WARNING: Language, Crime, Murder
The unmistakable stench of low shelf bourbon hangs on these walls like a crooked family photo. I press my hands into my jeans, trying to absorb their claminess as I sit across from the detective. Her desk rests its legs in between us, housing at least a year's worth of paperwork on its face, scattered like my teenage mind. Walnut brown hair coasts like a wave across her flustered cheeks and I find myself admiring the way her lips part to speak. Detective Rosalie Sastre. The plaque on her desk screams her authority to my wondering eyes. For the past week, I've seen more of Detective Sastre than I had ever before. No one in Marblehead is a stranger to me, but she lives just on the outskirts of the town, secluded from the rest of us. I often wonder if her mind finds peace away from the bustle of small town rumors.
"Take a deep breath, Grey," her voice sounds like a velvet colored sky on the last waning days of a Marblehead summer.
"I just--I haven't been able to sleep that well since I found her," I say.
Rosalie exhales lightly, closing her office door completely. Her sneakers drag across the rugged carpet as she makes her way towards me. A firm hand falls upon my shoulder as she looks to the ceiling for words of guidance. Every person in this town makes me feel like my emotions should be kept locked away deep inside myself, but there is something about Rosalie that is blatantly different.
"I lost my father when I was a little bit older than you. Everything became a void of forgotten nights and too many strangers in my bed, but things change over time. What you found in the woodland--it is a heavy weight to bear. I have seen my share of things Grey and this keeps me up at night too. We will find who did this, I promise you that."
I nod at her words, feeling a pinch of my father's affection in her delivery. Rosalie sits in her chair, pressing record on her phone. I inhale deeply as she leans forward as if I was telling some kind of secret.
How long would it have been before someone found the body? Would she even have been recognizable if I had not walked the woodland to clear my mind that afternoon? My mother found me in the furthest corner of my shower with blood spiraling down the drain from my overly scrubbed skin. I only remember a look of torment on her face as she wrapped a towel around my bare body after practically dragging me from the shower.
I told her everything like a cracked vinyl; stuttered and hard to understand, but by the end of the hour, the police had swarmed the woodland. It felt like a creeping nightmare each moment I shut my eyes, each second I felt air pass through my lungs. The simplicity in life seemed like a jigsaw to me as I choked on all of the death in my life.
"I know that this is hard to talk about, but this will be the last time you have to. Thank you Grey," Rosalie lies a hand upon my own, squeezing lightly.
My Jack-O-Lantern smile brings her a slight comfort as she calls a few officers into her office. She firmly tells them that she will be gone for a while to escort me home and they absorb the words like blows to the head.
I've been a resident inside my neural folds for so long that the slight breeze snaking in through the window almost feels euphoric. Like shaken carbonation, I want to explode on the next person that tries to open me up. Surely frying my nerves is not her intention. Lips like those have not told a lie in years, but they've trembled plenty. I wonder what's on her mind as I sit on the other side of her desk, watching her nails dig in the cotton fabric coating her arm.
She looks stirred, complementing my shaken mind.
"You were friends?" she states questioningly.
Friend. Buddy. Pal. Mate. A mutual companionship between two individuals. The last time I used that word, my heart was cut at each of its strings and ripped from my chest with very little remorse. A friend does not suit someone like me. It can be a burden to care for someone else when their loyalty wavers day-to-day.
"She was my therapist's daughter. Saying we were friends is a rather exaggerated interpretation," I reply.
Rosalie slides a group of pictures in front of me, painting a picture my mind must have set aflame. She inhales deeply, sitting far back in her chair.
"No--I--"
Beatrice's rotting corpse lay crippled in my arms as I stare at myself holding onto her like a lost childhood memento. A cheap, rusted hatchet was tucked underneath my thigh handle first. Her nails were bent as if she was trying to claw out of the reality in which death was imminent. Though lifeless, the look in her eyes was clear; someone she knew did this to her.
"The mind protects us from trauma. You know this better than anyone, Grey. Your father's death, your boyfriend and best friend breaking your heart, Peter Welton. Things have been building up for years,"
I don't understand this. Those are my arms, my skin against her decaying flesh as her body lay lifeless in my grasp. My emotional scar tissue burns as I begin to scavenge my mind for the truth. A drum bangs behind my ribcage and I hear the unsteady rhythm in my ears.
