9-1-1.
“Nueve uno uno. ¿Cuál es su emergencia?” The operator picked up after the second ring. Kennedy answered as calmly as she could.
“Hay un cuerpo detrás del basurero en el cine de Villa Grande.” She waited there until the police arrived. The police, an ambulance and some other official vehicles that she didn’t even recognize.
She was in a daze. Lights flashed. Colors shifted with every blink. White, blue, red, orange, white, blue, red and orange, round and round the colors went.
She leaned back against the alley wall. Her eyes closed on their own. People hurried busily all around her, but she couldn't hear anything. Somehow, she had unconsciously blocked all of the sounds and every noise had fallen to the background as the same scene played like a silent movie over and over in her head.
She vaguely remembered that the emergency operator had made her go and check if the person that laid on the ground was still alive.
She remembered seeing the lifeless body of a young woman and touching it to make sure that it didn't have a pulse.
She remembered how cold the deceased girl’s skin had felt as her fingertips came into contact with it and she would never be able to forget the lifeless stare in her unseeing eyes.
It was one thing to hear about death, to see it portrayed on screen, but it was an entirely different matter to witness it firsthand.
She was grateful that there wasn't any evident cause of death anywhere palpable. If it weren’t for her open eyes, the girl would’ve appeared to be sleeping. Kennedy wanted to bash her head against the asphalt for even thinking that.
She heard a faint calling and she realized with a jolt that someone was speaking to her. Her eyes opened and refocused to take in the form of the male police officer that now stood before her.
“¿Está usted bien señorita?” He asked awkwardly.
“Yes, I’m fine.” Although she understood perfectly the question in Spanish, she had answered in her native English without even realizing it. She stared mutely at the officer and took in his badge. The word Rodríguez was stitched with black thread into his blue uniform.
She'd been speaking Spanish ever since she was a toddler. But, she just wasn't in the mood. It happened every day, she thought in English, but had to speak in Spanish. She did it well, it was just mentally exhausting, that's all. To her relief, the man replied in kind.
“It would be understandable for you to be indisposed by the situation. I would like to ask you some questions if you don’t mind.” Rodríguez spoke with a thick accent, forcefully enunciating the r’s and the t’s.
Years of living there had helped attune her ears to the many different intonations that were present on the small island and she understood him very well. She would have liked to refuse his request and excuse herself, but she knew that would have only postponed the inevitable.
She nodded silently and let him guide her to an empty police cruiser. The door to the passenger’s side was open. He motioned for her to sit.
Her thighs ached. The muscles of her legs relaxed greatly after she sat and she was amazed that she had been standing without protest all that time. He asked her to recount the evening’s events as slowly and detailed as she could.
Kennedy did as he asked. But, when it had been time to describe the man she had seen, she opted to leave out his pitch black eyes. She simply described them as dark. Naturally, she was afraid that they would think that she was insane. Though they would probably just chalk it up to nerves or some kind of post traumatic stress.
She sat there in silence after she was done and Rodríguez was considerate enough to tell her that she could go home with just the usual, “call if you remember anything else”, that she had so often seen in cop shows. She thanked him and got up as he nodded good bye.
“Kennedy!” She heard someone call out her name from across the street.
Her head snapped up and she saw her mother running through the avenue, practically dodging moving cars to get to her. She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. It had taken the discovery of a dead girl for her mom to finally give her the time of day, or night as the case may be.
Teresa was hysterical. She fussed over her like she had done when Kennedy was seven and she’d scraped her knee while roller skating. Kennedy tried uselessly to calm her down.
In the end, she agreed to let her call one of her coworkers and ask her to drive Kennedy’s car home while she was forced to ride in her mother’s car like an incapable child.
Contrary to what she had expected, Kennedy slept like the dead that night. No pun intended.
Her eyes closed instantly as her head touched the pillow and she wasn’t aware of anything until the sun shone through the glass doors of her balcony the following morning.
If she’d had the dream, she didn’t remember it and she liked to keep it that way. But, she did feel a little guilty for not being more traumatized. It made her think that maybe there was some kind of problem with her.
Maybe there was someone that she could talk to about getting Jiminy Cricket to be her conscience because hers appeared to have taken a holiday.
Although, what happened to the girl wasn't her fault and she didn’t even know her, Kennedy felt as if she should have been more impacted by what she'd seen. Instead, she was just numb.
5. Kill All Your Friends
According to Sor Inés, the nun that they had teaching third grade science at her school, we exist because God created us. That had been a sore subject for Kennedy when she was growing up.
Stupidly enough, it had also been the reason that had made her stop going to church with her mother. Because if she chose to believe without proof that there was one being powerful enough to originate life out of nothing, then she would have to accept that maybe her father’s beliefs were not that far from reality and those beliefs were the main reason behind the cruel tauntings of her classmates.
Even though she had tried her best not to, Kennedy still believed in God. It had been ingrained in her system ever since she could remember. Her mother was extremely catholic. But, she had decidedly ignored the issue until then.
Now, as she cuddled on the sofa with her head resting on her mother's lap while Teresa watched TV, Kennedy thought a lot about the meaning of life and death and the reasoning behind it all.
So far, all she had was the same, working in mysterious ways, nonsense that clueless people always say to justify the situation in moments of grief.
An incredible pressure had settled deep inside her chest, but the tears wouldn’t come.
She wished that her father were there. He would have known what to do, because she sure as hell didn't.
What if the man from the alley came after her? She had seen his face.
“His eyes were black.” She blurted out.
“What's that, darling?” Teresa's hand stilled in her hair. Kennedy sat up and faced her.
“The man in the alley. His eyes were all black with no white parts.” She didn't know why she had told her about it, but there was no going back now.
“How were you able to see that?” Her mother asked to herself. She had expected surprise or incredulity on her mother’s part. But, Teresa had not been surprised at all, not in the way that Kennedy had anticipated.
“What?” Instead of being surprised at her daughter’s hallucinations, she was worried that Kennedy had seen that at all?
That was the last straw. The camel's back broke. It finally convinced her that she was missing something.
“What?” Teresa echoed her question.
“What aren't you telling me?” Kennedy prodded, she was tired of being kept in the dark.
“What do you mean?
“You must know something that I don't, 'cause I just can't see why you would be so calm otherwise.” Why was she palying dumb?
“Either you tell me what's really going on with dad, with everything, or I'll go file a missing person's report right now.”
“That
wouldn't do us any good.”
“Why not?” She challenged.
“Because he's not missing.”
“Then you know where he is?”
“Yes.” Kennedy's insides screamed victoriously. She had finally gotten a straight answer.
“Where?” She waited. But, that time, her mother didn't answer. It angered her beyond measure.
“Tell me!” She hadn't meant to yell, but it was already done. She had screamed in her mother's face. Kennedy straightened and waited for a slap that never came.
“I can't.” Teresa whispered. She averted her eyes, clearly regretting not telling her for once.
“Why the hell not?” That hurt more than if she had actually been hit. What could be so important that she had to hide it from her own daughter.
“Watch you're tone, young lady!” Teresa's eyes blazed when they found hers. But, the fire in them died as quickly as it came and her mother drew into herself again. It was obvious to Kennedy that she was conflicted about something.
“Where is he, mama?”
“Nena.”
“Please.”
“I can't tell you now – her mother's hand came up to let her know that she wasn't finished talking yet – but, I will.”
“When?”
“When Steven comes home.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don't know. But, I promise you that we'll talk. The three of us together as a family.”
“And you'll tell me everything?”
“Everything that you need to know, yes.” That didn't leave her with much. Teresa knew how to choose her words carefully.
“Fine.” Kennedy