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“How many times have you had
this dream?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “A
lot”

“Should we call the
police?”

I shrugged my shoulders
again, “And say what, that I have these dreams and I write them
down and you sign and date them so we know they're real? And I know
where Jewel was killed, sort of, because I saw it in my dream...” I
cleared my throat as my voice wasn't steady.

“Oh yeah, that does sound
kind of weird, huh. What if we tell them we were friends of hers
and see if they found her bracelet because she always had it
on?”

“Don't you think they would
find out we were never friends with her?”

“What if we, I mean you,
drew a picture of where she was killed and wrote a few notes down
and mailed it to them anonymously?”

“I don't know” I said
sounding defeated because I felt it, “I'll think about
it.”

I don't know who made up the
saying, but by the end of the day our class had a new
motto “85 Stay Alive.” Not that I think a lot of murders were
happening but each class had more than a few students die each year
and we were going to be the smart class, the one where no one dies
before graduation. It’s not like we had that many students in our
high school, we were in the country more than less. Richfield only
had about 2,000 residents, so when you lose a couple of classmates
you could feel the emptiness from their absence.

We have lots of hills
everywhere, no sidewalks or curbs and not many street lights
either. So when students were screwing around when driving,
especially at night, accidents happened. I heard car accidents were
the leading ‘cause of death in teenagers, then comes homicides and
these two seem to be very high in our school. Plus, there are the
normal run of the mill deaths, suicides, cancer, heart disease and
silly accidents. However, I’d like to find out how many we lose by
foul play.

Nic and I went to see Journey in concert, it
was really good but I just couldn't seem to get into
it and I think Nic sensed it. Afterward we went
to her house, I was spending the weekend. Her mom was very
cool about dropping us off and picking us up places. Plus, we
could get away with more stuff around her mom, if she knew what we
were up too, she didn't let us know.

When we got back
to Nic's house she looked anxious, and as soon as her mom
announced she was going to bed Nic smiled and waved me on to
follow her, intrigued by the cloak-and-dagger I followed. She
turned off all the lights until we came to her back sliding door.
For a minute, I couldn't see a thing,
then Nic flipped on the outside light, she had a menacing
smile on her face. Her dog was just as intrigued and stood
right next to us; Rusty was a good dog never barked, well trained
and always stayed near the house. She grabbed my hand and
yanked me out the door called for her dog but Rusty didn’t come. We
were running, the light faded fast as we ran away from it, the
darkness enveloped around us quickly, I had a hard time seeing Nic
in front of me. We ran through her properties first tree line as
far as I could tell. Her feet found every step with
familiarity and ease, where I fumbled behind her slowing
us down.

We began to giggle and
finally slowed to a brisk walk, through another tree line and there
it was, her pond surrounded by nothing but trees and fields.
She brought us around by a dock and we stepped onto
it.

She turned and said
“I've always wanted to skinny dip so we're going to
tonight and you're doing it with me.” She started taking off her
shoes and then her jeans. 

“Since when do you have a
dock and a beach?” I asked.

“My dad and I finished it
last week!” Nic said excitedly.

“We put sand in the water
too.” She pointed to the area where the beach should be, I think I
could see it, I felt it under my feet. I would definitely have to
check it out during the day.

Before Nic pushed her jeans
down she started talking slowly and cautiously “Addie, I know there
is something very wrong with you… I know because I can feel it
and because of the way you've been acting lately. Plus, you were
trying to hide the bruises and scratch marks on your arms and
legs.” She took a deep breath, I said nothing. “You are my very
best friend and I thought we told each other everything.” She
paused; I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “I'm not
going to make you tell me but, if something bad is happening at
home I can help. You can stay here until we figure it out. Or
if it's something else, if you need any help at all tell me, your
parents, or if you can't tell us you should go to a counselor or
the police.”

I started crying, of
course, me who usually never cries was crying again; I wasn’t sure
what to tell her. I just wanted
it
to go away and never think or
talk about it again, but obviously ignoring it doesn't mean it's
not so. “You are my best friend” I blabbered out. “I'm just too
ashamed to talk about it.”

Nic threw her arms around
me; giving me a huge hug “You don't have to tell me,” she said
rubbing my back.

Well that did it, I felt
compelled to continue. I cried like a baby sobbing the whole time
but I told her about my attack from Logan. Thank goodness I didn't
have to beg her not to tell her mom or anyone else for that matter.
She's the most trustworthy person I know, so if she tells me she
won’t tell anyone I know she won’t.

After I settled down a bit
Nic said “I am not doing this alone, strip Addie, we’re going
in!”

I'd never been skinny
dipping before, didn't really want to either but found myself
wiping my face and taking my shoes off and then I heard a splash!
Nic was in. Nic's family owned 150 acres so I couldn't imagine
running into anyone else here, so I thought why not.

You could see a little bit,
the moon reflecting off of the pond gave us some light, but
everywhere else it was an abyss of blackness.

“The water is warm hurry
up!” Nic yelled. I continued and took off my jeans and then
everything else. I ran and jumped in the water, it was warm, I had
jumped right in like always, no reason to test the water I was
going for a swim regardless.

“This will at least wash
away the smoky smell from our hair” I said. It felt like more
than a cleanse of my hair, it was also cleansing my soul, I felt
better and was glad I shared my story with Nic.

We swam for a while, it
was very relaxing but the fun had to end... Boy did we
miss-calculate, it was freezing cold when we got out, plus no
towels! We got out and started shivering immediately, as we headed
for our clothes at the other end of the dock, my teeth were
chattering so loud it was earsplitting. I turned around and ran off
the end of the dock, making a big splash, Nic followed. “Crap” she
said between chatters. “I didn't think it was going to be that cold
when we got out, I thought it felt warm outside.”

