Police Officer: What happened at the weed party?
Jacob: You mean Christmas?
Police Officer: Yes.
Jacob: Nobody really knows anything. Except to say that things became blurry. There was a fine line between fun and tragedy from the start and many people crossed it.
It was an unusually hot summer, with some of the highest temperatures ever recorded. The day Selena died was the hottest of the year. Inside the interrogation room, the air was suffocating. Nobody could really breathe, and with that came irritation.
Jacob: So, did she do it? I mean, I just don't understand what we are trying to do here. Can you guys just figure it out already?
Police Officer: The facts are simple: Sunny was found alone with Selena's body; only her hands were bloody. I have no doubt she killed Selena. Why she killed her, on the other hand, remains a mystery.
Police Officer: That's why I need your cooperation. I know it's getting steamy. But let's just focus. Try to recall for me. Start on the coldest day of the year, Christmas Eve, and let the events speak for themselves. You mustn't color them, twist them, or tell any lies. Cool down, and speak.
***
In the lunch line, Sunny swished the bills around in her hand, doing mental math. She knew that it would only be a day or two before she had to face the fact that she was out. The wind around her wraps tighter before all noise stopped as Brad stepped into the line. It was odd he was here. He didn't belong in Wrestler. It felt like the Prince of darkness had swept his coach over them. The lights dimmed and Sunny turned to Selena and asked if he was bad as she said. Selena blushed the color of beets.
"He's gorgeous and rich and dangerous. AND he's having a weed party." The Kitties stopped walking.
"Rumor has it he sleeps with anyone," said Tate.
"Shut up. Those are exactly what you said they were. R-U-M-O-U-R-S. They are spread by envious whores. Nothing to believe." Selena turned around twirled her ponytail in her fingers. Tate turned to Sunny and in a perky voice asked if she was going.
"I don't know," said Sunny, hesitant not because of the weed, but because it was on Christmas. "Lyssa is going to make me stay home." Selena stopped her there.
"Enough with Lyssa. Who is she to make decisions for you? It's like literally BRAD we're talking about. Everybody will be dressed up. Santa ain't real, okay. Get over it," hissed Selena. Sunny knew that Selena tended, if anything, to exaggerate. She knew that the fun she was describing had to be discounted by a whopping 60%.
"You're just going to be with Brad the whole time."
"No," she said, hesitantly. "Okay, well maybe. But," she said, drawing her closer just as Tate looked away, "you're my best friend." It tickled Sunny's insides when she called her 'best friend'. It was an indicator that she was irreplaceable and it made Sunny believe they were sharing some underground secret that only the two of them could understand. She agreed. Selena put her hand over her mouth and squealed.
***
Sunny was scrolling through Josh's incredibly beautiful selfies when a dazzling silver of sunlight pierced through the curtains like a shining silver sword. Josh had been too busy for her lately, too busy finding his distinctive fashion-forward style by shooting semi-starved, semi-naked women in strange flattering angles. It slightly irritated her that he never asked her to be his subject. But then again, she remembered the saying that lovers were best found in different areas of work. She lay languidly as Lyssa came into the room, proudly bearing a Santa hat atop her head.
"Jingle bells," she said. "Christmas is here! Oh, how I miss the three of us together, just sit-in by the tree and enjoying the view of the snow and the lights!" Lyssa's voice had an uncanny ability to grab your attention— by the throat— hold it in a viselike grip.
"Yeah," said Sunny. "Me too… I was going to ask you what our plans were for tomorrow."
"What do you mean what our plans are?"
"I was just asking—"
"Tomorrow is Christmas," she said, almost surprise Sunny would ask.
"I know," Sunny said, sinking into a genteel and well-mannered unfamiliarity. "It's just that Selena invited me to a party."
"But it's Christmas. Christmases are for families." Lyssa grew pale and uninteresting, the larks soared no more as she faded, consumed by consumption itself.
Equally astonished and terrified by her answer, Sunny didn't know how to respond. It was almost odd that Lyssa was being so motherly, caring for the well-being of her family instead of her business. Still, the fact that she did made Sunny believe in the magic sprinkles of the season. She wanted to do things right. Eat her vegetables. Sit up straighter. Not go to weed parties.
"It's just going to be the three of us again. No Selena, no phone calls," said Lyssa. The simplicity Lyssa described before her was more than anything Sunny could ever want— somebody to share the burden with, somebody to understand. She believed her, and texted Selena to forget it, to which she replied 'nobody invited you anyway'.
***
Lyssa was downstairs, stressed to the snapping point, pounding on her laptop. She dreamed of being a proprietor of a chain of stores, working from an office to manage the people who manage the stores. When Sunny came down the stairs on Christmas morning, she was still there.
She hadn't slept.
Setting up the tree meant something deeply to Lyssa, like a holy obligation, part of which makes her a wife and mother. Sunny wasn't surprised that it was up this year, but she was surprised that it was crooked, the star dangling down at a nearly ninety-degree angle. Lyssa didn't take the effort to make it perfect, perhaps because she felt like she didn't have to.
The family didn't talk much. Though I could sense Sunny's urge to say something or do something to spark conversation. It was a family that lost the feel of a family—and if nothing else, Sunny knew how to play the game. She kept her mouth curled and the three Asians just sat by the tree, pretending to engage in a cultural ritual that wasn't their own. The presents weren't touched. And nobody moved until the phone rang.
Lyssa looked at Hiram who looked at Lyssa who looked back at Sunny. I could tell Lyssa was feeling conflicted, an emotion that was the artifact of a money-nexus world, where she was taught to follow the direction of the soul with empathy and logic working together upon the right path. Yet halfway along the journey, the money-nexus partnered up with emotional indifference, the opposite of empathy, and thus was the source of her conflict. She was born for the love-nexus, yet here she was, struggling to make sense of a world that doesn't.
