A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

Piper and her family moved after everything happened. I don’t
remember them living there. As far as I know, that’s always been old
Mr. Murphy’s house. But Dad said their house was on the market
within five days of Mom being dead. They didn’t go far ’cause Piper
is still at the same school as me. They stayed in town, just on the
other side of it, where they didn’t have to look out their window and
be reminded that bad things happen to good people every day. It’s
like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. All the time, we’re closer to disaster
than we think.
I asked Dad to put our house on the market, too. I wanted to get
up and go. I wanted to start over somewhere else as someone new,
where no one had heard of Mom and you.
Dad said no, because what if you came back and couldn’t find us?
As long as you were gone, he would never leave. Time stood still in
your absence.
To be straight, Piper Hanaka and I are not friends. Piper Hanaka is
way too cool to be my friend. In case you didn’t realize it by now, I
have no friends.
That said, Piper Hanaka doesn’t want to see me get expelled for
punching some douchebag in the face. She stands in between him
and me until I back down and leave.