Time of Death

Time of Death

It was quite the surreal thing to watch your best friend’s body be shoved into a bag and driven off right before your eyes.

Living in the smack dab in the middle of suburbia, you’re never prepared for murder. Really, in a town where people hire professionals to mow their lawn, and get their house painted every other year, you just don’t expect it.

So when Valerie called me, crying and screaming about how her brother was just found face down with a gunshot wound to the head, I thought it was some stupid joke James was trying to pull.

James was a typical boy, well man, really. It was his senior year of high school. Just a typical senior. James had a normal life, normal friends, normal family. He was normal. When you looked at James, you didn’t see a murder victim, you saw James Wells.

This was a year ago.

James’ murderer? Never captured.

The police couldn’t find a thing. There was nothing weird or anything that stood out. It was almost as if James was running the track and some creep came out and shot his brains out or something.

I have no idea who would kill my best friend. James was actually kinda quiet. He never pissed off anyone at school. He didn’t get involved in the drug scene. Like I said before, a totally normal kid.

I had a weird feeling that my friend was just going to end up on Cold Case Files twenty years from now, and some random nutcase killed him. The random nutcase would get life in prison, and I’d still have to live in complete misery.

Yup, that’s how its gunna go down.

--

James Wells.

Where do I start?

Well, I met him threw his sister, Valerie. We met way back when in the fifth grade, and hit it off immediately. When I went on a beach trip with her and the rest of the Wells family, I met James.

It must run in the family, because after that, I was best friends with James.

Valerie and I still talked, but it was me and James who were interpretable. There was Adam, the other sibling, but he was so shy. I can’t even recall us having a real conversation.

Valerie’s my age. Adam’s a year older then me, and James is the oldest, one year older then Adam, or two years older then me.

So when James got shot, I was in the tenth grade.

And my tenth grade self didn’t take it too good. Hell, my eleventh grade self still doesn’t deal with it all that gracefully.

See, I loved James. I didn’t really know it at the time. It took me about a month after he died for me to realize it, and it was a little too late then, don’t you think? My slow self couldn’t put together that I was in love with my best friend. Cliché number one and little old Lucy can’t open up her eyes and see it.

The month before James died was an important one. Possibly the most important month I have ever experienced. Then there’s the month after. That one’s pretty critical too, but I personally think the month before is a little more important.

I’m going to tell you what happened before James died. Right to the very day before, and the one piece of information that I haven’t told anyone, not even the police.

I’m positive that the information I know is critical to the case, but I can’t tell, I won’t tell.

I think I’m the reason James Wells was murdered.

--

It’s the sixth of September, exactly one month before James was found on the track behind the high school. He had just driven with me to get ice cream at the local Friendly’s. We were sitting in his car, because the restaurant was too air conditioned. James had complained that he could feel his hair blowing.

So we sat in his car with the window rolled down, letting the last of the summer air warm us. My feet were up on the dashboard, and I could see the blisters I had gotten from the new pairs of Converses I had bought, since I was wearing flip-flops.

“I hate when I get new Chucks. They always blister me,” I explained to a bright-eyed James as he watched a father and a son no more then six.

“Then why don’t you get a new pair of shoes? You’ve been getting the same pair since the sixth grade.”

“I don’t like to break tradition,” I finished, taking another spoonful and a half of mint Oreo, and shoving it into my mouth. I noticed that James was still watching the father and son duo out on one of the picnic tables.

“When I’m older, I want a family,” He stated. You could tell he was definite by the tone of his voice. James was so sure that he was going to live that long…

“You have a family now, James.”

Then he looked at me, and it was almost like he was squinting his blue-green eyes at me. That’s what I like about James, his eyes. They were this fantastic sea foam color that you never forget. And then when you see someone with that color eyes, you think, “Heh, James’ eyes looked like that…”

“No, Luce, like my own. With my own son or daughter or whatever, a kid that I can teach to walk and talk. I wanna be a father someday.”

