Authors: Olivia Samms
I have to get out of this house somehow, get to Willa, to campus.
She has to identify him.
But how?
I hear scratching. A branch of the sycamore tree lightly touches my window in the wind.
I walk over and peer out. She looks naked in the moonlight, having lost most of her leaves during the past month. Her limbs move gracefully with the breeze.
Wait. They have never alarmed the second floor—never had a reason to. There’s been no way out, no trellis like at Aggie’s, nothing to climb down on… until now.
I turn the brass latch on the window, unlocking it, place my hands under the lower sash, and lift it an inch. The wind whooshes in, hitting my belly.
Silence. No alarm, no siren, no hysterical, wigged-out parents running into my room.
I try and push the window higher. It sticks halfway, and I shove my right shoulder into the wooden sill until it creaks open. I bend down, and my face is smacked with the cold—and smacked with a solution.
She’s right there in front of me, beckoning me—her farthest limb reaching out, luring me onto her mottled bark. I stick my head out the window, look down, and see the strong boughs spaced evenly, forming a ladder down to the front lawn—to freedom.
I hear Dad’s heavy steps walking up the stairs. I shut the window and pull down the shade.
He walks by my room, pauses, and continues on to his bedroom, to Mom, and opens the door. Her bawling increases as he consoles, “Bella, Bella, it’s okay… it’s all going to be okay.”
I tiptoe barefoot down the stairs to Dad’s office and look for the hidden key ring—the keys to the art supply closet that he hides from my mom. I find them in a side drawer of his desk. I pass the kitchen, nab a couple of hot dogs, and creep back upstairs to my room.
I
wake up before my alarm and check the weather report on my computer. It’s going to be gnarly cold, and yes, my dad was right, they predict snow—the first of the season. The sun is barely peeking through the heavy gray clouds in the sky, rising over the sleepy city of Ann Arbor.
I put on a large fleece sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, a drab ecru down parka with a hood, and my UGG boots.
Staring in the mirror at the dowdy reflection in front of me, I kick off the UGGs and pull on my “don’t fuck with me” boots. I have to. There are times in a girl’s life when fashion trumps common sense, and this is one of them.
I lock my bedroom door, strap on a green leather Coach backpack, and walk over to the window. The sycamore glistens with early-morning dew—not yet frozen, I hope. I push the window open. A blast of cold wind, colder than last night, blows through my room.
I stick one leg out the window and put half of my weight on the gutter. It bends a little with my heel, and I realize it won’t take my full weight, so I lift both feet onto the sill.
Scrunched and bent over in a squat, I look down at the ground. If I fall, the bushes will cushion me, and I’ll end up with a broken leg or arm—nothing too serious. Mom will go nuts, but that’s the worst thing that could happen.
I grab the end of the closest branch. It bends and cracks in my hand.
Damn!
Hanging tightly on to the window, I stretch my right arm up toward a sturdier, heftier limb, but it’s just out of my reach. I lose my balance for a second.
I regroup, squatting and thinking.
I’ll have to leap to it. I can do it. I just have to.
It’s not that far.
I take a deep breath, count
one, two, three…
and jump—springing up like a crazy flying squirrel—and my right hand hooks around the branch (thank goodness for the ugly Isotoner leather gloves I found tucked in the pockets of the parka). I dangle, hanging on, swinging back and forth, and finally pull my legs up and over like an upside-down koala and start shinnying down to the main trunk of the tree. I lower my foot, reaching for the next rung on the ladder. The high heel of my boot makes contact, and I place my two feet firmly on a limb.
Some of the boughs give a little with my weight as I continue down the tree, but she holds firm; and step-by-step I descend
until I can safely let go, landing solidly on my two feet, and press my hot, sweaty cheek to her cold bark. “Thanks, girl. Wish me luck.”
I found Willa’s address in the school directory. She lives a few blocks from Chris—it’s about a two-mile walk. I figure it’ll take me forty-five minutes plus another ten, on account of the stiletto boots. I should arrive there about the same time my parents wake up.