"You told me that after you found Beatrice that you went home and your mother found you in the shower scrubbing your skin until you bled."
"That's exactly what happened! That's why this makes no sense!" I exclaim.
"My men found you this way with enough tears to fill a well running down your cheeks as if you had done you regret. Her blood. Your hands. Your skin. I think that you created a story to hide your guilt, to protect you from what you did to Beatrice Stentz."
"I wouldn't do this to anyone, let alone a little girl."
"I don't know you personally Grey, but I know about you."
Her instant change of tone repositions me in my chair. She gets up from her chair, slick as she leans against the desk with a bad cop demeanor. I nearly suffocate myself keeping my tears in my throat. Rosalie clears her throat, crossing her arms over her chest.
"What do you think you know about me--officer?"
"Plenty," she replies coldly.
The door is nearly torn from its hinges when it swings open, the room opening its mouth wide for my mother. Her melanin is dipped in a cherry fury as she bolts towards me with intention.
"What the fuck are you doing? Interrogating a minor without their guardian present? Without any type of consent?"
My mother barks like a rabid chihuahua while forcefully grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the chair. Rosalie walks back over to her phone, stopping the recording.
"What do you want Tanya? My badge?" Rosalie asks mockingly.
"Your head."
Without another word, my mother pulled me through the police station and everyone stood still and diverted their gaze as if one look from her would freeze their blood solid.
The Marblehead sun screeches like a banshee as I cover my eyes from its enthusiasm. The leather cools my skin as I buckle myself into my mother's passenger seat. With the leather still this icy cold, she wasn't gone for long.
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Grey?"
She tightly grips the steering wheel, the skin of her knuckles threatening to break if she holds on any longer.
"She's a cop," I reply.
"And you're a person with rights! What were you trying to accomplish going in there by yourself? They are desperately throwing a net into open water and you're the only fish swimming right at them," she says to me.
"Maybe I'm swimming towards them for a reason,"
Her sharp glare slices through me and I press myself against the door to put distance between us.
"What reason is that?"
"Did you find me in the shower?"
"Teagan--"
"Please--just answer the question because I'm starting to lose my mind. Those pictures? I was holding Bea's body and crying like I hurt her, like I was the means to her end," I explain frantically.
"Did you hurt her? Teagan, look at me. Did you hurt that girl?"
"I didn't. I swear mom, I would never do anything like that, but those pictures."
"I believe you and you need to believe you. Those people don't know you, so stop letting them dictate who you are."
"I--it makes me think about Peter."
My mother inhales deeply.
"I can't remember holding Bea like that just like I can't remember what happened with Peter. I want to believe myself, but there is clearly something wrong with me, something I'm protecting myself from. What happened to Peter?" I asked.
"He hurt you and you defended yourself. That's all you need to know."
"But how!? What did I do!? Why does everyone treat me like I slaughtered him in cold blood?"
My mother grabs me, pressing my face into her shoulder. For the first time in years, I embrace my mother as all I've known of myself pours down my cheeks.
"The world can be cruel at every angle, at every twist and turn. The hue of your skin, the golden gates in between your legs--all reasons and weapons they'll use against you. Don't ever let someone make you question who you are Teagan."
My mind, a rolling stone in a glass house, keeps my eyes peeled open just enough to see headlights pull into our driveway.
The headlights hum in the Marblehead dusks and I realized I haven't moved from this particular spot since my mother had driven us home earlier this morning.
The turn of a key, a knock on the door. My mother raises her voice and slams the door shut. I wait a moment, hearing only the humble mumble in the jungle of my stomach as I think fondly on my hearty breakfast.
"You had no right to take her to the station," my mother says.
Her voice has never been as clear as it is now, the dust and brick serving as nothing but filler space in my eavesdropping.
"I'm trying to help her and it's difficult considering she can't keep her story straight,"
Rosalie. I sit up in my bed, the bags under my eyes threatening to sink me back down.
"Thank you for helping, but--"
"Don't say that as if I'm doing it for your sake because there is not a reality in this universe in which I help her for you."
"Then listen very carefully. Stay away from my family as I've told you many times before. We don't need you--we never have."
"Why can't you just admit it?"
Nothingness between them. I imagine my mother is giving Rosalie that look she gives me when I begin to pry on her emotions.
