The last thing I remember is her eyes. How they bore into mine, pleading for help until all the life seeped out of them.

And the screams and wails of her sister, hunched over her body. Clinging on to someone who’s already gone, someone she would never touch, never see, never talk to again.

The death of Stephanie Lopez is a moment I will remember for the rest of my life. I was one of the four girls in the locker room that day. Hannah Moore, Lauren Mitchell, Stephanie Lopez, and me: Rose Turner.

No one knows what really happened that day. (Well, almost no one.) 

Stephanie was a junior at the time, captain of the lacrosse team, and was headed for valedictorian. She had a little sister named Amelia who was not quite as successful, and sometimes I did feel badly for her. It must have been tough being compared to her older sister all the time. Their parents flaunted Stephanie’s successes to everyone who would listen, and Amelia was often cast aside in the process. To be clear, Amelia was strong and determined in her own right. Her achievements simply hadn’t measured up in her parents’ eyes. Stephanie’s victories were rightfully shown off, though, because she was going places indeed. Who would ever dream of murdering someone like that? What person, what truly evil human being, would suck the life out of someone with so much more to live?

Unfortunately for Stephanie, she was not as adored as she may have thought. She and I had never gotten along because I almost took her spot as goalie until she begged the coach for me to be the backup. But I wasn’t the only girl whose life Stephanie had changed for the worse.

“Can I have Hannah Moore, Lauren Mitchell, and Rose Turner in the office immediately? Again, come down to the office immediately.” The amplified Principal’s voice echoed through the halls three days after the murder.

Eyes. Everyone’s eyes. Piercing straight into my soul like the knife that was plunged into Stephanie’s stomach.

When we got to the office, it turns out Principal Smith wasn’t the one who wanted us in there. It was a Detective, Robert Myers. We soon found out that he had been hired to investigate the case. It must have been just as serious as the rumors were claiming.

“So Hannah, do you mind explaining to me how you knew Stephanie?”

“Okay… well, she is… was… in my grade. We used to be best friends. Until…”

“Until…?”

“Until she spread the rumor about me. I lost everything, and everyone that mattered to me… But that was three years ago. It’s not like I’m still upset about it,” she trailed off unconvincingly.

“Interesting. What were you doing in the locker room that day?” Detective Myers asked.

She hesitated. “I… I was giving Rose a pep talk. She had a lacrosse game that day. We’re pretty close.”

“Rose, is this true?”

“I guess. It was kind of weird that she came into the locker room though. She usually just waits until I’m out on the field to talk to me,” I answered. That earned me a sharp glare from Hannah.

Detective Myers jotted something down in his notebook. “And Lauren, how do you know Stephanie?”

“Well, me and her little sister Amelia have been friends for as long as I can remember. So I’ve seen her around Amelia’s house a lot.”

“Do you have any reasons to dislike Stephanie?”

Her face went white. “...No. Not really.”

“Are you sure you’re telling the truth?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

“Thank you. That’s all for today.”

I quickly learned that honesty when Detective Myers was questioning us would be a lot more beneficial in the long run. He had a way of knowing everything.

~~~

Hannah forced her way next to me when we left the office that day. “What the HELL Rose? Are you trying to get me to go to jail? I didn’t kill her. I swear on my life.” She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time, and she didn’t like what she saw.

“I believe you. I just think it’s really important to tell Detective Myers everything is all. He’s gonna trust us more if we’re honest,” I explained.

She looked a little more relaxed. “Oh, okay. Yeah, did you see Amelia’s face? And pretty much everyone knows that she hated Stephanie. It wasn’t like, a secret or anything.”

Later that day, I sat in my room thinking about everything that had happened. Hannah trusted me. That was a good start. If only she knew that I hadn’t even followed my own advice in that interview…

~~~

On the day of the murder, I went about my regular schedule. Nothing was different. At the end of the day, I went to the locker room to get changed. At about 2:35, the entire room went pitch black. The screams, I assumed, were from the absence of light. Frantic feet scuffled around the lockers. Bodies slammed against me. 

It was a while before I found the will to reach for the light switch directly behind me.

Sharp fluorescent lights pierced through the darkness. More screams. But why?

I whipped around to find the source of the terror spreading like wildfire through the room. A dark red pool of liquid seeped throughout the room, crawling toward my scuffed sneakers. The stench of vomit grew present as I heard multiple girls bringing their lunch back up on the floor. 

My gaze shifted to the middle of the room. The color of red got deeper the closer I got to the source of the screams. And that’s when I saw her.

My knees folded underneath me and I melted to the floor, a sharp ringing overtaking the shrieks. The air felt thick, warm, and suffocating, pressing in on me and somehow never making its way to my lungs.

As I lifted my arm to wipe the tears off of my face, I laid my eyes on a dark color that covered my entire hand. Warm, thick paste slowly slid down the side of my face from where I had wiped. I was drenched head to toe, having collapsed into the spreading pool. I blinked the blood from my eyes and violently spit it out of my mouth. My stomach turned over and purged its contents. Tears blurred my vision until all I could see were splotches of color. Red. So much red.

Her eyes locked onto mine as she gasped for air. “R-Rose… h-h-help…please…I d-d-don’t want…to…die-” Her trembling hand clutched at the knife that was sunk deep in her stomach. That’s when the light left her eyes, and Stephanie was never to lay those beautiful, deep, shockingly blue eyes on anyone else. Her hand dropped to the floor, slowly sinking into the puddle of her blood.

Blood that I put there.

~~~

When someone commits a crime, people often wonder if they have any regrets. Was there a moment when they wished they could take it all back, take their life back? That was my moment. When I saw her eyes, which were so full of life just two minutes earlier, go dark, my heart dropped to my feet. I could never retreat from that moment. I could never take back what I did to her.

