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I barely had enough time to make a coffee and plant myself on my bean bag when Hurricane Izzy came charging through.
‘So, that’s it, huh? You’re not gonna help me now?’ she screeched.
‘No, I still am. But-’
‘I can’t believe you’d do this!’ she yelled, as though I hadn’t spoken. She started ranting about how it was unfair to her or something, and I quickly zoned out. George watched on in fascinated disgust until even he got bored of it.
‘Shut up!’ he roared.
Taken aback, she did. For a second.
‘And another thing...’ she screamed, ranting about the same thing as before.
Leesha finally showed her face, hovering in the background. She winced at the horrific noise Izzy was making.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. It wasn’t so hard to hear, since I’d long since labelled Izzy as white noise. ‘Kinda slipped out.’
‘That’s alright. I was only putting off the inevitable. Did you tell her everything?’
‘I think so. What do you mean?’
‘I mean that you’re gay.’
Silence. Ah, beautiful caress. A horror-stricken Izzy shuddered, slowly turning toward Leesha. She knew what was coming. She braced for it.
‘Ew, you’re a dyke?’
‘Loud and proud, bitch,’ Leesha grinned.
Izzy’s barely-there amateur dramatic skills came out in force. She gagged, she yelled, she cursed at Leesha and occasionally at me. She couldn’t believe it, she was disgusted, ew, she’d shared things with Leesha. My heart bled for her.
No, really.
Leesha barely moved, and only watched, chuckling softly.
‘A couple weeks ago that would’ve bothered me. Now, I just feel sad for you.’
‘I don’t want you to feel anything for me,’ Izzy snapped. God forbid.
‘Fine by me.’
As much as I wanted to see Izzy throw a hissy fit, I still needed her help. Because I still had to help her, right? Was that still the right thing to do? I was confused. Nothing about this case was remotely clear at all. There was no evidence leading to David. Now that the pantyhose were a bust, I had nothing. All roads led to Chuck back then, and probably still did now. Which, in turn, led me down another avenue.
‘Did David actually kill you? Tell me the truth,’ I asked her bluntly.
Oh boy, now it was my turn for the snarls and growls. It was like kicking a Chihuahua or something.
‘You think I’d be here following him around if he didn’t?’
‘Maybe you wanted to apologize to him,’ George suggested. Oh, that sounded sweet. She realized that she was an asshole too late and wanted to try and make it up to him, but she could never tell him herself. How poetic. Unfortunately, I knew her better than he did.
‘What the hell would I have to apologize for?’
Everything? I let George ramble on and attempt to appeal to her better self, which didn’t exist. I was too busy thinking of how I was going to solve this. No evidence. No confessions. No likelihood of a random eye-witness at the eleventh hour.
And also, I still had Leesha’s death to contend with, too. I sure knew how to have fun.
‘Both of you shut up,’ I lazily said. Offended, they drew themselves up and tried to claw back some dignity. I silenced both of their incoming retorts with a quick hand gesture. I wasn’t finished.
‘First things first. Izzy, why didn’t you tell me that David only had one working arm?’
‘I didn’t think it was important,’ she sniffed.
‘You didn’t think it important? I accused him of a murder that he couldn’t actually have committed.’
‘He did commit mine!’
‘I meant Leesha’s!’
She folded her arms and scowled, blowing her frizz off her face.
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
Leesha laughed. I did not. She was a child. She was worse than a child in fact. I think even toddlers know that the you’re-invisible-because-I-don’t-like-you defense never worked.
‘Do you want him to be arrested for your murder?’ I asked.
‘Yes! How can you even ask that?’
‘Then, give me something,’ I ordered. ‘He’s dropped the only thing connecting him to your death.’
‘I don’t have anything else,’ she lamented, chewing cud.
‘Did you follow him home? Maybe he wrote it in a journal,’ I suggested, grasping at straws by now.
She guffawed, and it wasn’t pretty.
‘If he had a diary, I totally would’ve told you. I bet he did. I bet he cried in it every day.’
George, Leesha and I were appalled. She genuinely found it funny. Still, after all these years. And she is the supposed victim here. You getting that? You see what I have to deal with now? You understand why I am the way I am?
‘I can’t help you,’ I told her with relish. ‘I got nothing.’
‘No, don’t chicken out. You’ve helped people with less,’ she accused.
I thought a minute, just to make her feel better, but nope.
‘I really haven’t.’
‘What about that guy with the hair?’
‘Oh, that narrowed that down. I totally know who you mean,’ I sighed, before checking myself. ‘Oh wait, I do.’
