, where I saw Jennifer. It was already too late.” He finishes the last part with tears dripping down his face. He would have never hurt her. His story adds up, so why is he here? The police are looking less suspicious, but they pull out Jennifer’s phone. They scroll through her texts and find a conversation she was having with Sherry.

“Are you claiming that you never knew Jennifer had planned on breaking up with you last night?” Jordy looks dumbfounded. That is evidence enough for the police and they release Jordy. They then turn to Sherry.

“Jennifer was like my sister. I loved her, and I would have never laid a hand on her. We had been fighting lately, but that doesn’t mean I would have killed her. I was angry, because she was just accepted into Stanford, and I was waitlisted. We didn’t speak for a week, but when we started speaking it was really tense. She told me she was going to break-up with Jordy, and that she was dealing with some personal stuff right now. She said that she needed some space for the time being, and that was the last time we spoke.” The police cover her and her parents’ alibis about where she was last night. She too, is released.

We all turn to the third girl. She is small and mousy looking. I look at her necklace. Patricia. I recognize her, then. Her mother, Josephine, works with Daniel. He starts to fidget and looks uncomfortable. I squeeze his knee. This must be really awkward for him.

“I did not kill Jennifer. I may have wanted to some days, but believe me, I didn’t have the guts. She was horrible to me. She was a bully. Everyone thought she was so nice, but she was attacking me on social media. She would push me in the hallways, and she wrote horrible things about me in the bathroom. I don’t know why she suddenly hated me, but she has been bullying me all school year.”

The police look at us apologetically. Patricia has an alibi for where she was last night, and her family proved it. They have to release her. I give a sob, and head home. Daniel tells me he has an errand to run and will be home later. I go up to Jennifer’s room. I see a notebook sticking out of an overstuffed drawer. I should have made more time for her. I’ll never know what she wanted to tell me last night. I go over to her dresser and pull out the notebook. It’s her diary. I read her last entry, from yesterday. I run over to the phone. I call the police. This changes everything.

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” I nearly drop the phone my hands are shaking so hard. I have to tell. He cannot get away with this. I will not let him.

“I think my husband killed my daughter, last night.”

I’m taken to the station where the police have taken Daniel into custody. The police read over what Jennifer wrote. Dear Diary, tonight I am going to tell my mom. I know it will hurt her, but she has to know Dad is cheating on her with Patricia’s mom. Ever since I picked up his phone by mistake a few weeks ago and saw Josephine’s number on there, I have felt sick. College doesn’t matter. Jordy doesn’t matter. I have to tell Mom. When I get home from breaking up with Jordy I will tell her. I confronted Dad a few weeks ago about it, and he threatened me to not tell Mom. He slapped me and told me he will kill me if I tell. I know he’s bluffing. There is no way that I can’t tell her. Wish me luck, Jennifer.