"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...
Levittown's commercial area October 13, 2018 11:30 a.m.
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HAVE YOU SEEN THE news?
Oct 13, 8:21 a.m.
Buy an issue of LT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
Oct 13, 9:59 a.m.
Guess whos on the front page of LT?!?!?!
Oct 13, 10:10 a.m.
Alexa, DONT look at the news. Stay w/ your dad today.
Oct 13, 10:44 a.m.
U need to come to the diner RIGHT NOW!!!!!!
Oct 13, 11:30 a.m.
I read through my text messages, scrolling up with my thumb until I'm overwhelmed by them. All my friends seem anxious about something written in the newspaper. It takes no genius to know that some new information is known about Melody's case. Everyone appears to know about it, if the constant vibration of my cellphone is any indication of it.
As a tired sigh escapes my lips, I stuff the vibrating phone inside my back pocket. There's nothing in my body that wants to know anything more about Melody's case. At least for now, if there's still more to know.
I've been walking around town in a zombie-like state for the past hour, searching for a solution or explanation in a town that's not going to give it to me so easily. The events of last night have been replaying in my head in a series of hazy images and, like a drunk, I can't tell which of it is fiction and which is reality. It seems like a nightmare to me now that I'm awake to see that nothing in town is different, except for the news.
I'm still trying to process the fact that Christopher, my Christopher, killed Melody. It feels weird to put that thought into the world as it resides in me, a dangerous piece of information that hasn't found its home. By now, he must be long gone. Maybe he's in California right now with his brother or visiting his fucked-up father in some place that's far away from here. Maybe he's hiding in the immensity of the woods, buying himself some time, or hidden away in the place where he disappeared to the summer before this one.
He must be gone, poof, as if he's always been an apparition. Nothing more, just a figment of my imagination. The fucked-up thing is, there's real pain at the thought of never seeing him again. I don't know what that means, though. Is it the pain that comes along when you miss the love of your life or is it the injustice done to Melody?
No, that's not what's most fucked-up. What's worse is my incapability to tell the police, how I hesitate every time I think of going to them for help. I should've done that as soon as I ran out of Christopher's house, but I didn't. Something stronger than me is preventing me from doing so. Whether it's Levittown itself or my own bias, it doesn't really matter.
