wattys 2020 winner • mystery/thriller
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Everyone thinks she is dead. Even I thought so, too.
While the town spoke of her dead name, Amethyst Cambray is actually alive, and she is asking for my help.
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21
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S E P T E M B E R 2019
AND THAT IS the story of how I fell in love with a girl who I knew, from the start, I had no chance with. Amethyst Cambray and I are different in many aspects, and those differences define how she and I are far from being compatible. I fell in love with a murderer.
Five months ago, before Amethyst Cambray murdered her own parents, I was a usual teen age boy who liked watching TV and reading books. I had a crush on Cinna who loves the same book I love, and I had this broken microwave I didn't know how to fix. Five months ago, I didn't think that this whole . . . horrific roller coaster ride is ahead of me. I didn't know that I'd meet a massive heartbreak I wasn't, in any way, prepared for.
Five months ago, my very wish was only to have a comfortable life. I had more than what I wished for.
Instead . . . I met the most wonderful girl I've ever met in my life. The most beautiful, the brightest, the smartest. Amethyst was a disaster. But all through her mess, I have loved her, I do. Even until now.
I feel very lost, specially after reading the diary over and over again. Pakiramdam ko pa rin hindi totoo ang mga nangyayari; at some point I wish that all of this is just a dream and I'll wake up to see Amethyst inside my house, smiling at me, frying eggs for our breakfast. That never happened.
All I have in my apartment now is myself, Amethyst's scent, and my heart in pathetic pieces.
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F E B R U A R Y 2020
IT'S BEEN MONTHS since she disappeared, and rumors are slowly fading into the thin air of the town.
Fewer and fewer people are talking about the fire, about the disappearance of Hannah Fuller, and the death of the Cambray family. The whole town believes that they are dead.
The only people here in town who are sure that Amethyst is alive and is still out there is Oliver, Cinna, Pierre, and I. We all know that Amethyst did not die but instead she was the one who killed, but none of us spoke. The four of us are invested into Amethyst; so much that we wouldn't want her to be found by anyone else. So much that we would let her run away from her crime.
Amethyst Cambray was raped, abused, emotionally and physically, and damaged mentally. She needed to escape. She believes that the only way to be free and to escape is to murder her own parents by strangling them to death and setting the whole house on fire. We all know it; even Oliver knows about it. Even a part of me says that Gary and Irene Cambray deserved what they had for ruining a girl who they should have taken care of.
