The Friend

Lauren was unable to remember the night that Meredith James went missing. She can’t remember the weeks following, she can’t even remember what Meredith sounded like. Her mother reassured her that that was normal however. The brain has a fight or flight response to anything traumatic.

The way her mother explained it was when one is in an adverse situation, stress hormones peak and the hippocampus, the part of the brain that stores memories, loses the ability to store memories during stressful times.

Lauren has always been thankful for that. She was only sixteen and she had a had a blessed four years not remembering anything about that week and she wanted to keep it that way. She could not allow anything like trauma to drag her down like all of her peers. She sees what it does to them. The bulimics, the anorexics and the cutters. She is surrounded by them and its just not her style.

So, whatever happened to twelve-year-old Meredith James can stay as good as buried. Her school however, they are known to drag it out.

When Meredith had gone missing, Lauren’s mother revealed that the school had held all sort of candlelight vigils, prayers and took part in night-long searches for the little girl. Lauren always believed it was overly dramatic, but she did not dare say it out loud, she would hate to be known as a pariah. Her mother would never stand for it, even if Lauren knew she felt the same.

However, Lauren did not want to focus on Meredith James, prom was tomorrow and she was going with Darren. Her new boyfriend. She liked Darren, he was sweet and smart, her mother liked him too. She does admit that she does drift away when he opens his mouth, her head flooded with white noise, but, they didn’t need to talk a lot of them time anyway she reasons.

And, Darren had finally asked her to prom! It took a lot of hints on Lauren’s part, and a lot of coercing. But he finally did! Lauren was in a state of excited bliss as she buzzed throughout the shops looking for a matching ensemble for the two. A tie to match her dress, Jamaican Blue. She had the corsage made, the photographer booked and the whole evening scheduled in perfect cohesive detail. She wanted it to be the perfect night, just like the films.

Stepping into her school, Lauren was surrounded by activity, her peers were buzzing like a hive, she weaved her way through the crowd, saying hello to everyone including the teachers, as she makes her way to her locker.

The prom committee, which she was the leader of, were meeting up later tonight just to make sure they had the final details all down to a T. The flowers, the photobooth, everything. She had persuaded her mother to help out with the funding, it took a bit of bargaining, get amazing grades and she would have all the money she needed for her prom. And get amazing grades she did.

After retrieving her PE Kit, Lauren slams her locker door and checks the countdown on her phone. It was T-minus 35 hours until prom and she was seething that she had to do something as trivial as school when she felt like she still had so much to do. But she tried not to show it, it would not be very becoming of her. She turned and almost bumped into her friend Jessica, her hair in disarray and her cheeks flushed from the cold, she saying something that does not catch Lauren’s ears.

“Jess, what?”

“They’re releasing the letters today!” She says excitedly. Her teeth white as the grin stretches her face.

Lauren narrows her brow, her lips turned upside down in confusion. “What letters?”

"You know!" She nudges her playfully but all it does is grate on Lauren's nerves.

"I obviously don't."

"The letters we wrote to Meredith, the week she went missing!” Lauren almost reeled back in shock, her PE bag swinging between the girls.

“We wrote her letters?” She rolls her eyes. “That’s so fucked up.”

They begin walking to class, the crowd bustling around them, some kids were shoving each other into the doors, the year sevens congregating in the middle of the corridor as if they have no where to be.

She shoves through their little crowd purposefully, Jessica close on her heels.

“They wanted us to write them just to process our grief.”

“What grief?” Lauren scoffs, shimmying her way around a kissing couple. “She went missing, she was obviously picked up by a white van man, end of story.”

“Jesus! Lauren, be a bit sympathetic.”

“This is me being sympathetic.”

“God, I’d hate to see you when you’re mean.”

“I’m sorry, but why the hell did they make us write letters? And why release them the day before prom? Do we need another day in our life overtaken by Meredith?”

Jessica doesn’t bother answering, so Lauren answers for her. “She’s gone, the sooner people know that, the better.”

*

The letters were all people could talk about in the changing rooms, girls in different states of adolescence, bonding over a dead girl.

Jessica was in the middle of pulling her joggers over her legs. “I have no idea what I wrote in my letter. Do you?”

Emily was pulling her long hair into a high pony tail, she had beautiful hair, thick and luscious, Lauren was always jealous of it, not that she would ever tell her. “I think I must have just drawn pictures, or stuff, I mean I am so excited!”

“Excited?” Lauren raises her eyebrows at her, perched on the bench, watching them all. Emily grins at her, her hair flipping behind her as she twists to look at her.

“Aren’t you? It’s sort of macabre I guess, wondering what twelve-year-old us thought about a missing classmate.”

