"I'm meeting up with Kelly and Gina, and I'll be back."
Vanessa, Kelly Cashwell, and Gina Gentile were a teenage triumvirate, inseparable. They liked sleepovers, dances, and Facebook, this tight trio from a cluster of towns just beyond the runways of Philadelphia International Airport.
Vanessa, 9:28 a.m.: "Kell - where the hell are u going"
Kelly, 9:28 a.m.: "heaven"
These clues, if they may be called that, came from Vanessa's cell phone. The phone she tapped on as she approached a picture-postcard park between her Glenolden home and the Norwood station, 20 minutes away.
It is impossible to know Vanessa's thoughts the morning of Feb. 25 as she set out to join the other two who had cut class. The mind of a teenager is a thing of mystery, a tempest of coming-of-age.
Even more mysterious is what could have driven the three friends to meet on the tracks. That question would leave their community thirsty for answers, loved ones writhing in regret, and people at a distance, people totally unconnected, stunned at such tragic resolve.
Kelly, 9:29 a.m.: "Never forget I love You"
Vanessa, 9:29 a.m.: "I'm going with you, where are u"
Kelly, 9:31 a.m.: "Your too late trains coming now"
Vanessa walked through blue-collar Delaware County boroughs built by 19th-century railroad dreamers as country escapes for the well-to-do, who have long since left. The bedraggled boroughs sit along the Delaware River's once-muscular industrial spine.
Vanessa, 9:33 a.m.: "Where are u?"
Kelly, 9:34 a.m.: "Can't tell you"
Vanessa was hustling toward the Amtrak line, which flows through the towns like a pounding artery. She was sharing secrets, in real time, the way teenagers today confide their impulses and deepest longings: by text. Phone to phone. One hasty, tapped-out whisper at a time.