“Hate to break it to you James,” I started with my smirk that I had affectionately stolen from him, “But you’re not that good with walking or talking, so I would leave that part to your wife.”

“Very funny,” He said while finishing off his ice cream. He got up to throw away the empty cup and spoon, and I handed him my empty one too. We both thought it was funny that we could eat ice cream so outrageously fast.

“But really, Lucy, haven’t you ever thought about a family. Like when you’re done with college and you’re married and have a job, haven’t you ever thought about starting one?” He questioned while turning the keys that he had left in the ignition. I pressed play on his CD player, wondering what was in there, and was pleasantly surprised when the musical stylings of Pink Floyd reached my ears.

“I guess I have, but I don’t know…” I mused, “I’m not sure if I’d really be a good mother.”

James looked at me strangely before looking both ways to pull out of the parking lot. “Are you kidding me, Lucy? You’d be an excellent mother! I can see it now. Little red-headed girls running around in Chucks and Zeppelin shirts! You’d teach them well,” he concluded.

“Shut up, James!” We laughed together, “Why do I even need to be thinking about this now? I’m only in the tenth grade!”

“Jesus,” He muttered to himself, more than to me, “I always forget that. What am I going to do without you next year, Lucy?” He kept his eyes on the road, but I could still see the almost pained looking expression on his face.

“Well, what am I going to do without you, James?” I questioned back, completely honest. We’d lived with each other’s company for so many years, it’d be weird next year, him going to UMASS and me staying…here.

“I say we both drop out and make ourselves a band, then we don’t have to ever worry about being apart,” James pondered.

“There’s only one hole in you’re plan.”

“What would that be?” his head cocked to the side and he looked at me, questioning my reasoning, since we were at a red light.

“You can’t play and instrument.”

“I can sing!”

“No, you can’t,” I still remembered the time he did karaoke at his our friends Travis’ end of the year party this summer. He sure could clear a room.

“Well, then I’ll be the manager.”

“And I’ll be the bassist?”

“Yup.”

--

The day after they found James’ body was horrible. But then again, that was a given. You knew that, didn’t you?

My mom and dad told me I didn’t have to go to school. I was thankful, because I knew I couldn’t handle it.

I decided to ride my bike to the park, since I couldn’t drive legally yet, and James wasn’t here to give me a ride.

I was there in twenty minutes. It was still early, around seven thirty, and at first glance, it seemed like no one was there. I sat down on the bench that me and James used to relax on all the time. I just looked around at the park, surprised that it could be this peaceful even though something so horrible had just happened.

Then I saw him.

Adam was sitting against a tree, back leaning against it, and his head was staring up into the mass of green leaves. I walked over to him and sat down.

When he turned towards me, I could see his eyes were red, redder then I’d ever seen anyone’s eyes. I was happier then ever that Adam had puppy dog brown eyes like Val, because I could barely stand looking into a pair of blue-green eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. If I had just lost my best friend, and I was feeling this way, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose a brother.

“I’m sorry,” he echoed, and I looked up into the trees with him, and stared and stared until my neck hurt.

I wasn’t sure what Adam was trying to find up there. His brother wasn’t there. James was somewhere now, whether it was heaven, hell, or the void blackness you encounter after death, but it wasn’t up in that stupid tree.

After another five minutes, I got up and left, without a goodbye from either of us, grabbing my bike that I had left over by me and James’ bench, and turned back once to see Adam still looking for his brother up in that tree.

--

A/N- So, this is my first piece of work on fiction press. I’ve done plenty of fanfiction, but I’ve always wanted to try my own work. So be honest, and give me so good critique. I’d love to make my writing better.

Also, the days in are supposed to be out of order. I’ll be switching back and forth between after and before James’ death. The last chapter will be the day before the murder, part of the day of, and the one year mark of James’ death. I’m not sure how many chapters this will be. I think it’s just going to develop as it goes along.

-Grace.