"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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
IT'S BEEN A YEAR since I found Melody's lifeless body lying on a pool of her own blood. A year since her paintings and letters sent me on a quest to avenge her murder. A year since I picked apart my friends, peeling layers and layers of darkness to reveal their true selves. Ten months since Mr. Ellis was arrested. His arrest was supposed to bring justice and comfort, but all it left in its wake was trauma and death.
The full-length mirror stands in front of me. It's the only thing left in a room that was once filled with life and joy. Everything that breathed life into this place is packed inside several boxes, all taped and stacked in my father's trunk waiting for a place in our new life.
I'm wearing my red blouse, the long-sleeved one with a V-neck that I wanted to wear last year for Sebastián's bash. It used to be tight around my torso, accentuating the nice-looking swell of my breasts, putting in full display the embarrassing excess fat around my hips and the small pooch below my navel. I used to hate how it tried to shape my body into the perfect hourglass figure, all for the sake of a slimmer waist. All it did was exaggerate the largeness of my breasts to the point where they looked vulgar and enhance the unflattering parts of my belly.
Maybe I didn't hate the blouse's attempt at a slimmer figure, only its failure to make me look like one of the pretty girls. Girls like Melody, who were thin enough to be models, whose milky white skin turned rosy on summer afternoons, and whose small, perky breasts made them look classy. I've never been one of those girls, couldn't possibly be one of them no matter how much I tried. I've always been too grotesque --- my breasts too vulgar, my hair too big, my lips too full, my skin too dark.
You're beautiful.
Did you really think so, Christopher? I was going to wear this blouse to get your attention, to finally be the girl who was worthy of the heaven that's always existed inside of you.
I do like everything about you. Down to your ugliest secrets. I like the darkness in you.
I still love everything about you. When will you stop hurting?
The blouse doesn't fit me anymore. It's not tight around my torso, my belly so thin that my ribcage is visible under my dark skin. There's no excess fat around my hips, the one that once upon a time revealed that the blouse was a few sizes smaller. The small pooch below my navel has disappeared. My breasts aren't as prominent as they used to be. They went from full Ds to small Cs in less than a year. They don't look as vulgar, I guess. The blouse is just filled with empty spaces, hollow fabric. My belly is lost in its redness, my breasts hiding in the cleavage, no longer wanting to burst out.
The blouse went from exposing my fullness to revealing where I lack, but that hasn't stopped me from wearing it every once in a while since the murders. It has nothing to do with beauty and everything to do with keeping Melody close to me. She wore it on the night of her disappearance and had it on when she came back. If I had known she was going to get murdered a few weeks after, I wouldn't have washed it. Still, her fruity and flowery scent lingers on it. There are a few holes here and there, and some parts are lightly ripped, but this blouse is what comforts me on the nights where sleep seems like an impossibility. Wearing my momma's gown and hugging Christopher's sweater provides the same comfort.