I can see his face—my dad’s—knocking at my bedroom door with a hot cup of coffee for me. It’ll be how I like it—with tons of sugar. He’ll knock. No answer. Knock a little harder. Then yell, “BEA, OPEN THE DOOR!” Still no answer. He’ll panic. “NOW! DO YOU HEAR ME, BEA?” He’ll put the coffee down and kick the locked door in—not knowing what he will find, what he will see. My mom, tired, her face swollen from all the blubbering last night, will rush to his side, and they’ll find the window open and assume the worst.
Maybe someday I’ll forgive them for not trusting me—not believing me—after all the hard work, the temptations I’ve fought off to stay clean these months. But I can’t think of that right now. I have to get to Willa and make my next move… Chris’s house.
I stand at his bedroom window. Good thing he lives in a one-story house. I don’t think I’d be up for climbing another tree this morning. He’s sitting at his vanity, dousing his hair with gobs of product.
I knock.
Chris sees me through the mirror, startles, and sprays mousse all over the vanity. I wave, gesturing for him to open the window.
He does. “Shit. What are you doing here? You scared the poop out of me.”
“Sorry. I need a favor.”
“At seven in the morning, you need a favor? Why didn’t you call? Or ring the bell? You know, I
do
have a front door.”
“My phone died, and I can’t find my charger, and I didn’t want to wake anyone. Can I please come in? I’m freezing!”
“You’re so weird, Bea. Yeah, come on in.”
I climb through Chris’s window and collapse on his bed, on his beige bedspread, looking at his beige rug and beige curtains. “Geez. I didn’t expect your room to be so… vanilla.”
“You came here to insult me?”
“Your parents don’t know, do they, Chris? About you.”
He sits back down in front of the mirror, finishing up his hair, and shrugs. “They probably know… I mean, look at me. But there’s no way they
want
to know. It’s safer for me to stay vanilla.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, well, I have to put up with it till I go away to college—won’t be long. Speaking of vanilla, you look like shit this morning. What’s with that coat you have on? It’s something my mom would wear.”
“Funny, Chris, ha ha.” I hop off the bed. “I need to borrow your Polaroid camera.”
“I don’t have much film left, one pack, but sure.”
“How many pictures in a pack?”
“Ten.”
“I’ll replace it, okay?”
“Why do you need it?”
“Um… I was thinking of joining the school newspaper club, there’s a meeting this morning, and I thought it would come in handy—you know, taking crazy candid pictures of some of the students and publishing them in the paper.”
“You? The school newspaper?”
“I’m giving it a shot, Chris. Clubs and stuff look good on your transcripts for college.”
He raises an eyebrow. “College? But you’re not interested in college.”
“Well, I am now.” It’s exhausting, sober lying. Lying never seemed this tiresome when I was high.
“Excuse me, do I know you? Did an alien shoot down from space and abduct my friend Bea and replace her with a parka-wearing imposter?”
“I wish. Man, do I wish.” I look at my watch. “Shit, I’m going to be late for the meeting. Better go.”
He hands me his camera. “See you at lunch?”
I pause, look at my good friend, and know I have to lie one last time. I say, “Yeah, see you at lunch.”
I climb back out his window.
Brrr, it’s an insanely cold morning. I spot Willa’s address, her house. Her car is in the driveway, and I take a tennis
ball out of my backpack. Thinking every step through, I researched “how to open a locked car” on the Internet at two in the morning. It looked simple on the video. This sexy guy burned a hole in a tennis ball (easily achieved with a quick flick of my BIC in my closet—didn’t want the set off the smoke alarm), then he pressed the ball hard onto the key lock, and the pressure from inside the ball caused the lock to pop open. I watched the video about a dozen times, mostly because of the guy, but regardless, I’m confident in completing the task ahead of me.
She left her car unlocked. What a drag!
I toss the useless tennis ball into the street, open the car door, sit in her backseat, and wait.
The temperature must have dropped a good ten degrees overnight. Winter has decided to make its grand entrance in Ann Arbor, even though it’s only October, and it begins to snow.
I look at the time. It’s almost eight o’clock, and now I’m wondering if the next step in my plan is going to work. What if she decides not to go to school because of everything that’s happened? But I sense it in my addict gut—she needs to get away from her parents, who are no doubt fussing over her, watching her every move. School is the only place where she can slip away and score, feed her habit.
