Oibara

Christina Gets Waved At

No one ever paid as much attention to me as they did when I was a victim. When Luke was gunning for my friends, people looked at me like I was a delicate marvel, a miracle.

I was suddenly precious.

I wonder why people bother to succeed in life. Why they strive so hard.

It's so much easier to be a victim, to have horrible things happen to you, and to be loved for it.

Well, it was all very interesting, to say the least.

The cops and my dad, they said the shot that killed David came from the woods out behind Wagner's Meat Mart. They also said the shooter was a good criminal. His shoe prints left no tread marks, and they lead to a rocky creak where they disappeared. The police scoured all up and down the brook, but they never picked up his trail.

My friends and I talked to policemen, reporters, and a representative from the Quilayute Council for Recreation and Tourism.

"Try not to say too much to the reporters," the representative said. "Quilayute hasn't experienced a murder in thirteen years. And the fact that it was a St. Mark's student? That can look bad to the school's investors."

A random sniper killing teenagers in small town Quilayute was going to cause a panic. People wanted to be told that the killer didn't live here, and that he wouldn't attack again. Arthur said he was receiving pressure to say the suspect was "likely a drifter, just passing through". It all reminded of Jaws, when everyone was worried that the shark attacks would adversely affect Labor Day weekend tourism.

The principal for St. Mark's visited all of us the night after David's murder. He was seriously freaking. He asked my dad if they should close the school until they were certain there was no threat to the students.

"That's ... quite the overreaction," Arthur told him. He later grumbled that this "murder business" was seriously going to cut in to his fishing time.

"It's totally silly," I said. "Hogwarts got attacked annually, and you didn't see Dumbledore closing it down."

Arthur frowned so deeply at me the grimace curled the wrinkles in his forehead. "This isn't a fantasy, Christina. Stop comparing everything to the damn movies."

Sometimes, I suspected that Arthur sort of disliked me. Maybe he thought I was a freak. According to him, I changed when I became a teenager. Grew morbid. He would get so offended by my blasé attitude toward life and death. Like six years ago, he shot and killed a rapist. He was torn up by what he did.

I harassed him with questions about it: how did it feel, what sort of noises the man made as he died, what visual changes his body went through. I pretended I was a detective on Law and Order, like Jerry Orbach.

My father yelled at me. He wouldn't speak to me about work for many months after that.

But I think he's used to me, now, finally, at seventeen years of age. He used to be disturbed by me. Now he knows I'm just full of crap.

Victoria and Emily camped out at my house that weekend. With the Sherriff and a witness living there, my house had become Murder Central, with calls and visitors at all time of the day and night. It was the place to be.

My friends, they have never been so… emotional. They cried all the time, all snot and smeared mascara and hiccoughs. They lounged on my couch like insolent cats, stretched out and languorous in their grief, drizzling used tissues and tears over the cushions. It was awful.

Maybe I just have conservative attitudes about these things, but girls were supposed to cry prettily. That was how it was shown on the soap operas. A few tears slipped down the actress's blushed cheeks. The light caught each drop, glittering like starlight. The woman sniffled like an allergic kitten, and then she stared out a lace-lined window, contemplating the backyard willow. And she always wore water-proof mascara.