words by ava

They say the ghosts of two lovers tread the path around West Lake, hands held, roaming the barren land to sit in the park and wait and watch. The kids these days, though—they’ve got the story all wrong. They were never in love. Well, not the love you’re thinking of. They were friends. What am I saying? We were friends. I was one of them. 

The air felt just like this: a crippling cold unfolded before us, a chill so intense it hung heavy like those dust-ridden curtains that swung in your living room. Its weight muffled our voices as we skidded down the hill to the park, shrieking with delight. We didn’t hear the icy wind racing through the barren trees. We didn’t feel its penetrating grasp on our bones. We were young, we thought we’d live forever. 

That morning, my mother had warned me about sub-zero temperatures for the night. I had forgotten that, though. I was young, I didn’t care about the weather. As we climbed the cement steps that led to the park above, you paused. It was like some part of you knew the fate that awaited. The rest of you, however, had no idea the mess you were walking into. You turned to me with that disarmingly innocent smile. “You ready?” I nodded, stepping forward.

The gate creaked wildly as you pushed it open, the sound piercing the air, disrupting the chatter of fifty West Lake High sophomores. My lovely classmates, stoned out of their minds.  Marajuana clouds danced around them, coalescing rapidly in the freezing air. As soon as we walked in, I knew he saw us. He’d been waiting for us. Well—he’d been waiting for you. Within an instant, that devilish smirk crept across his face. “Ladies, hello!” he purred, strolling over to us. “Glad you came out tonight,” he whispered, wrapping his arm around you. Shamelessly, his eyes roamed your body, hungry. Michael. I hated that fucker. I don’t know what you saw in him, but it was as if he possessed some electromagnetic field that only attracted you. Once in his orbit, you were stuck to him.

“Let me show you something cool, yeah?” he murmured to you. After the obligatory recognition of me, he quickly resolved to act as if I didn’t exist. This is how it always was with him. I knew my place. I turned to go. I felt your fingers land on my shoulder, and I looked back towards you. “Good?” you asked. “Yeah, good. I’m gonna go see who else is here.” You knew I didn’t approve of your obsession with Michael, but you also knew I tolerated it. I left to explore the rest of the party. That was the last time I’d ever feel your touch. 

As I turned, my resentment for our friendship pulsated through my veins. Even then, I knew it would be better for us to not be friends. I’d known it for a while. You took, I gave. You forged ahead, I lingered behind. We were two bodies hurtling towards rapidly different end goals. We just didn’t align anymore. Yet, as you found every reason to flee from me, I clung on, grasped onto you, tighter and tighter still. I didn’t want to lose you. I was so afraid of life without you. 

I think that’s why I did it, really. I was so afraid of life without you, that seeing you lying there, as if awaiting death, was like some sort of twisted release. Here, right before me, was life without you. I would no longer have to worry when you’d abandon me, when you’d find a replacement for me. Michael had chosen you weeks ago, but he’d yet to demand payment until now. He raped you against that frozen metal slide as the swings creaked and the snow crunched under his feet. I saw. I saw you seeing me seeing it. I let it happen. Why didn’t I do anything! Why didn’t I intervene? 

I only call it rape in the aftermath, though. I put myself on trial for my actions, but I could hardly see five feet in front of me without the texture of the night erasing itself into a blur. That night beats back to me in fragmented shards of memory. In the moment, I was just like every other West Lake High sophomore at that party, facing a warped version of reality, stoned out of my mind. 

I glanced at you. I watched as your body slipped to the ground. You lay there, immobile, as he thrust into you. I assumed you wanted it, that this was your grand plan all along—who was I to stop you? I saw the pain in your eyes, a name mouthed on your lips. I assumed it was his. I know now that it was probably mine. A plea for help—unanswered. I glanced away, back to the party. I let the scene coalesce in another cloud of smoke, and exhaled. 

Glinting in the snow was your version of the twin crosses we had shared. The silver crucifix shone back at me, mocking me, as if to say: the girl you once knew, she’s gone now, really gone. You must have taken it off before the party, slipped it into your pocket, ashamed for him to see you with it. Unbelievable, I thought. I was sick of this party. 

I wish now—more than ever— that I had stopped you from walking through that gate. It would have reversed the fate that we stepped into. That night, I did a terrible thing. I let it happen. I didn’t intervene. I didn’t act. I assumed that you had wanted it. You had always wanted him, craved to be wanted. I left you there. I was sick of always being left; I wanted to be the one leaving for a change. I ran from that place, the world blurring around me. “Gone, gone, gone,” reverberated through my mind. My hand, numb from the cold, struck the splintering West Lake Park sign as I fled for the hills. The pain was the only marker that I was ever there at all. 

I was forced to identify your body in the morgue. Your toes, turned black from frostbite, poked out from beneath the sheet. I didn’t even need to see the face. I knew those toes. I’d watched for years as they danced with mine, bodies wrapped up in your living room’s curtains. It was a favorite play pretend scheme of ours: regal ladies, draped in the dusty velvet, awaiting a handsome man. The white sheet rose to reveal the face I already knew would be yours. I reached out to touch you, but my hand fell short. “It’s her,” I nodded. Only one of us froze to death that night, but I wished, more than once, that I’d frozen there alongside you. 

“There’s evidence that she may have been raped,” the coroner said. “Do you know anything about that?” The look of shock on my face was all she needed to see. At that moment, all the pieces fell into place. She hadn’t taken off the cross; he’d ripped it off her. She hadn’t wanted to have sex; he’d forced her. “I- I thought it was consensual,” I sputtered out. She nodded. “It’s unclear. It may have been.” In an intoxicated stupor, he’d left her for the elements to claim. In an intoxicated state of jealousy—inspired by my sadistic desire to be first in her life— I’d surrendered her to him. Unfortunately, the testimony of a teenage girl under the influence, means nothing. I begged the courts to convict me of something, anything to soothe the voice that had overtaken my now sober mind: You should have done something. You should have done something. I wasn’t blamed. Michael wasn’t blamed. She’d been high, they said. A reckless teenage girl. A tragedy, they said. The town of West Lake moved on within a week. 

The ghosts of two children tread that path around West Lake Park, hands held, roaming the barren land to sit in the park and wait and watch. I feel your presence. I remember that touch on my shoulder—light and brief—as if we’d just be parting for the night. On those nights that I sit in the park, the guilt hangs around me the way the cold hung around you that night. Heavy. Oppressive. Persistent. Laid in the snow, abandoned. The cold air took your last breath as your heart stopped. They found you layered in ice. Time of death: 1:06 am, February 5th, 2019. A tear slips down my face, and I furiously wipe it away. “Still pitying yourself?” I imagine you say. Yeah, I nodded. Yeah.