"Pretty girls like you get lost in these woods all the time, Alexa."
On the night of Sebastián's annual Beginning of Summer Bash, amiable and adventurous Melody Tryniski went missing. What might have appeared as a juvenile escapade - a casual incide...
Christopher Shaw's house September 24, 2018 4:55 p.m.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THE BAG FEELS HEAVY on my back. It's as if Melody's painting is giving it a couple of more pounds, the lies and secrets and guilt accumulating inside of it, dragging me backwards. My body has become a safe haven for all the dark secrets that lurk in Levittown's dangerous atmosphere; it's a shelter for the confessions of the wicked.
Melody lives inside me through her letters, the words she desperately needed to say in life but preferred to reserve for death cementing themselves in my heart. And Logan with his chilling confession, the notion of what he did out of pure and unrelenting rage settling in my stomach, poisonous and dark. Then there's me, a body composed of images of that night and my horrible betrayal.
Let's have some fun. Forget about her. A kiss. Some bliss. It's done.
My feet pound against the sidewalk, lungs burning with each intake of air. My shoes scrape over the asphalt with each step I take, the raspy sound it produces coming in tune with my ragged breaths. The wind blows all around me, it slaps my skin the faster I run. The houses become blurry lines in my peripheral vision and the world goes out of focus. His house is not so far and yet it feels as if I'm running a marathon, running and running to get to the finish line. My impatient heart is beating hard and a tight, warm pain blossoms in my chest.
I'd tell myself that my body is reacting out of pain, but then I would be lying. It throbs for them, the components of my never-ending guilt.
The sizzling sun is behind me, its rays hot against the back of my neck and exposed shoulders. Sweat forms on the back of my neck in fat droplets that glide down until they reach the waistband of my jeans. My shadow is reflected in front of me, floating among the golden light that bathes the sidewalk. It's a black and distorted mass, morphing into strange shapes that don't embody my form at all.
As I look at its writhing movement, I can't help but think that shadows are the bearers of our dark sides. Our dark selves may need to be separated from us, kept in another reality, some other embodiment, a parallel dimension so as to not make of us sinister and evil beings. Maybe that's why it always follows us, innocent during the daylight and frightening during the obscurity of the night.
Maybe I'm just overthinking things.
I shudder and take my gaze away from my shadow. Christopher's house comes into view, a Cape Cod home with windows flanking the front door, dormer windows up top and cedar shingles. The sight of it makes my heart flutter. My body already knows he's in there somewhere, cooking something to ease his upset stomach or sleeping in until evening. It aches to see him, feel him, breathe him in - my body is his and I wish his was mine only.
My steps come to an abrupt stop in front of his house, and I walk on the little pathway that leads to his front door. My shadow moves along to my left side, its distorted form twisting between the cement lines that create the beige tiles.
