My name is Byron James and I am madly in love with my best friend.
It all began with a small, antisocial sixth grader who had just moved to my small town in Massachusetts from San Francisco. I had just gotten into the fifth grade when I met her. I wasn’t much of a hotshot back then either. It was not only that but, I had a lot in common with Sarah. We both spent our free time writing and we both spent most of our time alone. That was until we became friends. Then, we were inseparable.
Later on, in high school, we both joined the theater club. She talked her way into the director position. She even was able to get me a spot as the stage manager. It was actually during our freshman year while working on this play that i realized that I was in love with her. Maybe it was the way she could go from being soft and gentle to intimidating. When she was in her intimidating moments, you just got that feeling like you could be in real danger, even if she’d never actually done anything to physically harm anyone. She’s surprisingly only ever been like that once to me. That was the one time I didn’t lend her money when she asked for it. Long story short, I learned my lesson.
Sarah Crewshack had a sweet side to her, though. A side that would be taken advantage of by people if she didn’t have that intimidating side. She was never a girl of a thousand words. At least she wasn’t when she didn’t want something from me or someone else. I come from a pretty wealthy family. My father was the owner of the biggest oil company in the state and my mother was an orthopedic surgeon. I didn’t see it than, but Sarah targeted people with resources. Those are the kinds of people she became close to. And boy was she one hell of a manipulator. She could get me to cough up two hundred dollars with just a couple bats of those long lashes. I didn’t think she knew I was in love with her then but she sure used my feelings to her advantage. I think I knew that in the back of my mind but I didn’t care. I still don’t.
One day, Sarah and I were going over lines with the actors in the play. She was in a particularly good mood that day. Michael, our costume designer came up to her with a worried look on his face. People were often a bit nervous when coming to Sarah with bad news.
“Maya accidently knocked over the sewing machine”, he told her in shaky kind of way. Sarah didn’t even look up from the script.
She said in a monotonous voice, “What does that mean.”
Michael hesitated for a brief moment before replying, “It means...we may not be able to...umm…finish the outfits...uh in time.” That was when I new to be worried.
With an unchanged facial expression, she slowly turned to Michael and gave him a cold, hard stare that I’m too familiar with.
“Where is she?” Michael didn’t answer. I expected her to say it a second time, but in a louder, more threatening voice. Instead, she gave him a small smile and just waited.
There was a brief, but uncomfortable silence before, finally, Michael said, “She’s in the dressing room.” Sarah was about five feet and eleven inches and towered over many people in our class. This only added to that tyrannical side that came out every once in awhile. She wasn’t exactly full-on gothic but, she typically wore dark-colored clothing. She also had naturally black hair that fell sleekly behind her shoulders. Her look didn’t change often...or ever.
She handed her script to me, her eyes still stuck on Michael’s. As she walked by him in the direction of the dressing room, with a slight grin, she gave him a soft pat on the shoulder. I set down the script and followed closely behind. I never knew what to expect from Sarah. She was probably the most unpredictable person you’d ever meet. I had to see how this was going to play out. The way I saw it, this could go two ways. Sarah could be nice and forgive her or she could say things to ridicule her in front of everyone around. She didn’t do either.
We walked into the room and saw Maya sitting in a group with some of the stage crew members. Everyone’s faces went blank when they saw Sarah walk into the room. That is, everyone except for Maya. Maya was known to be a bit of a snob. Coming from parents who had more money than mine, she was often under the impression that she was more important than everyone else. She was casted in our play as the leading lady. When we told her this news that would excite most other girls, her reaction was not as expected. Get this!
The girl looked at us with an arrogant smirk and said, “Obviously.” Now this really pissed me off. There were girls lined up for this role and she had no appreciation for this opportunity whatsoever! If you couldn’t tell by now, I pretty much thought she deserved whatever Sarah had in store for her.
Sarah walked in the room and her eyes immediately found the broken sewing machine on the floor. For what was only about ten seconds seemed like an hour when she was quietly staring at the shattered equipment.
The room was silent for a while before Maya stood up and said, obviously insincerely, “It’s no big deal. Sorry, or whatever. The school will probably buy a new one. My bad.” Maya had seen Sarah mad before but never at her. She wasn’t scared of Sarah. Sarah said nothing at first and then she took a few steps towards her. The tension in the room was excruciating. Awkward silences were one of Sarah’s many little tricks she used to intimidate people.
“Do you realize that this play is in a few weeks. We don’t have time to wait for a new machine. Every minute of work we put in now matters. We don’t have any time to spare.” She paused. “You’re going to buy us a new one, by tomorrow.” After this, all eyes turned to Maya who had a somewhat amused expression. It was like watching a blind mouse playing next to a tiger. Sarah was simply a tiger waiting to pounce.