"Because of how easily you fucked him like I was nothing! Like we were nothing!" my mother says in a whispered roar.
I hear hurt in my mother's voice for the first time since her miscarriage and the puzzle pieces in my mind begin to force themselves together. Friends? Lovers? Is my father the him in this situation? I slowly climb from my bed, pressing my ear against the wooden floor.
"You pushed me away, Tanya. All I wanted to do was stay, but you kept pushing me further and further away. What was I supposed to do?"
"I gave you a simple choice Rosalie."
"You gave me nothing and that was the problem! Nate begged me, begged me for an answer that I could've give him because of you. All you had to do was say the fucking words."
Nate was a name my father only went by with people who knew him intimately. Individuals who have known him for years didn't even call him by that name. A type of aroma sweeps around as I feel the sweat sliding down Rosalie's forehead to her neck. The way she spoke, with fevers of passion and smoke, screams that she had shared a bed with both of my parents.
Like two magnets being forced together, a palpable tension nests in my torso as I sit in the silence between them. Suddenly, but gently, I feel a softness grow in both of their chests.
A soft exhale leaves my mother's lips as Rosalie closes the space in between, crippling their hatred with a passion connection of skin. My mother presses her forehead against Rosalie's single tear racing from her left eye.
A sharp pain widens my eyes as blood begins to pool in Rosalie's abdomen. My mother's hand doesn't shake, it doesn't tremble as she personally escorts her former lover into oblivion. I can hear the knife piercing Rosalie's flesh as I trip on nearly every step towards the kitchen.
My mother's cold gaze is lost on me as I tremble at the warm corpse on our kitchen floor. My socks begin to soak blood as I cautiously step towards them.
"Teagan--"
"What the hell did you do?" I shiver out.
"It's pretty obvious what I've done."
"What the fuck did you do!?" I shove her into the kitchen table, knocking down a vase and an empty whiskey bottle. Glass sparkles on the floor like glitter as she lifts herself up.
"I think it's clear, don't you? You walk around like you know everything, you don't know shit, Teagan Witherson," she verbally spits in my direction.
I scoff in disbelief, my tears serving as toothpaste as I try to wipe the reality from my face. I hold my breath for a moment, choking the tears back like a stiff drink. A faint wheezing fills the room with a smoky sense of hope.
"Don't,"
My mother's sudden demand stops me. I look down at Rosalie with swollen eyes, aching to help her survive another brush with death.
"She's still alive. We need to help her," I say through clenched teeth.
"And if I tell you that they found you in those woods holding that girl?"
My eyes lock onto her frigid gaze and my neck twitches in fear of the truth.
"That--that doesn't matter."
"Stop trying to be brave Teagan. You're no hero, none of us really are in the end."
"Stop talking like we're in some kind of fucked up movie! Bea is dead, but--but Rosalie isn't. Don't let whatever was going on between you two kill her."
"It's her life or ours, you don't seem to understand that, Teagan."
"You're the one who put a knife in her! Our life or hers? What does that even mean!?"
"I'm protecting us from you! Fuck Teagan! You can't even remember how you ended up there with that girl. How do I know you didn't do that to her?"
"How--how can you even say that?"
"You--you haven't been yourself for awhile now. I just want to protect you,"
"If I killed Bea, let the justice system do what it was meant to do. She deserved that mom, please," I beg.
"The justice system you have so much faith in is meant to dismantle us, strip us down to the socks then fuck is and spit on is like we're the whores. I told you that your skin and that thing in between your legs will be used like weapons against you, but you just won't listen to me. You never listen to me."
"All I've ever done is listen to you! Every word under your breath, every drunken insult, every fucking word. You don't get to stand here and tell me that the justice system that I have faith in is meant to do nothing but make me dig my own grave. You've done that everyday of my miserable, fucking life."
Rosalie coughs lightly, castrating the fire between us.
"Peter Welton," my mother says.
"Now you want to talk about Peter? What about Peter makes you so vocal all of a sudden," I ask angrily.
"You don't remember much about that either."
For years, I dreamt of Peter, my doubts of the truth behind his death pooling around me until I simply became an island. I still remember how warm and thick his blood felt against the insides of my thighs as he lay beside me, holding the side of his neck to keep the life inside his body. My core was tender to the touch from how hard I laughed as the life in his eyes dimmed slowly. I haven't laughed that hard since.