Lauren hums, standing up, walking towards the mirror at the front of the overcrowded room. She looks at herself, preening. “I guess. Did I show you guy’s Darren’s tux for Prom?”

Emily gasped, the right reaction, “I still can’t believe you’re going with Darren. My boyfriend would not be caught dead at a dance.”

“Sucks to be him.” Lauren turns and stretches her face to look at her eyebrow shape, when she sees Tegan looking at her. Tegan is in a state of undress so Lauren can see her arms. She recoils and steps away, not acknowledging her at all.

Tegan was a cutter; her arms do not even have flesh that had not been marred by her blade of choice. It annoys Lauren, because usually cutters hide their scars, but Tegan, Tegan leaves them out for every Tom, Dick and Harry to gawk at. She was Meredith’s best friend and so she took it upon herself to be a constant reminder that Meredith has left a supposed gaping hole in their school community. She reminds Lauren of one of those, religious priests and spokesmen who hold up signs on the street preaching about God.

She was still looking at her, Lauren shivers, disgusted. She wants to snap at Tegan, tell her to cut it out, the staring was freaking her out. Making her skin crawl.

The girls are interrupted by Miss Mungo walking in, Adidas wear, short and stocky. “Why are you guys dilly dallying? Outside now!”

*

It was after a very inappropriate not safe for work, groping session with Darren, that Lauren showed up at her form room. She saunters in, going to her table shared with Jessica and Emily, she sits back and stretches her legs, still achy after PE. Jessica is practically vibrating with excitement. She grabs her arm, “It’s almost time.” She whispers. Lauren shakes her off.

Her teacher walks in, Mr Phillips, he had been their form tutor since Meredith went missing, Lauren always felt that that’s why he feels such an affinity to the situation, and must be why he forced them to write grotesque letters to a missing girl.

He sits down at his desk and a hush falls over the classroom, his presence heavy. Everyone looking at him with beady eyes and baited breath.

“It will have been four years since Meredith James went missing. There has been no sign of her and her parents are still, god bless them, staying amazingly strong and they have not given up their search. And so, I thought that we, as upstanding citizens should also show our support and have a look at the letters we wrote to her so long ago. Whilst, we were able to put those letters and our memories of her away, her parents are having to live with the fact that their child is missing every single second of the day. So, we are going to look at those letters once again, and I want us to feel for the parents. And understand them.”

Lauren rolls her eyes and sighs, she’s excited to tell her mother, she knew her mother would have a field day when she hears about this.

Mr Phillips gets out from the bottom of his desk; a black wooden box, akin to a time capsule.

Her leg begins to shake under the table, as she watches Phillips snail around the class, giving them their mementos. Her throat itches to say him to hurry up, so that they could all move on, swiftly and focus on the festivities for tomorrow. If he would walk a little faster, then this would all be over and they can move on with their life.

Jessica is the first on the girls table to get her letter. It is crinkled and folded shut, her hand writing childlike. Jessica almost lets out a squeal of excitement, practically snatching her letter from Phillip’s hands and opening it so fast Lauren thought it was about to rip. Lauren watches her eyes fly from one end of the page to the next as if Serena Williams was playing at Wimbledon.

“Twelve-year-old me was so angsty man.” She mutters to her, “I just keep saying shit like, I miss you so much and I will always be with you. Fly with the angels my darling and poetic shit like that.” She almost looks defeated.

“Did you think you were going to solve the whole case Jess?” Lauren asks with a sneer.

Jessica nudges her with her shoulder, “Of course not.”

Finally, she can see Phillip’s walking towards her, with her letter. “I hope I’ll be seeing you tomorrow night, Mr Phillips?” She grins with her most teacher winning grin and her stomach flares when he smiles back.

“Nothing inappropriate will be having on my watch Miss Lauren, I will be the best chaperone.” He hands her the letter and moves along, leaving Lauren to chuckle.

“Goody Goody” Emily says, putting down her letter.

Lauren looks at her, “Not a good goody, just his favourite student.”

She takes the letter, crinkled and rough against her hand, the noise like a record player cutting out. She opens it fast; not even planning to read it.

But something stops her, there is only one line on the paper, scrawled in black ink. Her fingers shake as the tips touch the ink, as if willing to rub it away.

She’s in the garden, by the rose bushes.

She reads it again, and again, and again. Willing for the letters to change, willing for the page to be blank.

Her heart is stuttering and her stomach hurts. Her throat, she’s trying to gather saliva to ease it, but she can’t.

Her legs are shaking, and she can feel eyes on her. Her face warm.

