Flashbacks

Ro

Darien didn't mean for any of this to happen. He just wanted to harmlessly prank his backstabbing buddy. He didn't think it would hurt anybody. His breathing began to hitch. What do you do to hide a body?! He couldn't get caught for this. It would ruin his scholarship, and what's worse, he could be arrested. If only Rosella had been a little stronger.

Maybe then he wouldn't of killed his best friend.

His eyes were welling with tears as the realization of what he had done dawned on him. He had murdered Stephen, accidentally. But how do you accidentally kill someone? The court, if caught, would see him as deranged. Send him to a psychiatric ward. He did not want to be another bad black person on the news, but how do you plead innocent to a crime you did commit. Darien thought he could hear sirens in the background of the park. He could see the headlines now.

Local African American teen murders his best friend.

As his face flushed and his heart raced, he could vividly remember everything that happened since the day had begun.

The light had shone brightly through his window that morning. He had woken up like usual ready for another day as the school's most well liked nerd. Despite his mental aptitude and obvious love for D&D, he was part of the most popular clique at Middle Burrow. He was even dating the prettiest girl in the building, (in his eyes anyway), Ro. She was captain of the basketball team, head of the school newspaper, and lead actress in all the school plays. She took it very seriously to be amazing at everything. Ro was extremely impulsive, so every activity with her, truly did make him a little less scared of the world. She had made Darien feel safe. He was so excited to see her after the three summer months they had spent apart, that he had dressed in his nicest attire and rushed to get out of his house. Even though the bus he rode didn't pick up for another hour, he stood idly at his stop, waiting until his beautiful girlfriend had arrived beside him. Except she didn't. Darien shrugged off any worrisome feelings. It was the first day, so maybe she decided to be spontaneous and ride her teal cruiser bike to school. He smiled at the thought. Ro really was a dream. He hopped on the vehicle and sat down as a bunch of pubescent high schoolers yelled and threw things. He was lucky to have survived the ride to school, without a pencil stabbing his eye or a paper cannon getting shoved up his ass. When the bus stopped, he hadn't seen Ro's bike, which at first was a little unsettling, knowing she didn't have a car, but he then came back down to reality and assumed she caught a ride with their mutual friend Sam or something. None the wiser, Darien had gone about his school preparations, just bursting to see the girl. When he reached his locker, he finally did spot her, but that was not his Rosella. This Ro imposter wore dark clothes with long sleeves. No patch  of skin had shown except her face. She looked sleep deprived and red as if she'd been crying. The bubbly, out of the blue, girl he loved seemed to have been hibernating within this sad shell. He wasn't going to allow a new look stop him from being near her though, so he walked up eager. She caught his gaze, and tears slowly started to fall. Darien flinched at her sadness. Was she really that unhappy to see him? No, it must be something else.
"Ro, I missed you," He said caressing her all too thin cheeks. They used to be chubby and freckled with stars.

She grabbed his wrist roughly removing his hand from her face.

"Darien," she croaked, her voice hoarse and dry, " I can't do this anymore. I love you. I really do, but this summer has changed me. Trust me it's safer this way."

Then she walked away crying. Darien had not understood. Did she just break up with him? Had he done something wrong? What he later learned though, wasn't that he was to blame. He learned that she was hurting, and he wouldn't be able to save her this time.

By lunch, she was dead.

Darien had been dragging the corpse of his former friend for what seemed like hours. The walk to the Cheshire Grande Lake was a journey on its own, without the constant worry of being watched. He turned his neck searching in vain for a sign of a third party. It really was just him and the deceased. The foggy lake was starting to come into view, and Darien felt a wave of relief wash over him. His Harry Potter frames were starting to blur and his arms grew weaker by the second. All he had to do once he got there was throw the lifeless into the depths of the water. It was foolproof. So why did he hesitate on the rigid cliff, before the lake. The lull of the water made him dizzy and the thought of his own plan made him nauseous. He dropped Caleb and vomited into the calm water. Was he insane? He pressed his jacket sleeve against his mouth as he coughed. The blood on his hands came as a shock, but what do you expect after dealing with a dead body twice in the same day.  What was seen as mortifying was knowing the blood wasn't his or Stephen's, but her's.

Earlier that same wretched day, he and Stephen had been called to the office. He remembered each excruciating moment when the principal said Rosella had left.

"Where did she go?" Darien asked foolishly, " Did she transfer?"

He saw as the two women, he knew as Ro's moms, cried. One of the two, Helen, Darien knew, wiped a few stray tears and explained through choked sobs.

"Rosella, She.... She was found... dead in the courtyard."

Darien laughed. The scenery around him was nowhere near humorous, but this had to be a prank.

"You're joking right?" He said stifling a chuckle.

Helen's wife Meredith, curled into her chest at the rude exterior Darien had. No one seemed to join him in laughter. He realized the severity of the situation.

Warm tears began to spill-

Darien pulled out of the daydream as he watched the body fall over the cliff. Another one dead.

This was not going to end well.