Scratch

The sounds of the mean girls movie plays in the background as Addison Thatcher, Paige Monroe, Charlie Atkins, and Olivia Badgely sit in the basement of the Monroes’ house. The bright pink and green bean bag chairs displayed in the center of the room directly across from a large 72” television screen.

“What time is it? I feel like we’ve been sitting down here for 10 hours.” Complained Paige.

“Considering that the last time you asked was twelve minutes ago and it was 7:41. According to my calculations, that would make it, 7:53.”

“Very funny Addy. No, but seriously we need to figure out something to do. I’ve been scrolling on TikTok for forty-five minutes and if I see one more Pedro Pascal edit, I genuinely might explode. ”

“Dramatic much?” Olivia chimed in. “But she’s right.”

A text chime came from Charlie’s phone.

“Look no further,” Charlie flipped over her phone to reveal a text message from a guy named Chris Madden. “Chris just invited us to a party at Andrews’ place. Now the only problem is how are we gonna get there. Andrew lives all the way across town and last time I checked Addy is the only one with her G2 and she got it suspended for 30 days because she couldn’t stay off her phone and ran a stop sign.”

“I swear that stop sign was not there befo-”

“Okay, okay, it’s fine, we can just walk. There’s a forest behind my house that takes us right to the gas station and we can make it across town in twenty minutes.” Paige interrupted.

“Gross, it’s wet and cold out, no way i’m walking in that. Plus I just bought these shoes and if you think I’m getting them all muddy, you’re crazy.” Olivia said.

“Oh Liv, such a princess, as always. Look, do you wanna go or not?” Asked Charlie.

Olivia rolled her eyes.

“Paige, do you still have that old pair of converse?”

Paige nodded.

“Okay, fine lets go.” sighed Olivia.

Paige snuck past her parents in the living room, into the liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle of Smirnoff and Crown Royal and tucked them in her backpack. Trying to make the sound of the glass bottles clinking against each other as least noticeable as possible, she snuck past the living room and out the sliding glass door of her house to meet up with her friends that were already waiting for her in the backyard.

“Beverages acquired” Paige whispered cheerfully.

The girls quietly opened the back gate of Paige’s backyard and one by one, slipped through the crack between the fence and the gate, into the line of trees. Paige latched the gate shut and followed her friends.

“So do we just walk straight then?” Asked Addison.

“Yeah for the most part, but we gotta turn left at a tree that has a red spray paint mark on it. Just follow me, I’ve gone through here a million times.” Replied paige. “Hey Liv, would you hold this, my back is getting sore.”

“Yeah sure,” Olivia said as Paige handed her the backpack. “I gotta go to the bathroom though so could you guys just wait up a sec, I’m just gonna go into that bush over there.

“Why didn’t you just go before we left?” Asked Charlie.

“Oh my bad,” She responded sarcastically, “Paige said to sneak out, not go to the bathroom and then sneak out.”

“Okay whatever, sure, go. But be quick please. My feet are cold.”

Olivia pushed herself past tree branches and twigs and disappeared into the bushes.

“Okay Liv come on, It’s been fifteen minutes, how long does it take to go pee!” Yelled Addison.

The three were met with silence as they waited for Olivia to respond.

“Alright I’m gonna go over and make sure everything is okay.” Paige said.

Paige pushed her way through the same bushes that Olivia had previously.

Minutes passed and there was no sign of either of them until a rustling came from between the trees and bushes and Paige peered through.

“I don’t know where she went.” Paige announced as she made her way back to her friends.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know she’s just gone,” Paige replied. “Can you guys come help me, it’ll be easier if there was more than one of us looking.”

Addison and Charlie agreed and spread out to look for their friend.

Charlie picked up her phone and rang the girls’ group chat and Paige answered, shortly followed by Addison. Olivia’s profile picture stayed on the screen with the word ‘ringing’ underneath, to no avail.

“I figured we should probably stay on Facetime so we can keep eachother updated on our little search party. Also, so I don’t get lost because I have no idea where I am.”

The girls’ facetime echoed throughout the hundreds of trees as they searched around for Olivia. Addison was murmuring about how they were going to be late to the party when between a patch of evergreens and oak trees she noticed the muddy outsoles of a pair of stained converse.

“Oh guys, I think I found her,” Addison announced. “Jesus what took you so long Liv- ”

She stopped mid-sentence as she noticed a shard of the once intact crown royal bottle.

A scream echoed through the trees and the muffled sounds of confusion came from Addison’s iphone XR which was now buried under leaves on the ground.

A week had passed since the events that occurred on July 8th, 2023 and Addison, Paige, and Charlie were once again situated in the basement of the Monroes’ townhouse. However Mean Girls was replaced with the city news where Detective Bardot disclosed the information that no one in the city wanted to hear. Olivia Badgely was in fact murdered that summer evening. According to the autopsy report Olivia was stabbed 17 times with a shard of glass from a crown royal bottle found next to her body. She was presumed dead at 8:24 pm although not without a fight, which was shown by the remnants of human skin found under her champagne pink coloured fingernails. As the information about the murder unraveled the girls sat still and in silence, all except Charlie who looked around at her friends before pulling down the sleeve of her hoodie, covering the scab of a scratch on her forearm.