Oliver Greene strikes me as plenty things, but he never would've struck me as the type to wield a gun had I not seen him shoot a man.
Three days, six hours, and twenty minutes ago, I became a witness for the first time of my life. I had been exiting the campus, checking out the local businesses, keeping to myself, when a holler snagged my ear.
Most women do not follow the sound of shouting men like breadcrumbs if they care about their wellbeing, but I fault my own foolishness then. Because I had followed it like a duckling to a mother goose.
Imagine. There I was, a woman alone in an evening in a street quiet enough I could isolate each sound, and I thought it smart to peek around and see the source of a fight.
Sometimes, geniuses are too curious. Yes, my smarts awarded me a full-ride scholarship in one of the greatest schools in the Western hemisphere. My smarts, however, can't afford social foresight. There's a limit to where IQ ends and all those points are maxxed out somewhere else.
I peeked around the corner. At first, my head went, 'Hey, that's a man!' Then my head went, 'Wait, those are four men!' And the newest plottwist was a dark-haired man, in a hoodie, whipping out a gun and shooting.
It happened in a blink.
I would've screamed, but my genius stopped me. Kidding. My voice glued itself to the base of my throat. When the shot man's body thumped on the ground, I couldn't budge a single muscle.
The man was dead.
Wow.
I thought death ought to be more monumental. Not a marching band celebration, but maybe smoke, maybe fireworks. Maybe a loud, blood-curdling scream and messy blood. Not a quick boom and half a second of a life unseen to me which his brain flashed through, last words unsaid and his curtains forever closed.
How cold that sounds now, in my head, but then I was all like, oh my god, that man is dead. He's dead. Look at that: he's dead. I'm next, I'm going to die.
I thought I should at least see if I'd been caught. So I took my eyes to the offending triad of men. And my brain spun for the hundredth time that minute.
That's Oliver Greene holding the gun.
I remember faces to names and details most people miss. It's what got my parents divorced. I saw the signs when my father brought a new woman over. He never made his bed and mom always had to do it for him. For a week straight, he scoured the sheets and folded them like a hired maid. I always caught him doing laundry whenever I returned home from school.
One day, I realized he hadn't yet washed some sheets, so I asked my mother to check them after she returned from work much later. I still remember her piercing screams and my dad's absolute silence when she discovered the evidence of sex splattered all over them.
There would be no traces of DNA here though. The shot probably came from an untraceable gun and the crime seemed practiced. This area, as I had spent time surveying the city, lacked cameras. It was a blind spot. My stomach swam.
The two men on either side of Oliver hadn't yet noticed me. Oliver hadn't either. I slinked away, my heart pounding against my ribs. My fingers jittered.
'There you go, son,' one of the men said, too gravelly to belong to Oliver. 'Your first kill. What do you feel?'
Then I heard Oliver speak. 'Alive. Really fucking alive.'
My curiosity is an insatiable beast, really. I had stayed to listen in instead of run. My luck hasn't run out yet and I am always testing it. One of these days it would, my mother often told me.
I'll never tell her that three days ago she was proved right.
'Yeah, Dart,' the third one said. 'You're going to be living like never before from now on.'
After a moment of what might've been Oliver regaining his senses, gravel said, 'I'm proud of you.'
My dad told me that line when I informed him I got into an Ivy league college, not when I murdered a man. I'm aware family traditions vary however. They spoke hushedly, so my heart beat trampled their voices. Up until four feet approached the entrance.
It being a long road, I had almost nowhere to go. A line of day storefronts laid out from this alley. I clenched my hands to fists then bolted. Zig-zag, zig-zag, though it occured to me then they called him Dart. Like the precision game.
I swallowed my puke and sprinted into the first storefront I saw. My legs turned to water and I puddled on the ground as soon as I got in. Seeing a man killed is hard to get over, though I'm determined to forget it.
For moments, I sat there. Not knowing if they saw me, if they ran after me, or if I had escaped. The owner came to ask me if I was okay, but, shell-shocked, I didn't respond.
Not only was Oliver in the friend group I was engaging with, but he was popular. He could grant me social death, much like the one he just doled out. That wasn't my concern at the time. My life might've been on the line. I begged to be hid, cried, and turned from a puddle to a live fire hydrant of tears.
911. I needed to call 911.
It wouldn't have done good.
I could've presented a video of him shooting the man to death and dragging and flinging his corpse like a pool noodle, and he wouldn't have been detained for a second.
He's a rich Ivy League boy and the world bends over to protect rich Ivy League boys.
I still called, anyway.
Hunched in the corner by the cashier desk while the workers tried endlessly to console me. The operator sent for help and the police met me in my dilapidated state.
And as anyone in my situation did, I told them everything. Photographic memory had me detailing it all to the faintest and most unnoticeable parts. I noticed the police grew disturbed when I reached the corpse bit, and the blood was fresh in my mind.
I didn't mention Oliver, since I was doubting myself then.
Of course, when they checked the alley, there was nothing there. The world bends over for rich Ivy leaguers, and resourceful planned crime.
I recieved the call a bit ago, that the case has hit a dead end, three days later, in the middle of the night. The woman calling apologizes profusely, says they'll record this report, and I hold my head, almost certain it'll shatter.
Oliver Greene, a murderer and crime affiliate, is the college's beloved poster boy, and only I know.
I'd say kill me as a joke, but seeing someone die births new appreciation for my life.
Instead, I'll do everything in my power to avoid Oliver Greene.