“Are you alright?” Emily asks, leaning towards her, trying to steal a glance at her letter. She doesn’t get the chance; Lauren folds up the letter and puts it in her back pocket. “Of course, I just deserve an award for my poetry, I could give Wordsworth a run for his money.”

*

She walks home in what she thinks is a brisk manner, on the contrary, she looked like a mad man being chased. However, she cannot bring herself to care. The letter is in burning a hole in her pocket, and all she knows is that she needs to get home as soon as possible.

On her way home she is perturbed with visions, moments, moments she did her best to forget.

She runs to her garden, a shovel in hand, the one scrawled line on the letter the only thing she can see. The Rose bushes, check the Rose bushes.

She digs and digs, the rose bushes, she’s in the rose bushes, the Rose bushes that bloom every year, her mother’s rose bushes. That’s what the letter said.

They’re torn to shreds, petals sprinkled on the grass, and weeds covered and buried with compost. The pile getting bigger and bigger with the sun passing in the sky. But Lauren doesn’t think about that, all she knows is digging and digging, until –

She hits something, something, wrong.

*

She was only twelve years old, her friends Tegan and Meredith by her side, hands held together as they swing through the streets. As unstoppable as they could be at twelve. But what Meredith didn’t know, was that Lauren has a knife in her pocket.

*

She falls to her knees in the hole she’s made. The first thing she and comprehend, is the smell. She gags, her eyes watering, bile climbing up her throat. The smell was rank, pungent mixed with sweetness. Like, cheap perfume, smothered on rotting meat. But that does not stop her from digging. And keeps brushing against the mud with her bare hands. Digging and digging, until she feels, bone. She gasps, and jumps away, scrambling backwards as if something was going to come crawling out of the mud, a body mangled and twisted, crawling towards her on its hands and feet, ready to eat her whole.

*

They went to the woods, the three of them, Lauren’s plan in action, get her to the woods, get her to the woods, and it will be fine. Everything will be fine.

*

She inches closer, her heart in her throat, it is nightmarishly silent, no birds, no wind, it is as if her world is still, her stomach is clenched in anxiety, she had never been so possessed by fear, her hands shake with it. Her flesh had turned cold as stone. Her heart lurching, pounding against her rib cage like a hammer. She had never known herself so gripped by such dread and horror.

She pulls, and pulls and sees the ribs.

*

She screams and screams, Meredith is just made of screams and they don’t stop. Tegan is crying like a baby, snot dribbling from her nose and saliva all over her face as she holds her down. But all Lauren can hear is her own rapid heartbeat, she’s sweating, she can feel it on her brow, she’s so strong, she plunges the knife into Meredith’s chest again and again and again, her screams her favourite sound, she doesn’t know where she got her strength from, but all she knows is her knife is caught on a rib. And she won’t stop screaming, stop screaming, you bitch, stop fucking screaming-

*

She jumps out of the hole, screaming and screaming and screaming. She’s crying and she can’t stop, everything coming back to her, the noises the sounds the squelching of the knife puncturing flesh again and again.

“Lauren?”

She turns, her neck snapping as she faces a tall, brooding figure, straight faced, hair tied tight, leaving no room for the appearance wrinkles on her forehead. She leans down, and cups Lauren’s warm face, Lauren can barely see, the tears are blurring her eyes. “Mummy.”

Her mother does not even look at the massacre behind her, she holds her hand against her head, as if checking for a temperature. “I was wondering when you were going to remember.”

Lauren blinks, “remember?”

“The adrenalin had run down and you ran home, leaving what used to be Meredith in the woods, Tegan, who knows where she went. I saw you run into my arms, blood on your school shirt.” She tuts. “Look at the mess you made of my rose bushes.”

“Mess? Mummy- “

“Hush, you have friends coming round in an hour. I can clean this up you need to clean this up.”

“But Mummy, I killed- “

“Shush. We don’t discuss it, this will all be smoothed away just like before baby.”

“You hid the body.”

“Of course, I did.” She grabs her shoulders and forces her to stand up.

“But, why-“

“This would ruin us if it ever got out. And I refuse to have you like your peers, all mentally unstable. No, that would not do at all.”

“How are you so normal?”

“Darling.” She shakes her shoulders, Lauren’s eyes rolling. Her body lolling, as if all the bones in her body had evaporated.

“Lauren! You have guests coming in an hour, you have your prom tomorrow, this bloody town devotes too much attention to this stupid girl enough, do not draw more.”

Lauren doesn’t speak, she just stares at her mother until she blurs and pixelates. Not existing in her periphery.

