The Always Untimely Death of Jessica Lee

Chapter 1 Bette Davis Eyes

It's been a year since my best friend was murdered. Crazy right? You're probably thinking "this girl is all shades effed up" well I am; I used to be totally normal. By normal, I mean as normal as any hormonal teen girl could be. When Jess was around I was at the top, she was the it girl and I was the it girl's friend.

It's a little bit of a shocker to most people that Jessica was friends with someone as uncool as me. I stayed home practicing embroidery and g-minor on the harpsichord while Jess threw parties and was the talk of the gossip mill. She was a little bit of an enigma to people, except me. She told me everything.

"Erica!" I heard a shrill voice yell from behind me.

Ah, of course. I could recognize that nails-on-a-chalkboard-like voice from anywhere. Lily Rose Kane, though she doesn't use her last name anymore and just goes by Lily Rose. Unlike what the name suggests, she isn't very sweet. She wears enough perfume to cause everyone a headache and wears enough makeup to make me genuinely shocked it isn't actually a mask. She was friends with Jess too, not like how her and I were, but they were friends.

"Ms. Mars needs to see you." Lily said before taking her seat in class with no explanation.

Ms. Mars is my school's guidance counselor. She isn't very sunshiny and doesn't give a whole lot of guidance. She's more of a tough love kind of person. She's a recent a divorcée and drinks whiskey from her coffee cup, she probably needs more guidance than me. That being said though, she's one of the very few adults at this school who haven't pestered me about how I was feeling 24/7 and she's kind of my favorite teacher these days.

I knocked gently on the door of the guidance office when the door slowly opened. Ms. Mars was sitting at her desk staring at files, on closer inspection I could see Jess' yearbook photo in the corner of it. She looked up from her desk rapidly as if she had sensed my presence.

"Ah, Erica, sit down." She gestured to the seats in front her.

I sat down uncomfortably, not completely due to the fact of the scratchy fabric on the cushion, but because authority figures always make me nervous. I lifted the sleeve of my sweater and began to scratch my wrist.

It was quiet. Not one word from either me or Ms. Mars. We just stared at each other, neither one of us wanting to do this. "So-" Ms. Mars piped up. "-we're gonna have to talk about this eventually."

"I don't want to." I simply said, tuning my head to stare outside of the window. A single leaf was blowing through the breeze.

"Trust me, neither do I," Ms. Mars paused. "I'm not gonna tell you I know what you're going through, but I can tell you that if you say at least one word it might help."

"I-" I try to think my words over carefully. "I feel numb." I don't think it's the truth, as much I wish it was.

"Are you sure about that? It's the anniversary, it's ok to feel things. I mean, you have to be feeling something."

The word 'murder' plays over and over again in my head. It's funny how a word can sound so foreign when said over and over again. I looked up at Ms. Mars before she let out a long sigh and looked down, beginning to hold her head.

"You can go. I want to meet with you again next week, you're not escaping me this easily." Ms. Mars said, looking back up with a weak smile.

I quickly got up and exited the office. That was a whole lot of nothing. A big contrast to when we all found out Jess dead. I sobbed for what felt like months. The one person who like understood me is gone, forever. I know that sounded cliche teen girl, but sadly the teen part just slips through.

In my family, we suppress bad feelings. We don't about talk about anything controversial, we're afraid of confrontation. My mom won't say no to any sales person badgering her because she doesn't want to be 'difficult'. Though, I can attest to doing the same. I guess I can't blame my family, I get why they don't want to feel like they're inconveniencing anyone. The McConnells are a family of doormats.

I droned through the halls, a million thoughts swirling around my head. Mostly thoughts of Jessica, walking down the hall with her perfect hair flowing behind her as she walked to second period looking like a supermodel. Her dark eyes would be shining and be staring through my everything.

I kept thinking about this time Jessica was staying over at my house, one of the last time I saw her. My parents weren't home because they had gone skiing with their couple friends. I was scared, and it was like Jess somehow knew. She had shown up to my door with a sleeping bag. She was wearing these sleek silky pajamas that were way too pretty for any human to sleep in. She invited herself in, which was normal of her to do, she practically lived at my house when her parents weren't home. Both of her parents worked really demanding jobs that made them both of them to either be out of state or work late hours. I often wonder about how they felt when they got the call. About how they felt to know their only daughter was massacred.

Later on in the sleepover, we were dancing and things escalated from there. Jess' favorite song was on.

"Her hair was Harlow gold, her lips were a sweet surprise!" Jess sang along to the words as she twirled around, her brown tresses bouncing back and forth.

She reached her arms out and tried to pull me up to dance with her, but I stayed slumped in the dough like couch cushions.

"Ugh, I swear, one day life is just gonna pass you on by the longer you stay on that couch." She prodded.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying you...sort of only just...I don't know what I'm say."

"Come on, tell me, whatever it is I can probably take it."

"Fine," She sighed. "All you do is stay at home and if you haven't noticed, I'm kind of your only friend. You never put yourself out there." Jessica had avoided all eye contact with me.

"That's not true, Josh and I hang out sometimes."

"He doesn't count, your parents forced you to be friends with him," She had started to look me in my eyes with her intense stare. "I'm not gonna be with you forever, and you need to start realizing that."

It was like Jess knew she was gonna leave my life forever. She had already planned to ditch me. I feel my composure start to linger and the tears immediately start well up in my eyes.

In my blurred vision, I could see the silhouette of a certain obnoxious Greek god. I know it's an odd way to describe him but is a Greek god through and through, personality and all. Bradley Parker was one of the most self absorbed, arrogant, human being I've ever had this displeasure of knowing. He dated Jess. It pains me to think about their relationship, but jerks were Jess' type.

I tried to avoid any and all eye contact with him, I can't deal with any more today. It would be the icing on top of a perfectly craptastic day.

I decided to stop at my locker before heading back to class. At this point, I was just trying to avoid going back to class at all. I struggled a couple of times to get it unlocked, I barely use it and just usually put everything in my book bag. I love back problems.

I finally here the click of the lock and open my locker door, watching a note flutter out and on to the ground. I knelt down and flipped the piece of paper open. I wish it would've said "Check yes if you like me" but sadly, this isn't one of those stories.

What it said made me want to puke. It made me want to jump out of a window and break all of my limbs.

"JESSICA IS DEAD, AND IT'S YOUR FAULT."