06
ALEXA KING
-Present-

Alexa King's house
September 11, 2018
2:43 p.m.

DEAR YOU,

I WRITE to you through a letter instead of an email or a text message or whatever other technological form of communication there is because it's safer this way. There's no way this can be deleted or easily discarded as if my words don't matter because I'm dead. Well, soon to be dead anyways.

If you're a police officer, then my words are a shot into the abyss. My efforts would've been for nothing. It's no secret that Levittown thrives to be mediocre and, so far, it's done a damn good job. But if you're one of my friends and not my parents or the police or him or U, then I suggest you continue to read.

I shouldn't be writing this. I know that, but I also know that I'm not willing to let anybody else get hurt... like me, like them, like all of you if you don't do as I say. Let me warn you beforehand, you're not safe. Not anymore. I'm sorry about that, but if all goes well, you'll end up alive.

Right now, as you read this sorry excuse of a letter, you're good as dead. Sorry.

There's a series of letters scattered around Levittown, some behind the blank surface in which the imagination explodes, others in parts of this shithole of a town that I consider sacred. In those letters you'll find clues about my whereabouts during June 28 to August 23 and, if you're lucky, which may result tragic for me, you'll know who or what killed me.

Interested yet? You'll finally know what happened to poor little Melody, gone before her time, missed, a tragedy, blah blah blah. Aren't those the things you're saying? I mean, those are the go to responses to death.

There should be rumors about a 911 transcript right now. I'm making sure of that. I'm telling you now, it exists, but it's probably kept a secret. We wouldn't want our pathetic town in a frenzy. I do, but what I want doesn't really matter. It never does.

What comes as a bonus are dirty little secrets that may or may not change your perspective of me and those around me. Notice that I wrote clues. Nothing's going to be said, yet everything will. You just have to look harder, think wiser.

This is going to be like a short horror story... without the fiction and good writing. I can't write for shit, but I'll try. Somehow, that's worse.

This secret is bigger than me, bigger than you, bigger than everything that's about to come. I may be dead, but the real danger's about to start.

You're in danger if you share this information with ANYONE. You're in danger if you don't play along. Don't trust anyone, not even me.

September 4, 2018

Melody Tryniski

I never got past 'Dear you,' before today. Maybe it was fear or pure cowardice, but the sight of her neat cursive writing was enough to paralyze me in that moment. Shortly after I found her dead body - right when my bloody hand was pressing her house phone against my ear, the operator soothing me on the other end - I saw a piece of paper sticking out from underneath the mattress. It's no secret that Melody loved to hide things under it and that, soon after we became friends, I acquired the same habit.

So, I did something that was as natural as breathing: I grabbed it and kept it to myself. A piece of her no one has, something I can hold onto that glimmers with hope. But, I never expected any of this. Spilled ink in the form of words, her thoughts plastered on paper, sharp and malicious - like she's still here, breathing, being, alive.

I can hear the mock in her voice as I read 'Dear you,', imagine her laughter as she wrote to no one in particular, sense her infinite satisfaction as she reread the little jokes scattered around the letter. But, despite the humor that's spread in each sentence, I can see the panic lying on every loosening of the pen, the words written more frantically and unorganized, like time is catching up to her; death's cold breath fanning her neck.

Then, the words themselves - dark, dangerous, confusing.

There's adrenaline pulsating in my blood, but instead of holding anger's warmth or danger's goosebumps, it flows around it in icy sharps, like a wake-up call. My senses are heightened, body alert to the possible danger of it all. Her letter - it promises evil in passive whispers, sugary commands that result in death.

Death; the word itself black inside my mind, black on my own black skin, as black as blood when it pools down from an open wound. Blood; festering, metallic, acidic.

There are letters scattered around town, letters such as the one trapped inside my tight grip, letters that contain secrets and revelations and pure darkness. I don't think I'm prepared to let it all in, invite the darkness so it can do with me as it pleases. This can only end in two ways: either I fail to discover who Melody's killer is, in which case I'll be dead, or I discover who committed the murder and consume myself in the darkness that surrounds Levittown.

