What Happened That Night

15 ~ l o c k i n g

The clouds that lingered low in the sky were gunmetal gray as I pushed open the library door, feeling the bitter chill of the late January air against my face and exposed arms, prickling my skin, as I quickly ambled down the concrete steps that led down to the sidewalk. My backpack was swung over my shoulder, laying heavily against my back, and my peacoat was draped over my arm because I was so frantic to get out of the library before I heard any more of what that detective on the computer screen had to say about Emily and Griffin and what about she had done that night or Aniston babbling out apologies while mentally making a note to remember to bring headphones next time she watches a news report about a local murder in the library. My backpack was unzipped, my notebooks were beginning to slip out, and I kept hearing the clanking of items-pencils, pens, tubes of Baby Lips-falling out of my opened backpack and colliding against the pavement of the sidewalk as I walked, briskly, home. I didn't care if I was basically leaving a trail of stationary and cosmetic items like breadcrumbs for someone to follow me. I felt tired of constantly picking up pieces, stuffing them into places they didn't belong, and pretending as if it wasn't getting harder and harder to keep going.

I felt my eyes beginning to burn as I continued to walk, feeling as the items in my backpack shifted around and began to slowly dangle over the edge of the opened zipper, and I felt another lump growing achingly in my throat as I swallowed. I was just so angry with her-angry that she had texted him that night and lured him with sexual advances, angry that she had stabbed him down there, angry that she held the door open for his elderly grandmother with a cane, angry that she had murdered him, angry that she had left me, angry that she decided one moment of revenge was greater than a lifetime with me.

And I was angry with myself-so angry-because I gave her a reason.

Crash. I felt it as all of my notebooks, my textbooks, my calculator, my phone, everything, just slumped to the side and rolled out of my backpack, colliding against the cracked sidewalk with a series of clanks and thuds, and my backpack, now finally free of everything weighing it down, slid off of my shoulder and dangled off of my elbow as if it were an oversized bracelet. One of my notebooks, with the purple cover, landed in a snowbank, the remainder of my pencils rolled off of the sidewalk and onto the side of the road, one falling eraser first into a drain, and my biology textbook was lying, open, face down on the pavement, over one of the elongated cracks that sort of looked like a snake if you squinted. I groaned, letting my backpack drop down from my elbow and onto my foot as I stared up at the gunmetal gray sky, lingering close and threatening with another snowfall. A burning tear glided down the side of my cheek, and I kicked my backpack off of my foot as I felt its warmth, its humiliation scalding my skin.

My sister was a murderer and here I was, crying, because my backpack spilled on the sidewalk in front of the library.

When I tilted my head away from the darkening sky, my eyes squeezed so tightly shut that I felt them boiling underneath my eyelids with pathetic, unshed tears, and a chilled breeze fluttered against my cheeks, rustling my strawberry blond hair that I shared with her, with a murderer, and I exhaled, my lips parting as I heard it. The sound of old shoes-Timberlands, actually-softly pounding against the concrete of the sidewalk in front of me, slowing once they noticed me, standing there, eyes closed and mouth faintly agape, with a backpack lying against a dirtied snowbank and stationary supplies scattered around me, as if my backpack had suddenly combusted all around me. I opened my eyes as I heard the muffled sound of him, clearing his throat, and I felt like I just knew it was him. Of course it was him. He was there the night of the Super Bowl after-party, standing on the porch without a coat on, shifting his weight from socked foot to socked foot, unsure of what to do, as I asked him to please not say anything, and he just nodded. He started to ask me if I was okay, if I wanted him to go get him, but I interrupted him before he could finish. So, of course after seeing me sobbing in front of the mailbox, my skirt wrinkled and my wrists raw, that he would see me now, crying because of my backpack spilling my notebooks everywhere.