“Go get ready and when the meeting is done, we can get you some hot chocolate, and get you all pampered for tomorrow okay?” She kisses her forehead and all but shoves her towards the door.

*

In the shower, the dust and grime all running away into the sink, Lauren is numb. Its inconsiderable, hideously indescribable how fast her life is changed in the past few hours. And all she can think about is, if she goes to prison, she’s never going to go to prom.

Somehow, that shakes her out of her stupor. She showers with renewed vigour and dresses quickly, drying her hair with her towel as she goes. She sees her mother in the kitchen, washing her hands, she goes up and wraps her arms around her, all but draped on her back, her lovely mother leans her cheek against hers and she can feel it pulled in a smile.

“I love you mummy.” Lauren looks out the sink window in front of them, at the new mound of earth.

“And I love you, Buttercup.”

*

As she walks up the steps, her arm on Darren’s, a beautiful corsage on her wrist, she feels over the moon. She smiles beamingly at Darren who grins back. She looks around at her friends and her peers, she notes that Tegan is there, in a skimpy little black number, black like her soul, Lauren thinks. She feels almost, pitiful, Tegan could have looked lovely.

The hall looks amazing, she thinks. Drapes hanging from the ceiling like a circus, beautiful fairy light mason jars on every table. The music is surrounding them, it feels just like the movies she watched when she was younger.

She tightens her grip on Darren’s arm, “what do you think?” she whispers.

“Looks good.” He answers, and she can’t help but agree.

Hours later find her dancing with her friends, the music thrumming through her veins, she spins round and sees Darren near the punch, with a hip flask. She shakes her head and makes a secret vow to ignore that.

Suddenly, the music stops. And there is a tapping of a microphone and she can see Mr Phillips on stage.

Darren appears next to her, his warmth seeping through her dress.

Mr Philips clears his throat. And smiles down at everyone. “I hope you are all having a good time!” Everyone cheers and Lauren smiles, hiding her face into Darren’s jacket.

“But I think we should take a moment, to remember those who can’t be here tonight.”

Lauren gasps, suddenly cold, one thought filling her head. No. No, don’t do this. Please.

“Meredith James is still missing and I feel that we should all take a moment, just brief minute of silence, even though it could never make up for these pure and precious moments that she is missing.”

Lauren does not know what comes over her but she is blinded with rage, her body feels warm, like she’s burning. Her cheeks are on fire. Raw anger sings through her veins, and she’s walking, purposefully towards the stage, while Mr Philips is still conducting his supposedly heart wrenching speech. She was going to put an end to it.

She ignores the attempts to grab her and to hold her back, she pushes and shoves the needy hand away and steps on the stage, she snatches the microphone maliciously from Mr Phillips, who does not do anything in shock.

“I am sick and tired of fucking Meredith James!”

That breathes a hush around her, everyone staring up at her, wonderment and awe in their shining eyes.

“She’s gone! Okay, she’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone!” She is shrieking now, everyone recoiling from the feedback from the microphone. “She’s gone and she is still ruining our lives! She is still fucking everywhere!”

She’s crying now, her hands shaking and her throat full of unshed tears, “If you love Meredith so fucking much, why don’t you fucking join her!”

Mr Phillips wakes suddenly and tries to grab her, but she moves away, stumbling on her heels. “If I tell you all where she is, will you shut up about her, for once in your pitiful lives, will you?”

She sees Jessica and Lauren in the audience, clutching at each other, hands covering mouths in horror.

She ignores them and sees Tegan, who itches at her arms, Lauren smiles at her, teeth barred, “you know better than anyone, don’t you Tegan, you are a living reminder that she’s gone. WHY CAN’T YOU FUCKING MOVE ON YOU A GRADE CUNT!”

“That is enough!” Mr Phillips and other teachers have joined him, trying to subdue her, but she won’t be subdued.

“You cut and cut and cut and hope that that is going to bring her back, but you know what, you know better than anyone that she will never be back.”

She grins again, her eyes shining, Tegan’s face falling. “Because you killed her didn’t you Tegan.” There was shouting, people clamouring to the stage, speaking over each other, eating up her lies as if they were starving. Moving away from Tegan as if she was diseased.

“And you put her in my back garden, under my fucking rose bush. MEREDITH JAMES’S TWELVE-YEAR-OLD, DECOMPOSED BODY IS BURIED UNDER MY ROSE BUSH AND MENTALLY UNSTABLE TEGAN KILLED HER! CHECK THE FUCKING ROSES, YOU BLIND, BLITHERING IDIOTS. THE MURDERER IS RIGHT THERE, YOU LOVE MEREDITH SO FUCKING MUCH, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.”

And that’s when the screaming started.