Free Sketchy by Olivia Samms Page A

down.
    “What… are… you… doing… here?” My breath spasms.
    He holds his chest, places his arms underneath his pits, breathing hard. “I figured they wouldn’t have been happy to see me either, but I had to come. It’s so sad—so sad about Aggie. I hid in the back and followed you. Thought you’d never stop. I didn’t know you could run so fast!”
    I hop up to my knees, grab him by his shoulders, and yell, “You killed her! You killed Aggie!!!”
    He takes hold of my hands, stops me. “No, Bea, I didn’t.She didn’t OD with me. Aggie left like an hour after you. I made her tea, she ate some crackers, and she left.”
    “I don’t believe you,” I hiss at him, standing, pulling away from his grasp. I back up into the trunk of a birch tree.
    Marcus stands. “Hey, hey… what’s going on? Huh?” He walks toward me. “We had something good going on the other night…”
    He leans in and tries to hug me. I reach up and snap a branch off the tree and swing it around, whipping his legs.
    He flinches. “What the…? What the hell is wrong with you?”
    I circle him, threatening him with the stick. “You gave her the drugs, didn’t you, after you fucked her!”
    “Hey, calm down. We didn’t have sex. She’s just a friend, I told you that.”
    “But you gave her the drugs!”
    “Yeah, I gave her some shit. But not enough to kill her. It’s not my damn fault!”
    “It’s never your fault is it, Marcus? Wasn’t your fault with me…”
    “Give me a break. You were using before I met you.”
    He tries to get a hold of the branch. And I flip it around, whipping it in the air. “Wasn’t your fault with Willa…”
    “Shit, I had nothing to do with that.”
    I continue circling him like a crazed animal. “Can you prove it? Can you? You fucking her, too?”
    “That cunt? Never.”
    I cringe and take a swing at him. The branch slaps his face and draws blood.
    He touches his wound, looks at the blood on his fingers. “Shit. You’re acting crazy, Bea. Give me that.”
    He wrestles it from my hands and throws it far into the woods. “Now, come on… you’re upset, I get it…”
    “I’m more than upset, Marcus,” I hiss. “That girl, that girl in the Arb last spring…”
    I close my eyes. The smell of the wet grass, the heaviness of my weighted-down body, her voice—
help me, help me!
comes rushing back. “When I heard her… when I woke up, I couldn’t find you—you weren’t there, Marcus. You weren’t there.”
    He laughs. “You were messed up. I was with you the whole time.”
    “Art class—first day of school at Packard High, looking at Willa… I saw your face. She was thinking of you—you were on her mind.”
    “Bea, what are you going on about?” Marcus walks toward me.
    “Don’t touch me! I’ll call the cops if you try.” I dive for my purse, my phone.
    Marcus tries to snatch it from me. I kick his hand away.
    He shakes it in pain. “Damn! That hurts!”
    “Did you rape them? Did you kill them?”
    “No! Of course not! You’re wrong, Bea, dead wrong!”
    “Well, why don’t we let the police decide that!”
    He throws his arms up in the air and starts backing away. “Fine. I won’t touch you. I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want. Just put the damn phone away.”
    “Bea!!!” We both look up at the sound of my mom’s voice. “Where are you, Bea? Bea!!!”
    “I didn’t do it. Any of it. I didn’t.” Marcus turns from me, hops over the creek, and walks off, deep into the woods.

3 months
8 days
7 hours
    I t’s early Monday morning. I am exhausted, bone tired. But I drive down Lilac Lane. It’s a dirt road, and the mud puddles splash and muck up my windshield.
    An old red antique barn is at the end of the lane. I step out of my car and into a puddle wearing my suede ankle boots.
    Damn.
    I hopscotch past the puddles and push at a heavy wood door that doesn’t want to budge. An old cowbell hangs to the right of the door. I pull its chain. The