Chapter 5

I slept, had a nightmare I couldn't remember, and awoke right when the sun was rising on Ava's floor. My body was freezing cold, dried blood was stuck underneath my fingernails, and I couldn't get that man's face out of my head. The dull sound of the knife seemed to replay over and over, echoing in my ears, warped and distorted. It wasn't so much the fact that I had killed someone that scared me, it was how I felt while doing so. As I stabbed that man to death, I enjoyed it.

Quietly, I got up from my makeshift bed on the floor and left the room, doing my best to keep from waking up Ava. I snuck to the bathroom down the hall and shut the door without making a sound. I stared at myself in the mirror, at the traces of dried blood sticking to my cheeks and my neck. I turned on the sink and ran the water at a low setting. I pushed the cold water across my face and neck. My fingers moved slowly, carefully pulling away all specks of the blood stuck to my skin. And in that moment, I had more time to think, but most of my thoughts were hardly productive at all. What was wrong with me? Why did I feel like that?

I tried to force myself to forget about it, to just pretend as though nothing ever happened. I was always good at pretending---it was a skill long practiced over so many years. A smile and a laugh came easily to me. My eyes never betrayed that there was anything going on any deeper than the surface. So when Ava got up that morning, I smiled as though nothing was amiss. We had fun at the concert, and that was that. I had breakfast with her and her mother and then Ava took me home. I wasn't sure what I was even expecting, but it was still disconcerting how everything was just as it was when I stepped into my house. Nothing changed. My parents still went about their ordinary routine, my father watching me with those lingering eyes and my mother hardly looking at me at all.

For once, it was a real relief to go back to school. To get out of the house, to get out of my head, and especially knowing that I would see Javier again. Knowing that gave me the little sliver of hope I needed to get out of bed and to make myself look presentable. All I wanted was for him to smile at me again.

The day was nothing but a blurry haze. I could barely hear Ava as she talked to me, I could barely absorb any information in class. Everyone was just pushed to the background while I scanned the classrooms for Javier. I knew for sure that I would see him at lunch, and that's what I was counting on. But I watched the cafeteria doors, I watched the table he usually sat at, and he never entered. The hope inside of me was quickly dwindling, but I knew I still had a chance to see him, surely.

Instead of going to class after lunch, I parked myself outside of Javier's locker and waited there in hopes that he'd show up. Sitting there in an empty hallway, waiting through the entire length of class, it didn't do anything good for me. All I managed was sinking deeper into the sludge of thoughts that was my mind, and soon followed the self-degradation. I tried listening to music to distract myself, but I was hardly even paying attention to it.

It didn't matter what I did. The truth was, I killed someone, and I would never be able to escape this.

I was shocked back to reality when someone nudged me out of nowhere. My heart jumped out of my chest, and I was filled with a flurry of emotions, thinking it was Javier, and then looking up only to see that it was Kendall. Seeing her face, it felt as though my insides were being crushed.

I removed my headphones just in time to hear her say, "What's up with you?"

"I'm...I'm waiting for Javier," I said. I scrambled to my feet and brushed the dirt off. "I haven't seen him at all today, so...I thought I would catch him here." I couldn't look her in the eye, and instead found myself focusing on that sparkling necklace sitting just above her collarbone. A shiny chain with a white heart pendant, decorated with white fake pearls on either side. It was symmetrical, just like the rest of her appearance.

"He left during first period," she said in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "I saw him going to the counselor's office, and then when he got out he was getting his stuff."

Hearing that, I immediately looked up. "What? Did---Did something happen? Is he alright?"

The reaction she had to that was somewhat unreadable, but I caught some surprise in her face. After a moment, she smiled a little. "You must really care about him. Are you his friend, or something?"

I felt myself take a step back. I was already slightly curled into myself, and I just felt myself coil away further. "Friend? I guess you could...I guess that's it."

"You must not be very close," she remarked. "I never see you hanging out with him."

I opened my mouth to respond, to defend myself, but nothing came out. Everything she was saying, it started to sting a little more than I thought it should. Far more than I thought it should. Even though I knew it was true, hearing it said back to me felt like the sharp teeth of an animal biting directly into my heart.

Kendall didn't seem to notice, or if she did, she played it off so perfectly. She pushed a lock of hair out of her face as though it was all completely natural. With the way she smiled at me, all it told me is that she was doing it all on purpose. "You don't like him, do you? Like, like-like?"

I couldn't stop myself from flinching. Without the will to confirm what she said, I just looked at the ground and shook my head.

"Oh, good then! I was planning on asking him out on the grade twelve trip in January. He's a really good guy, you know?" She scoffed. "No, of course you'd know that. Everyone does." She twirled a lock of her hair around her fingers. "Anyway, I should probably go back to class. They'll be wondering where I am. Have a good day, uhhh...what was your name again?"