“Yeah” was all I could blurt
out. 

“I’ll go back to the house
and get towels” Nic suggested.

“And what, leave me out here
alone, in the perfect setting to meet “a spooky killer” where I
can’t run fast enough, and I trip and fall and…. I don't think
so!”

“Okay, well then we'll just
have to freeze. We'll get out, put our clothes on real speedy run
back to the house and take hot showers.”

“Sounds good” I retorted
“You first.”

We got out, getting your
undies on wet was harder than you'd think, I gave up on them
and threw them to the ground and pulled on my jeans, not easily
though. Nic was mumbling.

“Forget the bra and undies;
just pull your pants and shirt on.” She looked at me I was
already dressed holding my undies, socks and bra in hand. I waved
them in the air. She smiled and did the same. We ran back to the
house hair dripping wet, it felt colder than cold, it was darn
right frigid. 

As we approached her house
we could see a silhouette standing in the doorway. Nic's mom,
waiting for us, she was holding towels. “What are you two
insane going out there without towels? Your lips are blue, go take
warm showers. Addie where is your bag I'll get it for you.” I
pointed to the other room. As she left I nudged Nic “Your mom
didn't yell.” She looked as shocked as I did.

“No, but maybe she thinks we
wore swim suits? Hurry into the shower, maybe she won't ask or
notice.” We made a mad dash to turn the water on and close the door
behind us. Nic's mom knocked a couple seconds later and
handed me sweats and a t-shirt for Nic and my bag. We each
took nice long showers, and wrapped towels around our heads and
went straight to Nic's room. She hadn't said much since our swim.
Little tid bits here and there, however, when we were lying in our
beds saying nothing, I could sense she wanted to talk to me some
more. I told her “I can feel it – go ahead.”

“Are you
sure
you're okay
Addie?”

“Yes, I'll be fine. I'm just
hoping no one else finds out or that Logan doesn't blab it to his
friends.”

“I don't think he ever
would, he has to know what he did was wrong and if he told anyone,
the truth would come out.” Nic explained.

I got all choked up, but
after I got control of my emotions I said, “Maybe this is from the
consequences of my actions, you know what comes around goes
around.”

I could see the outline of
Nic as she sat up in bed “Are you kidding me, you didn't deserve
this and it wasn't your fault. You were unfortunately in the wrong
place at the wrong time.” I sucked in a deep breath and attempted a
little humor. “Well, I am a hussy! After all, I go around kissing
other people's boyfriends; just give me a “Red Letter” on my
chest.”

Nic started laughing “It's a
scarlet letter.”

“Whatever, I
am
damaged.”

The next night her mom
dropped us off at McDonald's. It was right across the street from
Montrose Swim Club which had a miniature golf course. We were kids
always looking for something to do. We got to McDonald's, ate and
hung out for a bit, saw some kids we knew, chatted and then walked
across the street to go golfing. The guy in charge wouldn't give us
a discount, we were supposed to get a discount when my mom worked
there but he never gave it to us before and he certainly didn't
give it to us this night either, even though, we were very
charming.

I thought I was bad at
putting but Nic was worse. We had fun though, we always do. As we
finished up, we decided not to let our balls go into oblivion on
the 18
^th
hole. We pocketed them instead. As we were walking back to
drop off our putters, we ran into Declan and his girlfriend. So we
gave our putters and golf balls to them – that'll teach the guy for
not giving us a discount!

As we crossed the street
back to McDonald's we were trying to decide if there was anything
else we could do before calling Nic's mom, when a pickup truck
pulled into the Mickey D's parking lot. It was Ben and a couple of
his friends. I knew Ben vaguely but Nic knew him pretty well from
the camp she volunteered at last summer. They yelled for us to come
over, told us they were having a party, they were just here to pick
up dinner. We jumped into the back of their truck without saying a
word to each other.

They were kind of gawky, but
respectable. “Before we take off” Nic announced, “You've got
to promise to drop us back off here by 11.” Ben promised. However,
when we got to Ben's the only people there were Ben's older sister
and her boyfriend. Another thirty minutes went by and still no one
else came, so I guessed they weren't really having a party. It was
just us and them.

It was all right though,
kinda fun, us kids were in the basement while his sister and
boyfriend kept to the kitchen upstairs. The boys were pushing
drinks on us the whole time, Nic and I kept saying no, although we
kept thinking about it. Like we wanted to get drunk at this sort
of
“not”
party. We broke down and had one drink which we called a
social drink. The boys started doing whip-its, Nic and I had never
even heard of them. The gases to make whip cream supposedly gave
you a quick buzz that went away rather quickly, hopefully,
undetectable by parents, as the effects didn't last. It took some
coaxing but Nic tried one and then so did I. Right after though,
Nic attempted to do the stairs and didn't quite make it. Then we
both finally agreed to another beer.

One of Ben's friends came to
sit next to me on the couch. We made small talk, and then he
scooted closer and put his arm around me and planted a kiss right
on my cheek. I pushed him away and told him to get lost. He placed
himself in front of me and tried kissing me on the lips. That was
all it took, I freaked out and I don't remember anything else
besides crying, his sister trying to calm me down and then Nic. No
one could touch me or I would start freaking out all over again.
One minute I was on the couch all relaxed and the next I was a
crazy person!

I couldn’t stop crying
hysterically. After several attempts by his sister to calm me, Nic
came over to me and in one fell swoop said, “I’m so sorry
Addie, I am sorry, no one will touch you I promise. We'll get over
this together, this was too soon. The two of us together, two are
stronger than one, right?” She squeezed my hand and winked at me.
And in that exact moment I stopped crying. I wiped my face
with my sleeve “My grandma used to say that.”