I sit composedly on one of the Park's multitudinous benches. The steel bars hot to the touch. I sip my coffee and read Great Expectations for about the hundredth time; my finger tips hugging the wine colored stains on the worn pages. I see the children pass me in spurts of energy and leisurely walkers amble past. A woman and her small white dog stumble up to my bench, without even giving me a mere acknowledgement. In her haste she knocked my book of choice onto the warm rust colored concrete. No apology, no remorse. I pick up the worn copy and notice something shimmering under the bench. It's a phone. A phone with a glittering pink case with sparsely placed rhinestones and the barren gaps of what once was. It appears to be one of a girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen?
I slide my finger to see if I could possibly guess a passcode, but to my pleasant surprise there was not one. I click the recent calls, I see only three contacts called over and over again: Mom, Darcy and "Him".
I assumed "Him" to be a boyfriend of the young girl, and thought to myself how childish she was to consider dating at such a young age. Someone her age has so much life in front of them. Reading his name made me shudder with a rage unfamiliar to me. I conclude this to be misplaced feelings for a recent break up and move on.
Next, I press the mother's name and it dials her number, but nothing happens. I assume that maybe because the phone is lost the family may have frozen it's service, so I walk to a nearby payphone and dial the numbers. There is something routine in the way my fingers move over the buttons to pattern the number, but I lack of reason why. I wonder if maybe I've met her before, but that seems impossible.
"Hello?" A woman's familiar voice mutters on the other end of the line, she sounds drained and somber.
"Hi, My name is Sierra Morris" My voice bounced over the phone, "I found a cell phone in Fountain Hill Park, I think it may belong to your daughter?" I Finish.
Silence.
"What makes you people think this is funny?" The voice grew agitated and shook as the woman spoke.
Click.
With that mere exchange the call had ceased. I check the number I dialed, and it was identical to the number in the phone. Weird.
I look to the other calls seeing the name "Darcy" pop up many more times. I imagine this to be her best friend, and I recount the late nights I stayed up on the phone with my own childhood best friend. I catch myself missing those days, I almost feel like they ended too soon, and honestly I don't even remember what happened between my best friend and I. I suppose we just grew apart the way most do.
I call her number, and it comes up with a landline. I do not leave a message though I pondered my options of what to say. My conclusion was a series of vague questions regarding a friend of Darcy's with a pink cell phone case. With one last quarter and one final contact. I call "Him", but the number has been disconnected.
I click the camera roll to possibly identify her if she is still in the park. The most recent photo is one of a newspaper clipping: TEENAGE GIRL MURDERED BY CYBERSUITER.
Okay, sure this was strange, but it did not give me any answers as to whose phone this was. I flip to the next to find another photograph of a newspaper clipping. This one merely read:PORTERSBERG GIRL'S BODY DISCOVERED.
I don't even remember reading about this case, and as a person fascinated by law, I try to stay timely with big cases, especially local cases. I scroll further to find screenshots with similar titles, none gave the girls name, but it was concluded that a boy she had met online was responsible for this crime. The next picture is a girl, she's dead. She is face down in a pool of her own blood, her lifeless arms slumped to either side of her uninhabited body. This photo lead me to believe that whoever took these photos must be responsible, could it be the young girl who this phone this belongs to? I hesitantly flip to the next photo on the roll.
It was girl with raven hair, her piercing blue eyes were cold and dead. Next to her was a book. Great Expectations sat beside her marinating in a pool of blood that cascaded feebly from her head. My head. My raven hair tangled on the floor, my eyes were now lifeless and dead. I met him, and he took everything away from me. I belittled their warnings and now it is I who was found dead in the park's dim night. It is I who had my childhood ripped away from me like wrapping paper from a christmas gift. I turned to where the woman once sat and read the words on the bench In Loving Memory of Sierra Eden Morris.