“Uh, yeah...about that. You’re crazy if you think I’m contributing a penny towards this stupid play. You buy it if you care so much. I don’t give two craps about a stupid sewing machine.” Stunned expressions around the room.
Sarah’s face was unchanged. She gave a menacing smile and requested politely that Maya take a walk with her. Maya rolled her eyes and followed Sarah out of the room.
I began to trail behind before Sarah stopped me and sweetly said, “Byron, hun, do you mind staying here and taking charge of everything for a bit? I’d like to speak with Maya alone if that’s okay with you.” I nodded with a curious expression that she seemed to notice because she said, “Don’t worry! Everything will be fine.” I nodded and went back to work. About a half an hour later, Sarah came back into the room...without Maya. She then announced that Maya will not be returning to the production and that Alexis (her understudy) would take her place. I had brought in a brand new sewing machine the next day.
Maya didn’t show up at school for about a week after that. When she did, though, she had a healed but noticeable mark across her right cheek and bruises on her forehead. When asked about it, she claimed she fell off of her bike. Everyone else bought it besides me. That was the first time I had ever thought of Sarah as an actual dangerous person. Ever since then, I had a certain feeling of alertness when I was around her. Once, when Sarah and I were walking down the hall, we passed Maya. The girl was with a friend and when she saw Sarah, I remember seeing something flick across her eyes. I don’t know exactly what it was but it gave me chills. It was a look I’ve never seen before.
The few short weeks past and before we knew it, the night of the play came. While Sarah and I were apart of the stage crew, we did also have minor acting roles in the play. There was a shoot-out scene where I was trying to shoot her from behind a car. While school didn’t take it lightly, we were able to talk them into letting us use her father’s pistol as a prop after we removed the bullets. I thought that was kind of cool. I’d never even touched a real gun in my life until then. The play went really well. Everything ran smoothly and the turnout was great. After the show, all of our cast and crew were ecstatic. It was pretty great until I noticed Sarah. She wasn’t necessarily upset, she was just...nothing. I saw her looking down at her phone and walked over to her.
I said, “Why don’t you join us? We’re all going for pizza. You can ride with me.” She didn’t look up from her phone.
All of the sudden she replied, “My mom just told me she found my dog dead in the backyard.” I was caught completely off-guard. With no clue what to say, I scanned her face to look for any signs of emotion, trying to see how she was taking this. But, when she looked at me, I saw nothing. Actually, it seemed as if she was studying my face as well. It was like she was trying to see my reaction, as if it were my pet that had died.
I didn’t know what to say so I just simply said, “Oh, gosh. I’m sorry Sarah. I know you’ve had Bella since you moved here from San Francisco.” That’s really the only thing I know about Sarah’s old life in San Francisco. She never talked about it for reasons that I’m unaware of. Sarah didn’t say anything after that.
To my surprise, she stood up and smiled and replied, “So are we going? You’re totally buying my pizza, right?” I gave her a half smile and grabbed my keys.
A couple of months passed with no occurrences that were too far out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until the start of spring when I started noticing Sarah acting strangely. And I mean even more strange than usual. She became predictable. She wasn’t being herself. It kind of odd, actually, the fact that, when I think about it, I don’t actually know who she really is. She never talks about herself, her family, likes, dislikes. I know that she likes to write a lot. But I guess I’ve never actually seen what she’s written. I really don’t know how I missed it! She knows EVERYTHING about me. My family, hobbies, history. I’ve even shown her the things I’ve written from the deepest parts of myself. And then nothing. I got nothing in return. Sometimes she’d lead me on, make me think just for a moment that she might like me. She did things like that. Even when I knew what she was doing the entire time she was doing it. But I liked it. As long as she was just always there.
I asked her during lunch one day, “What’s going on with you? You haven’t been… you
lately.
Without a single moment’s hesitation, she replied, “I need four hundred dollars as soon as possible.” Typical. It all made sense now. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep giving and giving my heart, my time, and my money and getting absolutely nothing in return. I looked at her, forming my face into a serious expression so I could be firm and let her know that I mean what I say.
“I’m not going to give you money. Not this time. Not anymore. I’m not your piggy bank. You can’t just use me when it’s convenient to you.” I got it out. I said it. It was as if I couldn’t stop the words from coming out even if I wanted to.
Sarah sat in silence for a few minutes. I began to eat my lunch, wondering if she was going to say anything. She didn’t. She didn’t look upset about it either. I was actually proud of what I said. I’m not usually the person to assert myself, if you haven’t seen that already. The lunch bell rang and I packed my stuff to go to to my next class. I glanced at her and she was giving me a soft smile.
“Do you want to hang out tonight? I was going to have a bonfire over by the quarry. You could come if you’d like.” Maybe this meant that she was over it. If she was ever actually bugged about it in the first place. I could never tell. But, if there was a chance we could move on from this, I was taking it. Sarah’s had been known to hold grudges.
