Helena

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When I was just a few months old, not at all the age to remember this, my mother, 19 at the time, was a single parent. We lived with fellow student from a college my mother was attending, Helena. From my mother's stories, she was as beautiful as ever and held a bright future ahead of her.

One Tuesday evening, Helena was trying to convince my mother to go out partying with her, but my mother had a ton of studying to accomplish. Being the paranoid woman that she is, she wasn't fond of the idea of staying in an apartment alone. She decided to go spend the night with another pair of friends. They were already out of college and happily married.

The following day, Helena wasn't in class. When my mother returned home, Helena's car wasn't there nor her purse which she carried around every where she traveled. This struck my mother as odd and she knew something wasn't right. She decided to call the local dentist office where Helena worked as an assistant and they informed my mother that she hadn't showed up to work. My mother's blood ran cold as she started for the front door, no longer feeling comfortable in her home.

She then called campus security and two gentlemen in pressed uniforms came over to have a look around. When they found a broken window in the bathroom, they quickly called for backup and the county's police. The police arrived quickly and searched Helena's room. They pulled back the covers on her bed where they discovered the sheets were soaked with blood. That metallic, coppery odor filled the air. There was so much blood. Too much blood. Helena had to be dead, no one could possibly survive with that much loss of blood.

 Helena had to be dead, no one could possibly survive with that much loss of blood

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The police found her abandoned car out on a country road. It had been veered off into a ditch, smoke still rising into the air as if a signal for the police. Helena's body was found in a field nearby, not far from her crashed vehicle. She'd been raped and stabbed to death with what forensics guessed was a cork screw. Mother was beyond terrified and refused to return to her home. She lived out the rest of her college years with her other married friends.

Eventually, the police caught the man who'd murdered Helena. He didn't get his intended target that night. No, Helena was not who he wanted, but he had to settle for her. He'd been watching my mother for some time, months. He had even faked being a potential buyer of the apartment my mother and Helena were renting, and toured it with a real estate agent. There, he got a perfect layout of the room and prepared his attack. He knew all the possible exits and where they kept the landline so he knew to go there first and cut the cord as to prevent any 911 calls.

My mother blames herself for Helena's untimely demise, though we both know if she were there that night, she would've been killed and I could've been an orphan. It's a painful story to hear my mother recall, but it's a reminder to not take life for granted.

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