In Your Head

seventeen

October 1999...

"So Kara, I ask you again. Where were you on the night of July 23rd, 1997?" Detective Morgan asks once more back at the police station, the dim light above us swaying with the tension filling the room. The deafening silence is so loud my ears are ringing, intrusive thoughts whisked away, and I'm only left staring at the pictures in front of me. Glued down to the table as my eyes grow wide, my face dropping, my breath taken away.

Here the lying pictures sit, they have to be lying. With Trevor Val facing the security camera in the dark alley in the night, the tinier girl with her hood up backing the image. His face reads a thousand words as he peers down at her, shadows masking portions. I know that look, I know it even if I wish I didn't. But it isn't just one particular emotion, but everything all at once, like flowing water breaking from a dam, taking the impact.

Anger.

Confusion.

Happiness.

Hurt.

I know these feelings better than anyone, better than him. The same emotions that swallowed me that school year before the cabin, the year Trevor Val entered my life.

He wears these expressions in this picture like he knows the turmoil, the pain he caused before the cabin even happened. But he can't understand that. Or maybe he can. I don't know.

My eyes stray away from the first black and white security picture, onto the next. The short girl finally turns her head towards the camera, a worried expression masking her face, scared of getting caught, but she got caught anyways. Her pieces of dark hair poke out of her hood, her eyes bugging as she looks over her shoulder onto the dark street, away from the alley. The rain on that warm night pools between cracks and holes in the sidewalk, trickling down on the two figures in the still photo. And pauses turn into millions and trillions of pauses, my time stopping.

Who is that girl? That can't be me, that can't be. I would remember being let out.

"That.....that isn't me," I finally say, my voice shaking under the fear, my nerves noticeable.

"Really? Because she looks exactly like you."

"No. No, that can't be me. I told you already, I was never let out."

"See, I'm just not believing your story anymore, Kara. Things aren't adding up." Detective Morgan tightens his face as he squints, shaking his head. My heart is a runaway train, pounding on the tracks until they pick up and fly away. Like I wish I could now; fly away from here, from this situation, from my life.

His words are cruel, sharp, stabbing. The air is forced out of me and there's no catching up.

What? No, he has to believe me. I'm not making this up!

"When we got the anonymous call a few weeks back, we didn't think much of it. Maybe a random kid who had it out for you and wanted to make you look even worse after that article came out. But, I guess someone here on the force had doubts about your story, that's when they went searching around the area and asked for the security footage of a few stores downtown," he pauses, waiting for me to chime in again although I can't find my voice. "And that's when they came across this and passed it on to us. What are the chances the witness is lying now? You're right there Kara, downtown, in an alley like the tip said, in the middle of July in 1997, just like the caller said as well."

"I'm....I'm not lying! That isn't me! You saw where I was, you saw the place I was in, you saw the cuts and bruises I had. How could I lie about that?"

"It's not that hard, really. Anyone could have inflicted those marks on themselves. Anyone could make up a story like that. Especially a young, scared, troubled girl who's trying to clear her name," Detective Morgan has no emotion in his voice, speaking in a matter of fact. But as these lifetime of ticks go on, suddenly I'm sinking further into the cold metal chair, something dragging me down with it.