48
ALEXA KING
-Present-

Alexa King's house
October 28, 2018
1:30 a.m.

"YOU KNEW ALL OF this and didn't think to tell the police?" Sebastián says, the incredulity evident in his slightly raised voice.

We're sitting in front of each other on the floor of my room, our legs crisscrossed with our feet folded under our opposite knees in an Indian style position. The paintings and letters are scattered between us, forming a barrier between Seb and me. The evidence that's been piling up under my bed for months is brewing a new wave of guilt in my chest, now that Seb is looking at it with hardened eyes. Now that it's all out in the open and a person other than Christopher knows the truth, I can see that our moral code is completely different. Seb would've called the police without hesitation. I decided to keep it as a secret for Mel and chase the killer myself.

Maybe Seb should've been the one to find all of this, not me.

"Melody wrote to not⸺"

"I know what Mel wrote, Alexa." He sighs, rubbing the skin between his eyes. "You know I love Mel more than anything, but she doesn't... didn't have the best judgement."

He's right.

"She said it wouldn't be safe," I whisper, looking at him through my lashes.

"I know you were just trying to be a good friend." He pauses, then sighs. "But this is serious. We're talking about murder here. Mel's murder. There's some psycho killer out there who wants you. He could've had you tonight if you hadn't fought back. Who knows if he followed us all the way here or if this is all part of some twisted plan to get you."

I shiver and look around my room for someone who isn't here. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad," he mumbles, his tired eyes going over all the evidence once again. "It's just... Mel's dead and now Christopher, too. It's too much of a coincidence to be a suicide, don't you think? Mel knew too much, and she was murdered. Chris apparently knew more than he should've, and now he's dead. And you... this U person has always wanted you and now he's got the perfect reason to kill you. You know too much. And now I know too much, so that means I'm as good as dead."

I flinch. He's letting my thoughts out in the open, speaking them into existence, assuring their validation. Everything that's happened, and everything that's waiting to happen, has been my fault. If U would've killed me before reaching Mel, everyone would be safe right now.

My life in exchange for multiple ones.

But would that had really made a difference? I know how killer's think, and they're never satisfied with just one life. The more they kill, the more their sinister desire intensifies. If I would've been the one murdered from the beginning, who would've been next?

"I'm just so mad," he mutters, his clenched fists trembling. "Why didn't she say anything when she had the chance? Why did she let this guy get away with it? It doesn't make sense. She died for⸺"

"Me," I mumble, our eyes finding each other for the first time since we arrived. He's been avoiding my gaze. "U wanted me all along. I just don't know why."

"More reason to call the cops. You're not safe. You've never been. And now we're not safe."

What he's saying is true, but I have this unpleasant gut feeling at the thought of even mentioning something to the police. Ever since Melody's disappearance, I've been ignoring this feeling, this dark change in the atmosphere, that always warns me about upcoming danger. I can't keep doing this to myself. I trust everyone that surrounds me, but I never trust myself. This time, I'm listening to this gut feeling. This time, I'm listening to my atmosphere. This time, I'm listening to Levittown. This time, I'm trusting myself.

"There must be a reason why she specifically wrote to not trust the police, though. We can't trust anyone."

Seb sighs. "But if we follow that mentality, it means I shouldn't trust you and you shouldn't trust me. And yet, here we are."

I bite my bottom lip in frustration. "True but hear me out. Let's not make a decision just yet. We should read what her last letter says and base our decision on it."

He thinks about it for a moment, his eyes shifting from painting to painting, letter to letter. From my peripheral vision, I see the sharp edge of an envelope poking out from under my mattress. I look at Seb, making sure he's consumed by his thoughts and all the evidence in front of him, before stuffing the envelope back inside.

That's the letter that Mel wrote for him, where she reveals that Sebastián was the father of her unborn baby. I can't bring myself to do this to him right now. It feels wrong to do this, but it's better for now. I will give it to him eventually, when the time is right and the killer is captured. If I do it now, his emotions will get in the way and blind his judgement. He will want to kill U himself, and I don't want my friend to become a murderer. I don't want my friend to be killed while trying, just because he couldn't see beyond his rage.

