The Boy Next Door

Prologue

        I stared into my girlfriend's open grave. "My friends, how can we comfort ourselves after such a loss?" Reverend Morrissey asked. "A young girl, her whole life ahead of her, taken from us in a senseless accident."

   I felt tears sting my eyes. I didn't want to cry. Not with my parents, Dana's parents, and all of our friends standing there.
   I forced myself to gaze at the reverend. I focused on his mouth opening and shutting, opening and shutting, as he talk about Dana.
  The reverend's words started to run together. His voice faded. What was he
saying? I couldn't understand him.  I'm loosing it, I thought. It's too much. It's all
too much.
  I threw myself down beside the grave. Why, Dana? Why?
  I stared into the deep hole. It's so dark down there, I thought. So dark.
It reminded me of the night Dana died...

    The night was hot--- over a hundred degrees and humid. I talked Dana into sneaking over to my neighbors' yard to use their pool. The house stood empty. The backyard dark and silent.
    We stripped down to our bathing suits. Then I grabbed Dana's hand and led her over to the pool--- a black hole in the darkness.
    Dana climed up the ladder to the diving board. She turned and waved. I could barely see her face, but I could tell she was smiling. I waved back.
    The bored creaked loudly as she took three steps and sprang high in the air. Dana did a perfect swan dive.
    She hit the cement bottom of the pool head first.
    I stood very still for a minute, listening. Then I carefully climed down into the empty pool. I knelt beside Dana on the hard cemment.
   She was still breathing. Her eyes were open and shiny in the darkness. Gazing up at me.
   Thick purple blood oozed out of her head. It smelled like metal.
   I watched her.
   Waited until she took her last breath.
   Then I screamed for help.