Grey

Three: Valid Evidence

She had no idea how long she had been sitting there. Her eyes continuously teared up and she wiped them off immediately with her sleeve, not wanting them to contaminate Ashley's bed. She shifted her position slightly and bit her lip this time, to stop herself from sobbing.

Daniel had to leave because he had something to attend to. Agatha had left much before that, to cry to herself and also make preparations for the funeral.

It was dark now. Lisa recounted the numerous times she'd been here after dark, by climbing up the oak tree and slipping into her room through the window.

She smiled to herself as Ashley's smiling face came to her memory.

The first time she had come here, to this small town, she was alone. Just her parents seemed to care.

She remembered how her mother had been so excited about high school. Curling up her hair perfectly, choosing perfect clothes and shoes and finding the right accessories, all of which Lisa never used again. It was on that day she had met Ashley- in physics class. That was the first thing they found they had in common, their passion for physics.

Through Ashley, she had met the others, Daniel, Jake and Jessica. With time, she had found that Ashley and her shared a number of common interests. They liked the same kind of music, they read the same kind of books and preferred the same type of food.

But Ashley had been wild and temperamental while Lisa had been somewhat mellow and calm. Ashley was the type girl who didn't think of consequences. She lived for the moment and she lived it to the fullest.

Tears leaked down Lisa's eyes and this time, she couldn't stop them. Suddenly, she stood up, and in a very jerky motion, rubbed at her eyes and went around to the headboard of the bed.

Using all her strength, she pushed the bed forward till it had moved a few feet. She then got onto her knees and ran her hands over the tiles, studying them. At one of them, she stopped and rapped it with her knuckle. A hollow ringing sound was heard.

Pushing away some hair from her eyes, Lisa shifted the tile slightly in its position and finally pulled it off, revealing a small box shaped hollow beneath, which was filled with photographs, packs of cigarettes, a bottle of whisky and a camera.

Ashley's phone was checked regularly by her overprotective mother and hence, she used and old portrait camera that she had acquired from Jessica to take photographs that she wouldn't like to share with Agatha.

Lisa carefully picked up the photographs, intending to go through them one by one, for any evidence and for reliving the memories, but there were too many.

Ashley had shown this stash to her once, when they were doing a physics assignment together.

"Don't want mom to see this," she had said with a careless shrug, "Even if I die!"

She instead quickly gathered them all and pushed them into a rather large handbag that she had found on Ashley's desk. She would hide them away, she would fulfill her wish.

She paused for a moment, looking down into the hole, with a raised eyebrow. Behind all the photographs was a brown diary. She bent down and picked it up, flicking through the pages. It was Ashley's handwriting.

A personal diary.

She opened up the diary to the last written page. It was dated the day before her demise.

That blonde bitch! Why does she have to do all this? Why does she take away everything from me?

This time, I am not going to give in. Not going to let this go. This time, it'll be revenge.