"Fine," he mutters, shaking his head. "But we'll call the cops right after if the information is useless."

"Of course."

Our eyes linger on the last painting, both of us too afraid to even touch it. It lies ominously in the center of all the evidence, traces of dirt still caking its surface. My wounded body throbs by just the sight of it. I no longer know what specifically hurts, if it's the bruise above my right eyebrow or the little cuts that seem to cover my body. It just aches everywhere, but the pain doesn't even come close to the agony that's wreaking my soul.

Sebastián clears his throat. He doesn't say anything, but I know that he doesn't want to be the one to read it. In a sense, I don't want to either. But someone has to do it. Of course, that someone has to be me, as if I haven't been through enough already.

With a tired sigh, I pick up the painting. It resembles the piece that Christopher and I found in Ruby Motel. I gulp a lump down my throat and shake him away from my thoughts. I can't think of him right now. It's too much.

The painting is of a blue mass that can be an ocean without waves or a sky without clouds. There's a brown rectangle on one of its longer sides.

I grab the pair of scissors on my nightstand. As I cut through the thin sheet of wool, Sebastián holds his breath in anticipation. The letter reveals itself to me, its familiar message with its familiar handwriting making me shiver for the last time.

From: me

To: you

This is the last letter Melody wrote. This is the last time I'll get to read something that came out of her mind. This is the last time she reveals her secrets to me. After this, nothing will be the same. She will really be gone, forever.

I take the piece of paper out, her cursive words filling it from top to bottom on both sides, and start to read out loud.

Dear you,

You found the last letter. That could only mean one thing: you're Alexa. She's the only one who knows what's my most sacred place because it's hers, too. In part, I'm happy that it's you because you're the only person who never judges me, the one that's always there for me. But I'm sad more than anything because you're next. You've always been next, but now you're a bigger target.

I know what I'm about to ask you is too risky, but this is bigger than us. This is bigger than this shitty town. You need to find U before It finds you. I'm asking for a lot, but this is the only way to end this. I told you that you shouldn't trust anyone, not even the police, and I'm staying firm to that. But, if you want some justice and the police to believe you, you need real evidence. Solid evidence. My paintings and letters will not be enough.

Here's the tricky part: you'll need to find the evidence that incriminates U. I'm going to help you get it. Our sacred place has a dirt path in front of our rock, hidden behind trees and bushes. It's a long path that will lead you to the house that became my home during my "disappearance". In there, U keeps everything It did and everything It will do. The house is expertly hidden. You have to be careful. You can easily get lost. I suck at describing things. The only thing I can say is that it resembles Sebby's summer house.

If you haven't figured it out yet, here's a reminder: portraits are more meaningful than you think, and colors tell an entire story. 1 + 1 = 2. Don't go alone, please. That would be suicide! Once you get the evidence, call the police. Only then you can trust them.

I guess this is goodbye, old friend. Please, don't ever forget me. Besides Sebby, you're the other love of my life. Thank you for your friendship and love. I'm sorry I wasn't always a good friend, but I'm trying to do what's best for you right now. What's best for everyone. I love you so much, Alexa. Tell my parents that I'll always love them when this is all over. Tell Sebby that I'm as in love with him as the first time we kissed. Tell Christopher that I'm sorry for not understanding his depression as I should have. Tell yourself that you're worth it and deserve all the love in the world. Don't ever doubt yourself.

I wish you a long and happy life.

September 5, 2018.

With all the love in the world,

Melody Tryniski.

Always there. She thinks I was always there for her. A lump grows in my throat, a seed of pain that throbs on it and grows roots all over my chest. All this time, I've been feeling like the worst friend for not being there for her. I wasn't perfect, but that doesn't mean that her death was my fault. It doesn't mean that my mother's death was my fault. But why does it feel like it is?

"I was there for her," I whisper before burying my face in my hands to cry.

