Dead & Forgotten

Ch. 25

Rachel Susanna Lang was born on December 31, 1971 in Pasadena, California, to Rebecca Quimby and Connor Lang. She was adopted six months later to Aristotle and Vivienne Fuller, who were concerned that they would be unable to have a child of their own after marrying in early January 1970. However, three years later in March 1974, I came into the picture and was therefore part of the family. Growing up into a family of prosperity and prominence, Rachel had struggled with social interactions and the inability to acquire attention from family members or peers. In other words, she was always living in my shadow.

But she was also wise beyond her years, in fact, so wise that she'd skipped sixth grade and automatically started seventh grade at Marshall Academy Boarding School. However, she had to repeat seventh grade due to ADHD, although she was always rumored to have Borderline personality disorder. And sometimes, it was Bipolar disorder. Or even Bipolar depression. Whatever it really was, she still had to repeat seventh grade. During the summer of 1983, she developed a crush on Jerry Springfield, who then was our new neighbor who'd moved in to the neighborhood earlier that year. At first, he did not display any signs of interest in her until her mysterious disappearance on April 20, 1984. Police had been investigating, but they saw no traces of her anywhere. That was until May 16, she was found in a garden by a few friends, attempting to hang herself. That day, her remembered words were, "Nobody seems to care about me, and I'm better off out of here!"

But she did not die then. During those last few days before her death, she was determined to get Jerry Springfield to notice her. And it had worked, until Jerry's friends began to ridicule him for crushing on a girl. Five days later, on May 21, marked Rachel Lang's death. It was during a beach party when she was deeply humiliated by Jerry and his friends, who could not stand her. I was not there at that time, but I knew that the Langs and the Hanks had been there, along with some friends and friends of friends. Contemporary friends of mine, I would say. Poor Rachel couldn't take the humiliation any longer, so she did something she never would have expected to do--which was to go in the water, despite that she couldn't swim. Actually, she knew she couldn't swim; she just wanted to die painlessly and slowly once and for all. Which then happened, because she started drowning. Everyone else at the beach, expect Jerry and his crew of jerks, started rushing to her rescue by calling for the lifeguard, who made many attempt to bring her back to life safely but unfortunately failed.

Since then, May 21, 1984 was a date that I would never forget. Rachel Fuller's death shocked everyone but no one knew whatever happened to her body. We might not know that, but I would never forget that she had been an important part of my life, and she never deserved that kind of fate. If I could, then I could put a curse on those who had caused this, and in this case it was Jerry Springfield. Jerry Springfield was sentenced to up to seventeen years in prison for unintended murder, so he probably would not get out until the age of 36. He deserved what he'd gotten, and I would never, ever forgive him, not even in a million years. Sometimes I wished for Death to come put him in his place, but I realized that it was a bit too cruel for me to wish for something like that. But it was how I felt. I literally felt dead inside when I'd heard that Rachel Fuller had passed away.

Her hobbies included books (she was not much of a gregarious person, and truthfully, neither am I), flowers (she always loved going to the garden; she always called it her secret place to isolate herself when necessary), drawing, writing, Dance, and going for walks in the park. She sounded pretty much like a normal person, for someone who came from a used-to-be wealthy family, huh?

The mystery was solved. Now all we needed to do was to find her body and hopefully re-bury her so she could be put in a safer place....again. Which we would do tomorrow, hopefully. Here I was, back in the room at Marshall Academy, staring out the window and thinking about a person who would never be. Donna then snapped me out of my dazed trance and said, "Are you all right there, Cass?"