Proving the addict in me right, Willa walks out the back door of her house with her mom and dad, carrying a water bottle. She doesn’t look good. She has dark circles under her
eyes, her hair is pulled back in a stringy ponytail, and her nose is red and running. She wipes it with her mitten. Her mom and dad’s faces are steeped with worry—I recognize the look—as they watch her every step. She waves at them and says, “I’m fine. It’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.”
I duck down in the backseat of her car. Willa opens the door, and I immediately smell alcohol. She probably raided her parents’ liquor cabinet—the only substance she’s been able to get her hands on the last couple of days. She starts the car and pulls out of the driveway. I lie down on the floor.
We drive along for about five minutes, and I feel the car slowing, pulling to the right, to the side of the road and onto gravel, and stop. I hear a bottle cap twisting off and Willa swallowing.
I figure it’s now or never and sit up in the seat. “Hi.” Willa shoots forward, hitting the steering wheel with her head. “Oh, hell. Are you okay?”
She turns around and looks at me—her eyes like those of a tiger ready to tear into a piece of red meat. “What are you doing here! Get the fuck out of my car or I’ll call the police!”
I look at the bottle in her hand. “Go ahead, Willa. I’ll pass the breathalyzer test. Will you?”
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?” she screams. “Get the hell out of here, now!”
“No. You’re going with me to identify the guy that I
drew. The guy who you described. The guy who raped you. The same guy who killed that girl the other day.”
Willa tries to erase the words, screaming, “NO, NO, NO!”
“You have to, Willa! You can’t wait any longer. You have to tell the truth!”
“I did! I already told the truth!”
“No, you didn’t, we both know that.”
“Get out!”
I lean forward, rest my arms on the back of the passenger seat. “I figured it out, Willa. He’s taking pictures. Photographs. He collects pictures of body parts.”
“Oh my god, you’re sick!”
“This last girl—her whole body was covered except for her head, her face, her eyes. I saw them. I was there.”
Willa puts her hands over her ears and squeezes her eyes shut. “Shut up! Just shut up! I don’t want to hear this!”
I continue on. “And the girl before, in the Arboretum? Her head and legs were covered. The only thing exposed was her naked torso. Google it if you don’t believe me.”
“NO, NO, NO!”
“And you, Willa—it was your legs that he wanted. You remember being wrapped in something, your upper body bound in a blanket as he raped you—you told me that, and it’s how the boys found you. And you said you heard a whirring noise and a clicking. Right?”
“I never said anything to you. You’re making this all up!”
“God dammit! Listen to me! What you heard was a camera—a Polaroid camera. He was taking pictures of you, of your legs, to add to his collection.”
“GO AWAY! PLEASE, LEAVE ME ALONE!” She opens the car door and starts to run.
I bolt from the car and call out to her, “No! I’m
not
going to leave you alone, Willa.” She keeps running. “Fine. Run away. But I’m just going to follow you.” I sit in the driver’s side of her car, close the door, and turn the key. The engine starts.
Willa stops running, looks back. “Don’t you fucking steal my car! Give me my keys!” She walks toward me, slips, and falls on her butt.
I load the packet of film into Chris’s Polaroid camera and open the window. I aim and shoot.
Click, whir. Click, whir.
She looks up at me, her eyes crazed with terror.
“Is that the noise?” I ask Willa. I continue to shoot photo after photo. “Is that it? What you heard?”
Willa covers her ears with her hands. “Stop it! Stop that noise! Oh my god, that sound!”
I don’t stop.
Click, whir. Click, whir.
The squares of the developing pictures spit out of the camera, through the open window, and onto the snowy gravel.
“Please… please stop!” Willa buries her puffy face in her knees. Her head bobs up and down as she sobs.
I put the camera down and say, “Listen to me. I know who he is. I saw him yesterday. He’s a photography teacher at U of M. You’re going to come with me, to his studio, and identify him.”
Willa looks up at me, terrified. “I can’t, I can’t. He’ll kill me if he sees me. He’ll kill me this time—I know it!”
“He won’t see you, Willa—we’ll just take a quick look. That’s it. And then we’re out.”
Her whole body trembles.
“There’s a reason you’re alive, Willa, a reason why you survived, why you didn’t die. Did you ever think of that?”
Tears roll down her cheeks and her nostrils flare as she breathes in deeply. She wipes her eyes and nose with her mitten. “Okay, okay,” she concedes.