"I'll get it," Lyssa said, at last. It was the Amusement Park. Lyssa chased the manager with mumbles and sighs. She came back to the tree, but before she returned to a criss-cross apple sauce, the phone rang again. She put a finger in her free ear to concentrate on what the mobile was telling her. She walked into the kitchen with the cell to her ear, rubbed the steam from the window, and stared into the backyard. Sunny joined her at the sink.
"I'm so sorry," she said to Sunny. A tiny voice squeaked from the phone. "No, not you, Camryn." Sunny hugged her from behind. Tightly.
"I'm sorry too," she said, but Lyssa didn't hear her. Lyssa pulled away and told Carmyn she was on her way. It was Christmas, and Sunny didn't want to let go. She hugged her tighter, but Lyssa turned around.
"I have to go, Hunny. There's been an emergency. Why don't you do some homework, maybe some extra-credit work to make your transcript extra beautiful. I'll be back soon to check your answers." Sunny swallowed hard knowing there was nothing she could say or do to make her stay. Lyssa disappeared into the snow and Hiram left soon after too. Both cars were gone and the garage was empty. The house was empty.
Sunny thought about studying, but it was Christmas. She thought about calling Selena, but her Snapchat story suggested she making out with Brad at the party. She made herself a hot chocolate, sipped it, and let the liquid lava burn the roof of her mouth. She switched the hot chocolate for alcohol, and half-drunk turned on the television.
"Merry Christmas! This is the first Christmas after the legalization of marijuana. Will people consider purchasing a bag as a gift?" Said the reporter, his voice flooding into the living room and ruffling Sunny out of the blueness she had fallen into. The reporter turned to the prime minister and posed the highly sought after question as to whether The Change will expose more children to pot, to which Trudeau explained that the intent of the legislation was not to encourage recreational use of cannabis, rather "to better protect our kids from the easy access they have right now to marijuana and to remove the criminal elements that were profiting from marijuana." The prime minister's expression hinted at catastrophe, though he masked it carefully with the neutral smile that he must've rehearsed in the mirror a thousand times. He spoke in a manner that most politicians spoke in —careful and soft and with the perfect answer to any question. Sunny wondered why he couldn't just speak normally. But did it even matter? What he was saying was incredibly unbelievable. It meant that she didn't have to only buy red twists at a time to avoid arousing suspicion. It meant smoking was okay. Her world was flipped upside down as the toxic society posed vice as virtue, a warped form of pragmatism that was rooted in kindness yet created a reality of mishap.
The snow drifted against the walls of the house, pressing against the grand windows and burying them in a sheet of white. Sunny must've been imagining Lyssa, tunneling heroically through the snow to reach home, though she knew fantasies stayed in her mind.
The backyard was stunning. The trees and bushes were all wrapped in ice, reflecting sunlight into glistening moments of shimmer in a dull reality. Sunny paused the TV and stepped into the white. She made a footprint in the unmarked whiteness and the wind stirred the branches overhead. The scarf was so tight it choked her. But, wickedly, she liked it. She made a snow angel and the snow went up to her back, forcing her to go inside and shower until the water ran cold.
Santa was not real. There was no magic. Sunny collapsed on her sheets, her little legs bicycled beneath her, trying to fight the pain. If only she could just stand up and push past the waves— but there was no longer anything to stand on. She was choking, thrashing around in panic. Someone would come to save her, right? Selena and Tate, save her. Lyssa or Hiram— where were they?
"One must avoid dark thoughts," she said to herself, bravely.
No one came.
She thawed a frozen pizza in the microwave and stuffed it endlessly into her jaw until Lyssa pulled in around 2 a.m. Lyssa came to check on her, but Sunny pretended to be asleep. Hiram didn't come back until the next morning. She thought they had been together. They hadn't.
It was true: Lyssa had tossed her around like a light leaf, abandoning her for stupid Camryn. Her helpless little heart was beating widely, like a thousand bees, buzzing, trapped, in her chest. A drowning child who had all the reason to do something bad.
However milky and ill-defined, the Kitties gave Sunny a kind of hope. She picked up her phone and dialed.
"Hello? How was the party?" There was no music, and from Sunny's end, something sounded terribly wrong. "Is everything okay?" She heard whispers between Selena and Tate, but nobody was speaking up. "Hello?"
"Yes. Hi. We're just waiting for Demanda to got to sleep so we can get high as fuck," said Tate.
"You don't have to sneak around anymore," said Sunny. "I saw the news, it's legal now."
"Phhhh. Dumb fuck. Legal doesn't mean you can smoke it in front of your parents. It's legal for adults, idiot… though we find our ways if you know what I mean."
"What do you mean."
"I'm eating a colorful gummy right now, that's what I mean." Then, silence. There was no movement on their end.
"Is everything okay? Why aren't you guys partying anymore? Where's Br—" Selena cut her off with a yell before Tate interrupted with "It's fine! Everything is fine." Tate quickly explained that Selena was having one of her fits and abruptly, she hung up the phone with no further explanation. There were no laughs. The air was tight and Sunny couldn't help but wonder what the hell happened at the party.
Selena was one of those puzzles led by the universe where no matter how hard you tried to find the right pieces or ask the right questions, you would never get any good answers. The burden of her secrets was encoded into her so deeply that nobody could pull them out. Well, except Sunny.
That yell and those tears that collected in her eyes as Tate spoke on the phone. This may be hard to grasp, but those tears were not hers.
They were Sunny's.