She told me

Chapter 17

The church is filled with people, dressed in dark and somber colours. Travis may have been a weirdo, but he was a popular weirdo. There were a bunch of people wailing in the front and I could see his father blinking away tears and holding onto his wife who was looking a little shell shocked. I briefly wonder if that was how my parents would look at my funeral if they even bothered to make it. I push that thought away. My parents may be absent most of the time, but I knew they loved me or at least I was pretty sure.

I am suddenly aware of Cory's presence near my shoulder. "Do you think they're here?" he whispers.

"Probably" I say, "apparently murderers like to see the products of their crimes".

Cory shudders, "I don't think I want to be here anymore".

"You're safer in a crowd" I reassure him, "hey do you think the murderer let their victims see them before killing them?"

"Why does that matter?"

"It doesn't" I admit, "I was just curious, if you were killing someone for revenge, wouldn't you want them to know that it was you? So, in their final moments, the last thing they see is the person they wronged?"

Cory looked like he was going to be sick, "if you were on the hitlist, I bet you wouldn't be thinking of all these grisly details".

"Sorry"

"They didn't wrong anyone though" Cory says suddenly, "Kevin gave Valerie those drugs and then left her to die".

I frown as a sudden thought strikes me, "why were you a witness? What exactly did you see?"

"My testimony wasn't what got him convicted, I just corroborated Karen's story. She said she saw the deal go down before she left, Travis found Valerie and said he saw someone who looked like Kevin running away and I did see Kevin leaving the grounds a few minutes after Travis said that he had."

"And what did Kevin say?"

"Nothing really, they found drugs at his house too, so the case was pretty much a slam dunk" he paused, "Mia was the only person who thought he was innocent, I think even his mom was pretty torn up about it but wasn't really sure if he was innocent or not."

"Huh"

"It sucks that it is her, I know you liked her but dude if your girlfriend's a murderer she has to be put away before she hurts anyone else."

"She's not my girlfriend" I mumble.

The priest says the final prayers, and everyone starts moving to the cemetery for the burial. I hang back, a little unsure of what to do. I've always been insanely creeped out by cemeteries not to mention that I don't think I'm prepared to see mud being thrown on Travis' coffin. He was the only victim I knew personally and every time I looked at the coffin, I was reminded of the fact that Mia could have been responsible for this. She could have been the reason Travis wouldn't be in class tomorrow or ever.

"Are you coming?" Cory asked.

"No, you go ahead" I reply, "just stick with the crowd".

"You good bro?"

"Yeah" I force a smile, "I just have something I need to do".

He nods and follows the group of people taking Travis on his last journey while I sit in one of the pews, trying to think of a good course of action. Regardless of everything that happened, I can't imagine Mia being a murderer. She's a weird girl with her dark jokes, her callous attitude, her hatred of almost everything, her way of going about her business and not letting anyone know the real her. But she'd let me in, she'd let me see her loyalty to the people she cared about, her willingness to go out of her way to protect the people she cared about, her sarcasm laced with genuine concern. I knew the real her and the real her would never be capable of something like this.