Why would Melody put me through this?

If I give it to the police, there's the risk that I'll never know what really happened to her, only half-truths and speculations. Melody isn't joking when saying that Levittown thrives to be mediocre, so there's a chance that they will discard everything that has to do with her case for the sake of maintaining the toxicity that plagues our small town. It's not enough.

The part of her that's unknown to everyone would be known, and I won't have a piece of her to hold onto. This piece left behind by her will guide me to other pieces of her; pieces of a puzzle that are missing, the same ones needed in an open investigation. In my hands, I hold destruction, and I can faintly hear the boom.

But, I'm at risk against something unknown to me, a person living among my social circle, someone pretending to be normal. Then, there's my guilt and my own secrets to protect. Chill prickles on my back, warm and electric, as my heart beats with the uncontrollable hunger of fear.

How am I supposed to find the other letters? What does Melody mean by 'blank surface in which the imagination explodes'? Where exactly are her sacred places? Do I even know who I once called my best friend?

Through the haze of it all, I crumple the piece of paper, the smudges of blood dotting around some black words and some blank spaces. My eyes roam through each word, each sentence, each paragraph, each in between from one line to the next one, in search of something that's familiar to me.

Nothing is, of course, and although her words are as clear as the riverbank's water, they hold a twist of confusion to them, the strange way in which they're arranged.

I can only focus on the nine-one-one transcript and ignore what she tries to mean by him, and they, and U. None of it really matters right now. My mind is a swirl of nothing combining with everything at the same time, the result ambiguous, leaving me dizzy.

The soft blue of the walls surrounds me, it captures me and reminds me of him. It's the paleness of the color that strikes something within me, something both nasty and satisfying. A soft sigh escapes my lips and my grip on the letter loosens. It floats in the air for a brief second before it lands on my bed with an inaudible thud.

A nine-one-one transcript. There are no rumors about one. Then again, the letter states that I can't trust anyone, not even Melody herself.

The afternoon sun starts to bask my room with its piercing rays, the light glinting against the glass window and burning on one of my eyes. I get up and walk to the window, my hands pushing the blinds together to create some type of somber shadows. My grip on the blinds tightens and so does my heart as I think about all the past summers, the ones filled with laughs and innocence and drunken mistakes. My body longs for the past with so much ferocity.

I want to be that girl again - the one that represented immortality, so intoxicated by freedom, high on her sense of invincibility. I want to be crop-tops and low shorts, the smoothness of the skin, fragrance on the gentle part of my neck. I want fingers encircling the neck of a beer bottle, the other hand sharing a cigarette with him, the smell of his vodka breath fanning my face, the tinge of tequila ending in my mouth. Then, the bourbon hidden in his saliva mingling with the wetness that drips from in between my legs.

There's a sensual poetry to what I used to be; to what we used to be. Now it's all gone.

As I turn around, I come upon the newspaper that I bought the other day. Ever since the media bombarded me with questions, I haven't had the courage to read the entirety of the front-page article. I can't bare to see my face on it, the blank expression in black and white, emotionless. My fingers trace the surface and I'm tempted to read.

A sharp knock is heard, the curling of my father's forefinger as the bone taps three times against the wood. My eyes widen, blood freezing underneath my warm skin, and I run to the bed before he can see the letter covered in her blood. I grab the crumpled paper and stuff it underneath the mattress, along with its envelope.

"Come in," I shout, my chest rising and descending in search of air.

The door creaks open, a small gape and then my father's tired face popping in. A smile curves on my face, elastic and painful, and my heart threatens to rip my ribcage, the pounding hard against my flesh.

He offers the same painful smile, some lines appearing on his cheeks. "There's someone here to see you."

My smile drops. "Dad," I mumble, brushing a curl behind my ear. "I don't want to see anyone."

"I know, honey, it's just - "

Mrs. Tryniski appears behind my father, the ghost of a smile dancing on her red lips. "Hi, Alexa," she says timidly, as if choosing her words before saying them.

