Epilogue

Graduation took place on a sunny May afternoon. Everyone attended as usual, like they did every year. Smiling faces, families celebrating, every student dressed in a cap and gown that shimmered under the sunlight. Of course I went to graduation. It wasn't as though I couldn't. But it got under my skin, the way everyone was pretending as though nothing happened. The way they smiled like two of their students hadn't been brutally murdered and the third sent to a psychiatric hospital. Only a week for mourning, then everything went back to normal. No one really liked to dwell on these sorts of things. Write about it in the paper, put yourself at the center of the issue:

"No way! I went to school with those girls!"

"That was my daughter's best friend!"

"I used to go to that school, imagine if that happened while I was there."

No one really gets it. Even so, it never fails to make me sick. They don't want to be anywhere near this. They shouldn't want to be at the center of it all. If so, then I wish they were there, staring at Kendall's mutilated corpse right alongside me. I couldn't get it out of my head. The way her lifeless eyes stared up at nothing, her lips slightly parted, as though she wanted to say something but could never get the words out, the open gashes that were visible through her torn shirt. I would wake up in the middle of the night, sick to my stomach, unable to get any real sleep.

After that night, I was never the same. Everyone could see it in me, I could see it in myself. Even on my worst days, I'd never had the faraway look in my eyes. I was never so motionless where people started to think I'd gone completely catatonic. I was never so miserable that I couldn't even sleep to get away from my problems. In all of my life of having depression, it had never gotten to this point, where my misery was so obvious I couldn't even hide it from myself.

When the police and ambulance arrived, Marín didn't try to run away. Maybe it was because she literally couldn't, with all of the pain she was in, but when she looked at me, I could see it in her that she didn't even have the will to try. Never in my life had I ever driven a knife into another human being, and I regret it every night that I did. I didn't need to know what it felt like. I didn't need to hear the dull thud of it penetrating her flesh and hitting her bone, and the sickening squelch as it squeezed out the blood inside of her.

I wish I knew what was going on inside of her head. Even in court, when she described her motivations, it didn't make sense to me. I couldn't make myself understand the kind of state she was in that would make her kill anyone. But again, what did I even really know about her? She was a shy girl, who used to sit alone at lunch and watch me from a distance. Even when she got herself a friend, she still watched me, as though I would disappear when she looked away. Every time she spoke, she lit up with so much joy that couldn't be matched by anyone. And then, on that frigid rooftop, she told me she was in love with me.

I couldn't help but wonder how much of it really was love.

I sat alone at graduation. My friends had long since stopped talking to me after everything had taken place. The way they looked at me told me everything they were thinking. They didn't know what to do with me. They didn't know how to be around someone who barely looked alive anymore. They didn't want to bother dealing with all of the misery that had killed me. I drowned out everything that was being said around me. I pulled at the loose threads in the tears in my jeans, open over my scarred knees. That scar on my hand was more distracting than it had ever been. It had faded to be a little less noticeable than it used to be over the years, but after everything that Marín had said to me, it felt like it was brand new again. I felt more inclined to hide it when I could. All of those feelings from seventh grade resurfaced, as though I was still a wimpy twelve year old.

After graduation, I just went home. No after parties for me. But when I got home, I remembered I'd still have to deal with my parents, checking in with me, asking all sorts of questions that I didn't have any answers to. So as soon as I got out of my cap and gown, I attached the leash to Powder's collar and took her on a walk through the neighborhood. I didn't even make it halfway down the street before I stopped in front of Marín's house. It was hardly voluntary---it was like a silent command that ran through my body whenever I walked past it. The police tape from so many months ago was still clinging hopelessly to the front porch, faded and waving in the wind. They didn't let anyone go into the house after the murders happened. I wished that I could've gone in, learned more about this girl, but that wouldn't ever happen, not with the way things went. For as long as I ever lived, Marín would be a complete and utter mystery to me, and I had to put up with it.

As I continued walking, I considered again all of those smiling faces at graduation. I would see even more of those happy people out in the world. None of them would know what really happened. They'd move on, leaving it as a historical event in the long empty history of this pathetic little town. And maybe that's what I should've been doing, too. Pretending like nothing happened and moving on with everyone else. After all, time didn't stop for anyone.

I looked down at Powder, her short dog legs skittering across the pavement, her tail wagging in the warm afternoon sun. She was so cute and clueless, and all I could think was how much I envied her.