Unu
“I heard there was barely anything left of her; just her bones and skin.”
“Cousin heard that she didn’t have any bones left.”
“Closed casket. She was beat to all hell and no one was able to patch her up enough for the funeral.”
“Was it drugs? I bet it was drugs. The smart ones are always on something. I bet she ran away to meet her deal and he killed her.”
“My grandmother said she had demonic signs carved all over her body,”
“Her poor family; imagine the shame of having to tell everyone what happened.”
I stab my fork into the grey blob in front of me, the one presenting itself as edible food, and try to block out the not-so-hushed voices of those around me. There is no doubt in my mind that my schoolmates are discussing my recently deceased best friend, Mila Walker, and, the more I hear, the more I feel like screaming at them. I want to kick and yell and throw things at them, but I keep to myself for fear I will be drug back into the guidance counselor’s off for another ‘mental health check.’
It has been almost three weeks since her body washed up along the base of the rive that winds through our town, malnourished and damaged far beyond recognition. It took the coroner’s office two whole days to identify her and, even then, it was only because he resorted to filing through our town’s dental files to make the match.
Since the news of her death spread, it has been all that anyone around here can talk about.
“At least they stopped talking about you,” a sweet voice comments as Naomi Graves, my now only friend, comments as she slides into the seat beside me. She pulls her thick, wavy auburn hair into a messy bun, the fresh color bringing attention to her already bright brown eye; her bright yellow dress made her caramel-colored skin practically glow and I found myself slightly envious of how easily flawless she is. “So you can put that in the win column.”
I stab angrily at the blob once more. “For now, that is.”
Prior to being found dead, Mila had been missing for over a month.
The morning she went missing the police had shown up at my house with solemn faces and disbelieving eyes, the text she sent me the night before their only possible lead.
Their questions had been endless and it began to feel as if they thought I might have had something to do with her going missing.
Why had she texted me at one in the morning on a school night begging me to meet her somewhere? Was this something she did often? Did I know where she was? Had she mentioned that she was going to run away? Could I think of any reasons she would run away? Had she mentioned meeting any one new lately? Did she have a boyfriend? Did I know anyone who might want to hurt her?
After what felt like hours, they came to the same conclusion that I had the moment they set foot in the house: I was useless and would be of no help to them.
She had no reasons to run away outside of normal teenage complains about her parents and, the more I tired to think of why she might have left, the more I realized that even if she had had one she wouldn’t have.
Well, at least not without telling me first or offering to have me leave with her.
Four days before she went missing she had received her acceptance letter to Yale and that meant that, in less than eight months, she would be out of this shit-hole town and far away from her overbearing parents.
Why run shortly after getting everything she ever wanted? Why risk running away when she had a sure-fire escape plan?
The home security alarm her parents armed each night had still be armed when they woke up that morning, with no signs that it had been disabled at anytime while they slept. Her room was in the same pristine condition that it always was in. There were no signs of a struggle and nothing had been taken; not even one piece of her clothing.
It was as if she had vanished into thin air.
Naomi drapes what she intends to be a comforting arm over my shoulder. “Don’t be like that; neither you nor Mila will be the topic of conversation forever. How are you feeling, by the way?”
I know she means well but the feel of her arm leaves me weighted down. I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
Losing Mila had taken its toll on me and, not long after she became all the town could talk about, I lost my shit. I began to hear her voice everywhere, calling to me. I felt her presence wherever I went. Visions of her battered body laying cold and rotting by the river began to haunt me; both in my dreams and in real life.
She was everywhere, all the time.
I couldn’t sleep, too afraid she’d be waiting for me when I closed my eyes. So I stopped sleeping; coffee and gas station caffeine pills became my friend.
Then she became more steady when I was awake; a hallucination I could see, smell and feel.
After nine days without sleep, I did the only thing I could think of to end my suffering: I took any pill that I could find.
My father found me there, passed out in a puddle of my own vomit and barely breathing. Once I was stable enough to be released from the hospital he did what he thought was best, shipping me to the first mental health facility that had an opening.
Up until five days ago I was a resident of the Vaquez-Hermitage Rehabilitation Center; the finest mental institution that money could buy.
“Still think they had something to do with it?” she questioned in a hushed tone, jutting her head in the direction of the mismatched duo that is the Malik boys.
The Malik family had moved into the house at the end of my street three months before Mila went missing and, while newcomers weren’t unheard of around here, their arrival had been sketchier than they were,
There were no moving trucks, no boxes waiting to be brought inside, and no movers. In fact, there were no hints that someone had finally purchased the vacant home until I woke up one morning to find the ‘for sale’ sign removed from the yard and two black Escalades parked in the driveway.
There were three of them in total; Matthew, Colin and Roman. Rumor had circulated that their parents had passed away in a car accident when they were young and the oldest of the three, Matthew, was left with full custody of his siblings and a freakishly large fortune.
Unfortunately, that is where the rumor mill had run dry and now, other than the fact that their parents are dead, they have money and their brother cares for them, no one really knows a thing about them.