Sebastián wraps me in a hug. This only makes me cry louder. My shoulders shake uncontrollably, so he rubs the length of my arm with one hand and massages my scalp with the other. Some tangled curls wrap around his fingers, but he doesn't let this obstruct his path. I find refuge in his arms, solace in his citrus scent, and tranquility in the roughness of his dreadlocks. His dreadlocks envelope my head like a protective shield, his face hidden away while my head rests comfortably against his chest.

"'Course you were there for her," he mumbles, his voice breaking. "You are a good friend."

"Thank you," I whisper, fluttering my eyes close.

We stay like this for a long time, before Sebastián breaks our peaceful silence.

"As much as I'd love to stay like this and ignore everything that's happened, we've got to do something," he says, detaching from our embrace.

I flutter my eyes open, my mind foggy from almost falling asleep. "I'm just so tired."

"We've gotta call the cops."

This sobers me up. I blink away the sleep and focus on him. His face is swollen, while his eyes are red and filled with tears. As I was crying, he was doing it too. He must be replaying Mel's words in his mind, the way she was still in love with him until her last breath. If this is his reaction to her love for him, I can't imagine how he'll react to knowing he's the father of her baby.

"We had an agreement," I say, my voice coming out hoarse. "The information is not useless, and the letter gives us a solution."

"A solution?" he mutters, incredulous. "More like a suicide mission. I-I love Melody with everything in me, but what she suggests is too risky. Why don't we call the cops and let them handle it?"

"Because they won't believe us without the evidence." I sigh, already tired of this back and forth between us. "We need the evidence first. I'm not saying we aren't calling them, just that we should wait to have them on our side. Do you really think that they're going to believe two teenagers? Please! They're going to ask us a bunch of questions, and then they won't do shit about it."

"Fine." He sighs, slumping his shoulders. "But isn't that lunatic out in the woods right now?"

I shiver, images of this unknown man flashing in my mind. "How about this: we'll call the cops as soon as we find the house. We'll send them our location. There's no way they'll refuse to come for us at this hour. Only then will we have the chance to show them the evidence, unaltered."

Sebastián nods and looks at the alarm clock that's behind me.

"There's only one thing that still puzzles me about all of this."

"What is that?"

"She writes: 'portraits are more meaningful than you think, and colors tell an entire story. One plus one equals two.'" I give him the letter, which he grabs with slight reluctance. "I don't get it. What does it mean? Is it relevant?"

Sebastián has his eyebrows furrowed as he reads, but then, his eyes grow wide with what appears to be recognition. "Puzzles."

"What?"

"Melody is a genius," he mumbles, a wide smile growing on his face.

"I'm not following."

He snaps out of his trance and notices me. "She wanted either me or you to find these. Think about it."

I furrow my eyebrows. "I'm still not following."

"She knew that, if I found these paintings, I wouldn't have thought 'bout looking behind the sheet of wool," he says, assembling all the paintings. "Her paintings I know. I know her technique by heart. She knew I would. If not the letters as clues, these paintings."

"How are the paintings clues?" I say, concentrating on them. "They just serve to hide the letters. It's the perfect hiding place."

"That's where you're wrong." He shakes his head and grabs the scissors. "They may serve as a hiding place, but it's all about what's underneath."

"Okay, you officially lost me." I mutter, crossing my arms over my chest. "Either you've gone crazy or I'm dumb."

"Well, then consider yourself dumb." He chuckles and shakes his head. "Nah, I'm messin' with ya. It's about what's under the surface. Behind all the paint, behind the actual painting. The things we hide, our true selves beneath our fake smiles, our fake portrayals."

I'm about to protest, but then he does something that shuts me up. He takes the scissors by one of its blades and begins to scrape off the paint in one of the paintings.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Mel did this thing with images she wanted to hide. It was some sort of technique. I still don't understand it completely, but I know the basics," he mumbles, never taking his focus out of the scraping. "She painted whatever she wanted to portray first with oil paint, and then she would hide it by drenching the canvas with acrylic paint."

How come I didn't know this?

Sebastián must've noticed my confusion. "Do you get it now? Mel had a backup plan in case anything went wrong. If you wouldn't had found the paintings, and ultimately the letters, I would've found them. The letters were for you, the paintings for me."