He’d had a Mohawk that could’ve dwarfed the Empire State Building. I think his name was Sketch, or something that wasn’t a name. Skits! That was it. It was the second time that Izzy had latched onto me. She’d been chasing me around a mall when we’d bumped into him. Poor Skits had been stabbed and mugged in a gross public bathroom of all places. You know, one of those bathrooms that never got cleaned and ceased to be used as a bathroom a hundred years previously? Lucies sure pick the nicest places to get whacked. Anyway, he’d described the guy, and I’d told the cops, but they’d had no evidence and he’d denied it. Turned out that Skits’ killer was in a gang. He’d been ordered to kill a guy to prove his worth. Pretty bad guy, wouldn’t you say?
Did I mention the killer was thirteen? No? Oh, he was thirteen, by the way.
Yeah, it started getting a little shady after that. He’d been nothing but a scared little kid. I’d been the same age as him at the time. We’re probably still the same age now, come to that. I’m getting off-topic. Basically, I was being hounded by Skits and Izzy. They’d been tag-teaming me. Around the same time, Brandon joined my school and I’d begun my periods. I was mad at everyone. I blew up on Skits’ killer.
It was one of the worst experiences of my life.
He’d burst into tears. He’d been sorry for what he’d done. He’d never meant it to happen, and he’d had big dreams of going to college and getting away from all the gangs. He was from a bad area, and you either joined them or were against them.
It wasn’t great to be against them.
Still, I’d marched him into the police station. They’d gone hard on him.
He won’t be eligible for parole until his death.
Skits had thanked me. Izzy had been proud. I’d felt like the worst person in the world.
And now she apparently wanted me to relive that? No, thanks.
‘You want me to yell at him until he cries and admits it?’
‘Yeah, exactly.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘Didn’t you do that earlier with Terry?’ George asked.
‘That’s different,’ I said.
‘How?’
‘Because it’s different,’ I explained.
Terry wasn’t like David. He’d killed because he was selfish. David had been left with no other option. I was not about to make him remember all those awful memories of being held face-down in the toilet with... stuff in it. Or the time he’d gotten wedgied so hard, he’d puked. And then held face-down in that. That would not make me the good person in this at all.
And I don’t even care about that, so this was a big deal.
I’d done it to Skits’ killer and regretted it ever since. So much so that I’ve repressed his name. I get that he took a life, and it wasn’t his to take, but can we really be so hardnosed about it?
‘Yes,’ all three lucies agreed.
‘Really, Leesha?’ I asked, disappointed.
She looked a little ashamed, but stood her ground.
‘Look, I know that I didn’t want my mom arrested at first, but the more I think about it, the more I hate her. I only ever came out to Zany, and I was terrified of doing it for real. Now that I’m dead, I know it’s not the big deal I thought it was. I want to be able to tell the world who I am, but I can’t do that. She took that away from me. She took everything away from me, and she needs to pay.’
‘Totally get it, but we’re not talking about your evil ass mom. We’re talking a guy who was bullied almost to death. You think he needs to pay for taking his own life back?’
George and Izzy were like stone. They were set in their minds and would not be budged. But maybe, if I could convince Leesha...
‘Yes.’
Damn it.
‘I know what she did, and she should’ve paid for it. But not with her life.’
‘You don’t know what this is like,’ George butted in, eyes boring into mine. ‘We’re nothing. We have no voice; only through you, and you don’t have to listen to us. You could ignore us and do whatever the hell you want. And we can’t do a single thing about it.’
‘We are stuck here,’ Izzy hissed.
‘You know what really hurts?’ George said. ‘That you get to make choices. We don’t. We can’t make a single choice ever again. It’s not just our careers or lives, it’s little things. Even when you choose a damn muffin, it hurts.’
‘Blueberry or chocolate? I’d kill to pick one of those,’ Leesha moaned.
‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I understand-’ I stammered, alarmed by the sudden stance against the living. And muffins.
‘That’s just it, Ann. You don’t. It’s impossible for you to understand.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re all dead, but it’s not my fault, okay?’
‘Not ours, either,’ Leesha pointed out.
I was defeated. I mean, like George had said, I could ignore them, but what good would that do? They’re right, I can’t understand. I’d never truly get it. And they’d never truly get or understand me. But I was used to that.
Ironically, after them moaning about all my choices, I didn’t have a choice here. I had to bully David enough that he’d break into a thousand pieces.
It was the only way to bring “justice” to Izzy.