The day we noticed their arrival, my father took it upon himself to play the part of ‘welcoming committee’ and delivered a large basket of fruit, wines and well-aged steaks to their door. Matthew had welcome him in and, after a day of drinking and grilling with the oldest of the Malik brothers, he had my father’s seal of approval.
That was all it took for the rest of the town to welcome them with open arms and accept them.
“No.” I shove the beige cafeteria tray away from me, wishing I had remembered to pack some of last night’s leftovers before rushing out the door this morning. “Honestly, I don’t know anymore. There is just something not right about them.”
“I heard the police questioned them as well and everything checked out.”
She wasn’t wrong; the police had made a trip to their home. In fact, when Mila’s parents forced the police to change their daughter’s case from ‘runaway’ to ‘missing persons’, their house was one of the first stops.
While they had been given the town’s seal of approval, they were still newcomers.
The police made a second visit to their home, and the home’s of others as well, when Mila’s body was found.
Everyone in town was questioned and, not long after, her death was ruled an accident.
The official report stated that she had run away for an unknown reason and, during that attempt, she had gotten lost in the woods. It stated that she remained lost in the woods until she was too weak to walk, which lead to her passing out and falling into the river. Due to the dehydration and malnourishment, she had been too weak to fight that currents that carried her away and drown her.
I didn’t believe a word of it.
“Yup, and they were cleared by the same officers who said that Mila ran away and that her death was an unfortunate accident. Don’t you find everything about her going missing and her death a bit off?” My glare remains focused on the pair of brothers. “Six people were reported missing in Hautin over the past year, and that town is only twenty miles away. Then they come here and, within three months, Mila goes missing. I know the two don’t seem connected but no one seems to know where they moved here from; it could have been Hautin. It’s all very strange, if you ask me. Plus, I don’t know, Roman is just so...well...creepy.”
Naomi shrugs. “It doesn’t seem connected because it isn’t, but that isn’t stopping you from trying to connect it anyways. And where you see creepy, I see smoking hot.”
Though Naomi, and more than half of the female population of our school, might beg to differ, Roman is far from what I would consider boyfriend material.
Sure, he possesses a lot of qualities that someone might use to describe someone as being ‘attractive’, but not me.
He's tall, standing an inch or two over six feet, with disheveled brown hair and eyes the color of the sky after a storm. When paired with his perfectly angled facial features and affinity for dark clothing, you have the perfect recipe for that ‘bad boy’ look the girls at my school went weak in the knees for.
And maybe I went a little weak as well, but I would never admit it.
He is exactly the kind of guy you’d bring home to piss your parents off. Or the kind you’d find yourself having too good of a time with.
Okay, maybe I am one of those girls who considered him attractive, but that does nothing to overshadow the ere of weirdness that lingers around him.
Not to mention he prides himself on being a world-class asshole as often as he can be.
His younger brother, Colin, was the light to Roman’s dark nature.
What he didn’t share in height with his brother, he more than made up for in muscle mass. Everyone who interacted with him described him as ‘a sweetheart and the life of the party’, which was more than anyone had every said about Roman. His messy hair was an odd shade of strawberry blonde, but those eyes were damn near replica’s of his older brother’s.
From the moment their overpriced car rolled into the parking lot of Stormy Heights Hall, all eyes have been on them. Aside from myself, and occasionally Naomi, there are few girls in this place that aren’t chomping at the bit to get their attention.
When it comes to Roman, however, none of that seems to matter. Naomi filled me in on everything I missed during my stay in the hospital and, from the sounds of it, Roman has made it a habit not to associate with anyone who isn’t his younger sibling.
Colin, on the other hand, has been thriving. I see him around school chatting it up with students of all kinds between classes, perched on the gym bleachers with a new girl sitting on his lap each time, or wandering around town with members of the ‘in-crowd’.
While his brother is a prick, it seems that Colin has taken the path of screwing any girl who shows him the slightest bit of attention. I won’t be shocked if he makes it til the end of the school year without sleeping with most of the girls in our school.
“Hot or not, there is something wrong with him. Don’t look at me like I’m being dramatic; I’m being serious. He never leaves the house unless it is to go to school and, once he is here, he avoids everyone like they have some kind of infectious disease. Have you seen the way he looks at everyone? It’s like he thinks he is better than the rest of us. He has girls throwing themselves at his feet and he has snubbed every single one of them. What kind of high school guy does that? How can you not find that weird?”
“Because it’s hilarious.” She lets out a sigh, resting her head in her hands as she joins me in staring at them. “He is making them work for it and, from where I am sitting, it would be worth all the work. You want to know what I do find weird about this all? The fact that you spend your free time stalking them instead of using the closeness of your houses as an advantage. You guys are basically next door neighbors! You should be making friends with the hot new guys, not staring at them from across the cafeteria.”
I let out a huff. “Correction: you are staring. I am glaring.”
Much to my dismay, Naomi recently admitted to me her infatuation with Colin.
Naomi has her fair share of guys fighting for her attention, and one of them might have had a chance, but not anymore now that Colin is around.
Despite my attempts to ward her off, she has her sights set on him and, when Naomi sets her mind to something, there is no changing it.
