Leo Blue POV
The years just move on slowly and the days are creeping by quickly, and I could tell you for a fact that when I first met Kopelyn at that pool, I had no clue in the slightest that she would end up living at the Blues house in Tennessee for the next four weeks.
As I sat a read the Spanish dictionary on the back porch, Kopelyn always sat quietly on top of the picnic table, drawing in her draw book, because that's her thing.
Even though I tried to study, I was looking at Kopelyn. Just like the blistering sun, she drew my attention, but I couldn't look away for very long. "Hey, Kopelyn, do you think your parents miss you?" I ask, almost out of nowhere. "Where are they?"
"I don't know." She answers simply.
"How? How don't you know?"
She puts her book down and looks at me. "There's something that I have to tell you about them. Just remind me later."
And then THAT was the very last time Kopelyn mentioned her parents.
Kopelyn stayed with us until school started again, were she had to return to her home which apparently is in Salt Lake City. I know that's located in Utah. She actually traveled herself through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri from various cars, or airplanes, or something. She describes things very vaguely, so I'm really unsure.
It was now a Sunday in September. My Dad was driving across the US. Kopelyn and I were in the backseat, doing absolutely nothing. Well, she was actually drawing again. Her face was, I kid you not, two inches away from her paper. She's clearly not going to talk much, so I started.
"Kopelyn!" I say.
"Kopelyn." I repeated.
"Oh, hi Leo."
"Are you ready to see your parents? I mean, I don't blame them if they get mad at you. You really betrayed them."
Kopelyn finally turns her body to face me. Her eyes conflicted in fear. "...... My parents are dead." Just then, Dad slams the breaks, so I quickly look behind me just to be sure that the cars behind us are far enough away.
The car started moving again. I look back to Kopelyn, and she was drawing again. "Hey, I thought that they were alive! Kopelyn, you said this whole thing about how want want you hospitalized!"
"They did want me hospitalized. They really wanted me hospitalized."
"........So, then that part is true then?"
"Yeah."
"How are they dead?"
"You are not going to believe me." She says wearily. I could look in her eyes and know that she can not be making this up, but I've seen crazy sh*t go down, no matter what she says, she couldn't be bullsh*ting me.
"Please, Kopelyn, you have to tell me the truth."
"I killed them in my sleep."
"How?"
"I found them on the floor of the kitchen. I unconsciously murdered the life out of them." Then in a whisper, she murmured, "I slit their throats."
My jaw actually dropped. "No."
"Yes!"
"You're telling me this now?"
"Well, yes, I didn't trust you before."
Okay, understandable. I can't be mad at her for that, it would be unwise.
"That's okay." I said calmly.
"No, it's not okay. Both of my parents, and my four older sisters are all dead on the kitchen floor."
"Really Kopelyn? Why did you leave them there?"
Kopelyn looks out the window, then back at me grumpily. "I ran away."
"But why?"
"Because!"
"Because why?"
"I'm not sure!"
She was starting to panic a little bit, her fingers messing with her long and pretty hair.
"Well, you know, get back to your house, fix your mistakes! How hard could that be?" I say cheerfully.
"I don't know. The world will just assume that I'm some sort of hellish demon creature of the night."
"You'll be okay, I promise!" I reassure her.
Oh my God. Kopelyn will have to try to get out of this herself. What's even worse is how the hell is she going to explain herself while she was unconsciously murdering in her sleep.
"This," Kopelyn points to her black eye, "It wasn't even a doorknob. It was my Father trying to wake me up when I was talking in my sleep. Really loudly."
I almost stopped breathing. My Dad who was driving the car, actually listened to everything. Kopelyn finally noticed too, and her eyes opened up wide with panic. Dad looks at us from the rear view mirror. "Don't worry, Kiddo, your secret if safe with us."
Kopelyn looked at him in shock, but didn't say anything.
"Actually," Dad continues, "My late sister Alexis Blue-"
"Yeah, nobody wants to hear the story of Alexis Blue." I interrupt quickly. I hate the Alexis Blue story. Only my Dad talks about her anyway, mostly when someone mentions sleep walking.
"Yeah, my sister Alexis used to have nightmares, sleep paralysis, sleep walking problems when she was just a kid. Her episodes got worse, even dangerous throughout the years. She used to go into the kitchen and sing songs, and sometimes act out random scenarios. She was always a performer, so that made sense, but she started eventually getting so extreme at them that she started pulling out knives and running down the street holding it in the air."
Kopelyn suddenly sat up. "Wait, what happened?" She asks in shock, rather than suspense.
"No, this story is not very good." I interrupted again.
"She disappeared at one point where we never found her again. We think she might've killed herself on accident." Dad says simply, "Besides her weird nighttime episodes, she was a normal girl. Two years older than me, a little snarky and deceiving, but a relatively good and smart person."
Kopelyn sat back. "Well that's weird." She sighed.
We ended up dropping Kopelyn off near her house, where she insisted that she'll hide the bodies and continue her journey.
"You know, I don't think that her journey is really a journey." I whisper to Dad the minute he closes the door. "I don't know, she might be in trouble now." He says slowly. As he drives away, Kopelyn waves to me one last time and runs the other way to her house. Her long swoopy hair bouncing I'm the autumn breeze.
"I miss her." I say bitterly.
"Already?" Dad asked, laughing.
Kopelyn is now alone on her own, going against the universe in a dishonest way. All I know if that I still believe in her. She'll be free of nightmares and sleep paralysis someday.
The rain began to fall, my Dad because to swear at it, and know I have to live pretending that Kopelyn and I being in the woods, watching Sugar Plum die, eating our dreams into actual sugar plums. All of that now has to be an old fake memory, before I convince myself that I could actually shoot magic out of a broom and murder people.
Anyway, I can't believe that Kopelyn left her drawbook in the back of the car.
Author's note: Yeah, of course I separated these two! Stay tuned!!