"That still doesn't explain what she wrote on her letter or why you're ruining her paintings."

After he's done, small chips of brown paint now scattered on the floor, he flips the painting toward me. I gasp.

"Is that⸺" I stop myself and take the painting from him.

In front of me, there's the clear image of a house entrance. No, it's more like a front porch. In the middle, there's a creepy-looking wooden door. The porch is brown and doesn't have any windows, just that single door. There are no flowers, no benches, no life to it. The walls on either side of the door are made of a rusty orange brick. Ivy grows between its many cracks, twisting and slithering like a snake. Everything about the image is ominous and dark.

My eyes are wide as I look back at Seb. "Fuck."

Without giving it another thought, I open my nightstand drawer in search of another pair of scissors. Once I find it, I grab it by its blade and take another painting.

"Let's get to work."

We begin to scrape the remaining paintings, small chips of brown and blue flying around us like confetti, until they all reveal their true images. We observe them for a little while, trying to make sense of them.

"It's a puzzle," I mumble, trying to arrange all of them into one image in my mind.

"A puzzle of a house," Sebastián mumbles. "The house."

We try to solve it --- the painting of the front porch in the middle, the two that have brown rectangles on their longer sides on either side of it. The one with the perpendicular lines that point up to form the house's roof on top of the front porch, the two with the half triangles on one of their corners on either side of it. The last one goes on the bottom and reflects a dirt floor that seems to be part of the dirt path that Melody talks about in her letter.

Holy shit, this is it. I've had this in my possession this whole time and didn't even consider the paintings as clues. This is U's house. There's no way we're getting lost now.

Turns out, the blue portion is not an ocean without waves. It's always been a sky with no clouds; no life.

Is this seriously happening? Will this nightmare be over soon? Relief, the sweet feeling of relief, floods my chest. But then, the dark feeling of fear paralyzes me. This is not over yet. This will not be over until U is in jail. As of now, we're all in danger. As of now, Sebastián and I are targets. As of now, we're both easy preys.

"Let's catch this son of a bitch," Sebastián says, extending his hand toward me.

I grab his hand, quenching the fear that's threatening to stop me. "Let's get justice."

For Christopher. For Melody. For all of us, including Levittown itself.

•Word count: 3,203•

Countdown: 2 chapters left + an epilogue!!!!!!!! ♡

So, I was planning to write the last couple of chapters offline, but I couldn't help myself! This is my little quarantine gift to all of you for being so amazing and for 22K+ reads on Levittown ♡ I'm blown away by the amount of support this book is getting. I never thought it would get this far.

I'll be writing the last two chapters offline + the epilogue because I don't want to make you wait. These last two chapters are super intense and leaving you on a cliffhanger will make you guys go crazy!

TWO MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS: 1) my short story, "Where Do Fathers Go When They're Absent?" won a literary competition in my university and will be published in Tonguas Magazine, a Puerto Rican magazine. This is my first piece of fiction that will be professionally published and I'm SO EXCITED, guys! I'll share the link with you guys once the magazine comes out. I hope you give it a read ♡

2) I began writing a new psychological thriller titled If Dreams Could Kill. I will publish the novel description, along with the foreword, very soon. Once I have 10 prewritten chapters, I'll start uploading! PS. I already have two written! This will be my summer project, once I finish Levittown ♡

How are you guys with everything that's happened? I'll take my small Wattpad platform to say that BLACK LIVES MATTER. What happened to George Floyd is an injustice that, sadly, has become a normal occurrence in the United States. It needs to stop. The Black community deserves justice. In the wake of these events, I want to recommend two books that deal with this kind of injustice: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Stay informed, stay woke, and stand up against injustices.

Questions: how do you feel about this chapter? How do you feel about being SO close to the end? SO close to THE revelation? Did you like the chapter? Were you surprised about the paintings? What are your predictions? Who do you think is U? What will happen next?

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

If you like the chapter:

vote, comment, share.

Show me love ♡ Next chapter out soon.