Sarah and I have hung out by the quarry on several occasions. It’s a pretty popular party spot around here, too. We don’t usually go to those parties, though. Again, we aren’t very social people. Then I remembered. Earlier today I told Manny Sanchez that I’d hang out with him. He’s a family friend who goes to my school. The kid has zero friends. And I say that without any exaggeration. I mean, he’s more awkward than me and that really says something. But, my mom feels pity for him. She was telling me some nonsense about putting myself in his shoes. Nevertheless, I promised her I’d hang out with him today. It’s no big deal. I’ll just bring him along to the quarry with me. I’m sure Sarah won’t mind. At least not openly.
Later on, around five o’clock, I picked up Manny and we headed down to the woods. You had to walk about 5 minutes through the woods to get to the quarry. It’s a short walk, no biggie, right? Wrong. Manny over here, packing a few pounds more than average, complained every waking second of the five minutes it took to walk there. He’d say things like, “My feet hurt” or “Can we stop for a minute?” Geez. No wonder the kid had no friends. When we finally got there, Manny was gasping for air. I looked around for Sarah and saw her carry firewood over to the little pit we made a couple of years ago. She smiled when she saw me. She set down her backpack and the firewood and asked me if I could help her find some twigs and dry pine needles. She glanced at Manny and I saw...I don’t know. Maybe it was a bit of an anxious look but then it vanished. She just pretended he wasn’t there.
About an hour later, we were all set, sitting around our roaring fire. The sun was setting and we were surrounded by a soft purple glow. The faint vibrations and buzzings of the evening woods was beginning. Me and Sarah were chatting and I kept noticing her gaze flicking over to Manny and then back to me. Manny hadn’t said more than a sentence since we’d gotten there. He had just been drawing in the dirt, avoiding eye contact with both of us.
I broke his silence by asking, “Are you having fun, Manny?”
He looked up from his dirt art and responded, “Oh. Uhh... yeah it’s fun, I guess. I’m just a bit hungry is all.” Of course he was. Before I could say anything, Sarah got up and went towards her bag that she left by the trees.
“I’ll be right back. I forgot that I packed some s’mores.” Manny’s face lit up when she said this.
Sarah took a couple of minutes to come back. I heard her footsteps and turned around. “Hey, did you get the s’mo-”. There she was, standing about fifteen feet away just staring blankly at me. My eyes traveled to her hand where she gripped her father’s pistol, the same one we had used in the play. Except… I don’t think it was lacking in ammunition this time around. She was gripping it so hard that I could see her knuckles turning white even with the fire being the only light that was left. I turned to see Manny’s face had gone white and his eyes were fixed on the shiny weapon. He opened his mouth as if he were going to speak but no words came out.
I foolishly asked, “What are you doing, Sarah?” She looked at me with a face that I had never seen on her before. It was a face of sympathy, although I’m sure it was insincere.
“I told you, Byron. I need that money.” This was no joke. Manny managed to get out a few shaky words.
“I should not have came here. I didn’t want to come here.” Tears streamed down his cheeks. He looked down at his phone.
“Put that down,” she scolded. He put it down with trembling hands.
“No. No, you shouldn’t have come here tonight,” she said in a false pitiful voice. “But, unfortunately for you, you did. And that means I can’t let you leave here.” She raised her arm with the firearm aimed at his chest.
“I called the police!” And with that, she pulled the trigger. I was paralyzed with a fear that I have never felt before. Beside me, lay dead a boy I had known since the third grade. Lifeless and still. I felt my eyes begin to tear up as I looked at her cold eyes on Manny and her lips curved into a malicious grin. Her eyes darted at me.
Now, don’t ask me why I chose to ask her this of all things but I wondered, “Did you kill your dog?”
With a wicked look on her face, she replied, “What do you think?” There was a temporary moment of nothing before we heard the faint sirens in the distance. We looked at each other as she raised the gun to me and took a few steps closer.
“Please.” It was all I could manage to get out before BANG.
The pain hit me before I heard the sound. I fell over, holding my stomach, my eyes wider than the Grand Canyon. She looked at me. Her face wasn’t evil. It wasn’t sad, angry, happy. Just nothing. “Hey! You! Stop right there!” My vision was failing. My pain went numb. I lay, blankly staring at the officers closing in on Sarah. She took slow steps to the edge of the quarry with the gun rested on her temple. “Stop! Don’t move,” the officers persisted. I felt myself drifting. I was able to see Sarah drop her gun on the ground next to her. She stood at the edge of the quarry, her hands above her head, with a bitter smirk on her face. The voice of death was whispering my name. The officers rushed in but, before they reached her, she closed her eyes, leaned back and plummeted into the deep trench. I caught the faint chuckle she released and then everything went black and I was no more.
My name is Byron James and I am still madly in love with my murderer.