Why Me: A Short Story

Why Me?

By Alexis Mizell

 The day I died was like any other. I woke up, Claire Reeves, the aspiring doctor and everyone’s favorite cheerleading captain at Valley View  High. I suppose I was still that same Claire Reeves by the end of the day too, but after the rigor mortis set in it was probably hard for anyone to tell. Every moment, every detail of that day has been replaying over and over for me like a never ending screening of Ground Hog day. Except, unlike Bill Murray in my father’s favorite movie, I can’t reverse time back before the final credits.

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Beep, Beep, Beep.

The dreaded sound of my alarm clock jolted me from the sheets. Mom and Dad insisted that sleeping near a cell phone would cause cancer, therefore a traditional alarm clock was always a permanent fixture in my room. Unlike my adolescent counterparts, I never woke up late or required saving from the bell. I set aside time in the morning to dress, to make sure all of my homework was perfect, and allow myself to be at least 10 minutes early for my first class. On this particular morning however, everything went to shit- a word I never use. With calculus on the brain, I had set my alarm for 7:30 instead of 6, and mom and dad never thought to wake me for fear I was sick. Being sick was the only way I was ever late.

Ever.

I typically walked to and from school, but that day I ran. I remember tripping over a branch and skinning my right knee which he would ask about later that night. Classes were fast as usual. The grovels of my classmates never willing to raise a hand, and the laughs of the popular crowd when a geek got the answer wrong, droned on as the soundtrack to a day that already started rough. The science nerds were my friends, but I would never tell the cheer team that. The math club leader and I had plans to room together at Harvard, but my boyfriend Seth, captain of the football team, could never find out. Ultimately, I laughed along with the cool kids turned bullies and I regret it now.

I was ready for practice. Fall leaves littered the field like confetti and breathed a new life into my day. Cheer practice was always my escape, if just for a moment, from my structured existence. Some people would ask why I did it at all because it didn’t “seem” like something I would do, but I was the face of Valley View. I never thought being kidnapped and murdered “seemed” like something I would do either, but I’m dead. So there’s that. The girls on the team liked me because everyone else did. To my face, they would snap pictures and proclaim that we were best friends for life, but behind closed doors they laughed every time I studied instead of partied, respected the teachers instead of mocking them, and constantly berated Seth for being with me. I know Seth was doing it for the looks. His dad was the principal and wanted him to uphold a good image, with a good girl. So, I went for the Sunday family lunches and we kissed after dates, but I knew that once graduation day came he would be a faint memory in my relationship history.

After practice I collected the pompoms and empty gum wrappers the traced the outline of our small section of grass designated for the team. I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched. I noticed a car parked behind the bushes near the entrance of the football stadium, but being that the Valley View Indians were the reigning state champions, spectators visited practices more often than not and I chalked it up to exactly that.

#

The walk home usually took about 10 minutes and I always made sure I was home before sunset. After cleaning and dropping off an assignment to homeroom that I had missed, my morning tardiness made today the exception. It was chilly and getting darker so I used my cellphone flashlight as a guiding light home through the quiet neighborhood, but the temporary blindness caused by headlights was enough to distract me from the path to my house. I was searching for a street sign when he pulled up. I watched cautiously as a car stopped next to me with its driver’s side window down and two eyes staring at me with a puzzled look. It was my teacher Mr. Briggs and in a wave of relief I greeted him with a smile. Mr. Briggs taught Chemistry for the first two years of my high school career. When he quit unexpectedly last spring, the rumor mill was flying with claims of suicide and prison, but I never believed them. I enjoyed his classes. He always made funny jokes that seemed to join us all as a group with a bigger purpose, instead of cliques at a small high school, and I told him this a few times in class. We chatted briefly about school, what I was doing out this late, and if I had gotten the cut on my knee from that “dangerous” cheerleading. He mentioned something about the administration firing him for a conduct issue, as he put it, and I didn’t want to prod. I felt comfortable enough to accept his ride home though.

This was my biggest mistake.

The radio played “Highway to Hell” which he quickly changed to a modern hits radio station as I took my place in the passenger seat. While I told him the street address, I watched his gaze flip from me to the GPS and back, so many times it struck me as odd. Too many times. We drove in silence for a while and I got lost in the feed from my social media, college emails, and text from mom and dad asking where I was. Just as I was about to hit send on a text that read “I’m on my way home”, I looked up to see a highway sign. I tried to ask where we were going, if we had gotten lost, or if he typed the wrong address in, but before I could speak a crowbar came towards me like a train on tracks and I blacked out.

#

I was confused when I came to. My body ached in pain and drops of blood spilled into my eyes making it harder to see. He wiped them away and with a smirk he pointed to the wall in front of me. Print out pictures of a girl decorated the beige background, some with friends and some in selfie form, but it didn’t take me long to realize they were photos of me that I had posted over the years on my Facebook account. I had so many questions about why, but each time I tried to open my mouth the tape muffled my attempt and no words came out. He never said anything and that angers me the most. His meaty hands stroked my hair as his green sweater rubbed again my shoulder and the chair I was tied too. For what seemed like years, I sat unmoving and bleeding, while he watched me from a corner of the room behind me that I couldn’t see. There are many things I could imagine he was doing, but between the dizzy spells and the futile attempts at wriggling free I had no time to play the guessing game. Eventually, I drifted and awoke to the sound of laughter and Mr. Briggs face inches from mine. I screamed. I know I screamed. Yet, the tape stayed put and no one ever came to my aid. The last thing I felt was the sharp pierce of a knife digging into my throat, severing the trachea, esophagus, and everything in between. That last gasp of air escaping me while my body tingled with feeling for the last time.

Why me?

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