I can see the pain written on Mrs. Tryniski's eyes. They are puffy and red with tears boarding each lacrimal but never slipping on her cheeks. Her hair is a tangled mess of chestnut brown, while a poorly made bun flops on top of her head. The black dress she wore to the funeral still adorns her slender body, contrasting sharply with her fair skin, and an oversized bag clings to her shoulder.

Her steps are delicate as she enters my room, her long figure shrinking and shrinking the more she settles in. It's like she's shrinking into herself, instead of shrinking in size. The silence broadens to an uncomfortable point. It screams with our thoughts, all filled with wonder and questions, both of us too afraid to talk. If we talk and break the safety of the silence, we might break ourselves too.

"I'll leave you to it," my father mumbles, breaking it for us.

The door closes behind her with a faint click and we look at each other, both of us releasing a breath at the same time. Her gray eyes dance across my room, until her expression hardens when concentrating on something, her grip tightening on the bag. I follow her gaze - the newspaper spreads on the seat that's next to my closet.

"Make it five," she mutters, referring to the header that reads: FOUR DAYS SINCE THE MURDER OF THE BELOVED MELODY TRYNISKI - NO RESPONSIBLE YET. "May I?" She gestures to the spot beside me on the bed, a tiny smile appearing on her face.

"Of course," I say, patting the spot next to me.

The uncomfortable silence engulfs us yet again. It's palpable without Melody, who always had something to say. I can hear her laughter far away, as far away as the boom. My body trembles, veins swelling with the burning sensation of anger, and I close my hands into fists the more I think of the absurdity in all of this.

Suddenly, she grabs me by the shoulders and embraces me in a tight hug. "I'm sorry this happened to you," she whispers, her voice breaking at the end.

I blink a couple of times, the shock cursing through me with pangs of guilt. My hands stay limp on either side of me as her embrace tightens, my body cold against the warmth of hers. Her words resonate in my mind, they are tumultuous against the haze and confusion, and I wait for the tears to come. I wait for the tears, warm and wet and salty and filled with pain, to slid on my cheeks, to mark my sorrow. They never come. I can't bring myself to feel anything other than this growing numbness.

The only thing I can manage is to reciprocate the hug, my hands awkward as they pat her back. "I'm sorry it happened to you."

Her body is shaking against my embrace and it's easy to imagine the tears flowing down her cheeks, tainting her fair face with hues of pink and red. "I still can't believe it," she says, her voice coming out hoarse. "I wake up every day with the hope of seeing her asleep on her bed." She detaches from the embrace, her gaze settling to nowhere in particular. "Her little head stuffed under the pillows -"

She cries, her face scrunching up into lines of pain, and covers her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, Mrs. T," I whisper, the pain settling in my chest.

She laughs, an aching, humorless sound. "And the police..." she mumbles, looking down at her hands. "This town is built on mediocrity."

It's no secret that Levittown thrives to be mediocre and, so far, it's done a damn good job.

I flinch, the word 'mediocrity' like a punch to the gut. There's nothing to say about it, it's the truth, so I simply nod.

"I should've been there for her," she whispers, the tears falling on her lap. "I never should've left."

The guilt comes panging inside my chest, it swamps my body with its tight grip. Maybe if I didn't stop by Views, I could have saved her. Maybe if I listened more closely that day, paid attention to everything she was saying, she would still be alive. Maybe if I didn't do what I did this past summer, none of this would have happened.

It's too late for the ifs, and the maybes, and the what-could-have-been.

"You can't blame yourself," I say, my mouth dry. "You didn't know what was going to happen. Nobody knew."

She spins her head toward me, gray eyes red and dripping with tears. "She was missing for two months, Alexa," she utters, her eyebrows scrunching in confusion. "All those months worrying until I was physically ill, imagining all kinds of horrible scenarios... and I just left her alone that night." Her voice grows weaker and weaker, the regret edging on her quivering mouth.

"We - "

"I guess I wanted everything to go back to normal. As if my daughter never disappeared, as if she was the same Melody," she interrupts me, her gaze lost and distant. "I still don't know what happened during those months, where she was, with who she was with, if she ran away."