"Marín," I replied, my voice quiet.

"Oh, that's a cute name. Have a good day, Marin!" Kendall waved and walked away, heading down the hall past me. I watched her perfect long hair stream behind her until she turned the corner. I didn't know why, but everything about her made my insides twist up. She made it feel like my rib cage had snapped.

She didn't even pronounce my name right.

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The entire way home, I couldn't get Kendall out of my mind. That tone of her voice, the way she smiled at me as she said things that she knew were eating me up inside. I don't know how she knew, but I was sure of it. There wasn't any possible way she could've done all of that to me just by accident. And what consumed my thoughts soon after was so much anger. Anger that surprised me, anger that scared me. When I thought about the way that pretty necklace sat on her collarbone, I thought about how it would look covered in her blood. My mind was filled with images of cutting her throat open and shoving that necklace down her windpipe. I'd never thought like this before, and while it scared me---terrified me, even---I didn't want it to stop.

I hesitated on the sidewalk in front of my house. I didn't want to be home, but where else was I going to go? With some resolve, I turned around and sat myself on the curb, setting my backpack down next to me. My emotions were like a swirling storm in my head, and I never thought I could ever feel this way. Everything from the face of the man I killed, to the way my parents barely even acted like parents, to the way that Kendall spoke to me in that empty hallway. It felt like everything just popped open inside of me.

Before I realized it, I was sobbing uncontrollably on that sidewalk. I could barely breathe as tears ran down my face, dripping onto the ground and covering my hands when I tried to wipe them away. I choked and coughed on my own short and sharp breaths, I could barely see my own feet in front of me.

As always, it slows down. The tears come more slowly, I'm no longer choking on my own breath, and I can see a little more. Everything pours out of me all at once, and that is soon replaced with a startling numbness, and my head throbbing with a slow, quiet ache. My eyes hurt, I'm thirsty, but my body doesn't want to move. That's how it always goes.

Reality butted its head in once again when I spotted a little white shape running down the street in my direction. I blinked a few times, and then it ran towards me. It was Powder, Javier's dog. She escaped again. She jumped up onto my knees, putting her paws on my lap and trying to lick my face. I instinctively pulled back in surprise. At a loss of what else to do, I just gently pet her, and she seemed momentarily satisfied with that.

A sharp whistle sounded off to my left, followed by, "Hey! Powder, get down!" I turned my head just as Powder got off my lap, and looked to see who she was running to. Javier was walking over, not too far away, and picked up Powder in his arms. He looked at me with a nervous smile. "Sorry about that, Marín, she's just---" He paused. His smile wavered. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

While my instinct was usually to deny this, whenever the question was asked, hearing it from him broke all of my walls down. He made me feel like I should be vulnerable. The way he looked at me, it made my insides feel as though they were melting. Everything I would hide from everyone else, every part of my body wanted him to know. The reason I couldn't quite place, but did it really matter?

I shook my head slowly. "Not really."

Javier hesitated, then sat down next to me on the curb, holding Powder tightly in his arms. "What happened?"

I just shrugged. "I feel like I'm going crazy. Everything in my life is just going wrong, it's all falling apart, I...I don't even know what's going to happen. I don't even know why I still try anymore, it's just---"

He wrapped his arm around me, and my heart raced. "Everything's going to be okay, Marín. I wish there was something I could do for you."

I leaned closer to him, the warmth of his presence wrapping around me. I rested my head against his shoulder, and all of the tension in me started to fade, and then a gentle murmur, "This is a good start."

I heard him sigh, maybe with relief, and I could feel him relaxing too. As we sat there together, I found myself petting Powder, who herself had calmed down and was sitting comfortably in Javier's lap. A moment like this, it was so small, so meaningless, but it meant everything to me. Listening to him breathe while I was wrapped in his embrace, being swallowed up by his scent, all while the street was bathed in the golden light of a setting sun. Why did it take so much pain to get here? Why was it so hard? I felt pressure building behind my eyes again, and I wanted so desperately to keep myself from crying again. Maybe it didn't have to be so hard. Maybe I should've just talked to him to start with, like Ava told me to.

After an extended few minutes of silence, Javier spoke again. "Are you...are you going on the grade twelve trip in January? The one to New York..."

I shook my head. "I don't have enough money. The individual contribution was too much for how much I know my parents would be willing to pay."

He blinked a couple of times, then looked at the ground, petting the white dog in his lap. "Well...My mom is on the school board, and she's chaperoning, so I could get her to hook you up with a scholarship or something, if you want."

We were both petting Powder, and the moment he said this, I stopped paying attention to her at all, and my hand hit his. I looked up at him. "You'd...you'd really do that for me?"

Javier nodded. "Yeah. Anything I can do to help."

I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a hug. "You really are amazing, you know that?"

He didn't say anything in response, but he hugged me back. It was more than I could ever wish for.