~~~

Two days after the first session with Detective Myers, we were called down again. This time, it wasn’t just us. Her family was there too.

As soon as I saw them I wanted to turn around and run. Her mom’s eyes were hollow, numb to all emotion. Her dad choked back a sob as we stepped through the door. Her sister’s face was puffy and red, her hair was a mess, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Poor Amelia, losing a sister so young.

The family was supposed to make us break. I thought I was prepared, but nothing could have readied me for the lost faces of those who had suffered such a heartbreak. Amelia was the worst. Those eyes, they tore through my soul like a crackling fire through the dark night sky. What was that I saw in her eyes? Was it… guilt? Remorse for the sheer lack of time spent with her only sister, maybe?

This time when Detective Myers began the questioning, he didn’t have the kind smile of two days before. He wasn’t pretending to sympathize with our trauma. His expression was full of accusation and scrutiny. He wanted us to break.

“Hannah, last time we talked I’m afraid you weren’t quite honest with me,” his voice lowered ominously.

“Ummm… I’m not sure what you mean,” she quivered. The terror on her face gave away that she completely understood what he meant.

“It seems as though you do still care about that little best friend break up that happened three years ago. Do you care to explain?” I recognized this tactic. He called out the one lie that she told to get her to feel guilty and anxious, which makes her more likely to talk in order to try to repair the damage.

“I don’t think I understand. I don’t care that we used to be friends,” she claimed.

“I see. Well, unfortunately for you, I was talking to the guidance counselor yesterday, and she told me something quite interesting.” Hannah’s eyes went wide and flicked throughout the room, looking anywhere but at him.

“She told me that just a few weeks ago, you went to talk to her. You talked for a good while about how much Stephanie hurt you. She told me that you said you wished Stephanie would just… die.” At this, Hannah jumped up from her chair and burst into wails so overwhelmingly loud that I had to cover my ears. Tears streamed down her face as she locked eyes with Mrs. Lopez.

“P-please. You have to b-believe me. I d-didn’t…I w-would never. I couldn’t even d-dream of anything like that.” When Mrs. Lopez just looked more empty and lost than before, Hannah couldn’t take it and sprinted out of the office sobbing.

Lauren turned to look at me and the corners of her mouth flicked slightly up, ever so briefly. I knew what she was thinking. Hannah might have just bought us a lottery ticket with her outburst. That could have been all the evidence Detective Myers needed.

So it was much to Lauren’s surprise when he turned his gaze to focus on her. “Not so fast, hun. You’re not getting off the hook that easy. I was also talking to the guidance counselor a little bit about you… and your mom,” his gaze sharpened with the last three words.

“You were talking to the guidance counselor about my dead mom? How does that relate to anything about Stephanie?” Lauren shot back.

“Stephanie was there when your mom died, isn’t that right? And she said something to her, didn’t she?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“That’s funny. From what I’ve heard, she made a promise to your mom. Any memories?”

“No.”

“Did she or did she not look your mother in her eyes while she was taking her last breaths and swear to her that she would be a big part of your life and always stay your friend despite any challenges you may face?” Myers demanded.

“How is this relevant?! Please help me understand why this has anything to do with the murder?”

“She didn’t follow through with her promise, now did she? She has been completely absent from your life since your mom died, which I’m willing to bet is more than enough reason for you to be angry, so angry that you might even take her life.” At these last three words, his tone shifted to accusation and his eyes narrowed.

Lauren pressed back into her chair as I watched her eyes pool with tears from the awful memories Detective Myers just resurfaced. “Wow. I didn’t know you could stoop that low. Believe what you want. I can’t do anything else to change your mind,” her voice cracked.

“Okay. Then, unfortunately, I have all the evidence I need. The murder of Stephanie Lopez was committed by none other than one of the closest people in her life: her little sister, Amelia. With the help of Rose Turner.”

~~~

He was right, of course. Maybe we got sloppy with fingerprints…forgot one small detail in covering our tracks.  Maybe he berated the other two girls to help determine the nature of our crime…to see if guilt would make us burst out and reveal a spontaneous passionate accident, while our silence might suggest a calculated plan. It really doesn’t matter. He was right.

We created our strategy months in advance. My best friend Amelia (did I not mention that?) came up to me after school in January looking more determined than I had ever seen her. I heard her say, “I have a plan. But it’s going to involve doing something that you will never be able to go back from.”

Of course, I was in as soon as she took me through everything that it involved. The only thing I didn’t understand was why in the world she would want to murder her older sister, the only sibling she would ever have. One day, we were going over the course of action for yet another time, and I got up the guts to ask.

“I’ve always been in her shadow, Rose,” she admitted. “I can never do enough. No matter how much I try, it’s never enough. I’m so done with people comparing us all the time. I’m done with this hell hole. It’s her turn to suffer.”

I made sure Stephanie was in the locker room the day of the murder. I was the one who turned off the lights. That’s when Amelia tiptoed in amongst the chaos with gloves on to prevent fingerprints. She stabbed her sister in cold blood and as she tiptoed back out, tapped me on the shoulder; my cue to flick on the lights. It was all pretty perfect, and I played my role…right down to vomiting on command and collapsing like a damsel in an old movie, with Oscar-worthy style.

~~~

When someone commits a crime, people often wonder if they have any regrets. Was there a moment when they wished they could take it all back, take their life back? That was my moment. 

It wasn’t me who stabbed Stephanie, but I did it. I killed her. I took the life of a girl who would have lived to the fullest. 

But she was mine to kill.

Regret isn’t a word in my vocabulary. 

Put me in jail. 

Kill me for what I did to her. 

But don’t for one second think that I have regrets. 

And don’t for one second think that I am done.