Her words hang in the air, heavy with confusion and accusations. My hand itches to grab the letter, show her that she has the opportunity to learn, give her hope when all seems lost. But then, she'll see my bloody fingerprints smudged on the paper, her daughter's blood scattered on her possible last words. She will think what the whole town is speculating - that I killed her or that one of Melody's friends did it. I can't afford that kind of attention.

"I ignored her odd behavior for the sake of being the perfect family again," she mumbles, a twisted smile appearing on her face. "Ever the perfectionist," she scoffs, shaking her head. She turns to me, eyes wide now, and holds my hands in hers. "But tell me, Alexa, what would you have done if your little girl, your only child, came back home after months of not knowing if she was alive?"

When Melody returned, she was different, a complete new person. The way she smiled was strange, forced and crooked. It always seemed like she was being tormented by something inside of her, her own conscious perhaps. She was a stranger in her own body, a guest, a horrified hostage looking for a way out. We played around with it, justifying her odd behavior to her disappearance, pretending that nothing had changed. There was a shift in the community, a shift in all of her relationships, and we just went along with it. I guess the darkness is more powerful when we all work together.

"We all ignored her strange behavior for the sake of having some type of normalcy," I mumble and rub her back. "I guess we were all selfish."

She nods, closing her eyes for a second. "I suppose you're right." She smiles, a soft curving of her lips. "Sorry for ranting and talking too much. I don't..."

"You can talk to me every time you feel like everything's too much," I assure, stretching a smile of my own. "Sometimes, it's good to let it all out. It's like a heavy weight being lifted from your shoulders."

Something I have yet to achieve.

She hugs me tightly. "Thank you," she whispers. "Before I go, I brought you something."

Mrs. Tryniski disentangles from the hug and rummages around her large bag. "Melody left this for you."

A painting soon appears from it, and just by looking at it, I can tell that it's one of Melody's creations. I grab it, my eyebrows furrowing as I watch it closely. It's just a blue mass. It can be an ocean without waves or the sky without clouds. There's a brown half-triangle on the edge of one of its sides. It depends on how I locate the canvas.

My eyebrows furrow more as I try to find the meaning behind the painting. Nothing comes. It's still a beautiful piece, different from everything else she has made. The strokes are soft, the blue colors pastel, seeming wet although it's dry.

"She did?" I mutter, still looking at the painting. "How do you know?"

"I found them in the back of her closet with some notes glued on them." Her finger taps the one in my grasp and points directly to the post-it note with my name on it. "That one is destined for you."

I blink, my heart skipping in my chest. Another one of her things that's exclusive. "I don't - how is it - what is it?"

Mrs. Tryniski shrugs, her eyes fluttering like she's about to collapse at any second. "I don't know, but you need to promise me something." I nod. "You're not going to tell the police about this. Let me have something of hers that's not corrupted by the media or this shithole of a town."

My throat constricts, the notion of keeping another secret being rejected by my body. "I promise."

A tear slides down her cheek and a sigh of relief leaves her lips. She stands up and walks to the door, clutching her purse close to her body. Before she leaves, she turns around and looks at me, her expression soft, distant, depressed.

"Alexa," she utters, her voice sharp against the looming atmosphere. "She knew she would die. That's confirmation of it."

With that, she turns around and doesn't look back again. Her words stay with me as I hold Melody's painting, as I sit on the mattress that holds her secrets, as I grow more and more guilty with thoughts of last summer.

I guess, we're all guilty.

•Word count: 3,432•

THE LETTER. My God, what did you think of the letter? What did you think of this whole chapter? Do you still want more? Are you excited to know what happened to Melody? What do you think of Melody, by the way?

Excuse the errors in Melody's letter, they're intentional. It demonstrates her panic and rush a lot more. If there is a word misspelled on the letter, though, don't be shy to comment the correct spelling.

I'm sleepy right know, y'all. Downright lazy to even edit this chapter, but I DID. It's edited. As far as my editing goes...

Feel free to correct any grammatical errors, but be kind about it. Tell me what you think of this chapter.

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