CHAPTER 6 #3
"She moved into this building two weeks ago, Miley," Detective Williams said gently, her pen hovering over the paper. "She was found by her roommate. She moved into Room 212 with Maxine Garrison."
The world went completely silent. The sound of the wind, the murmurs of the students, Kira’s breathing behind me—it all vanished, replaced by a high-pitched, deafening ring that vibrated through my skull.
I looked past the detective's shoulder, my eyes climbing the concrete steps of the residence hall entrance. Standing near the glass doors, shadowed by the brick overhang, was Maxine.
She was wearing a thick varsity jacket, her long legs shaking as she leaned against the brick wall.
The Dean of Students was standing next to her, his hand resting on her shoulder, talking to her in that slow, condescending tone administrators use during a crisis.
Maxine wasn't swaggering. She wasn't laughing. Her head was bowed, her shoulders shaking violently as she wept into her palms, her massive frame looking fragile for the first time since I’d known her.
A white-hot, terrifying surge of pure rage exploded in my chest, obliterating the shock. It was her fault. It was this scumbag hoe’s fault. She had crept into our life, she had ruined our room, she had taken Alicia, and now she had brought her here to die.
"You bitch!" I roared.
Before Kira or Detective Williams could grab me, I ducked beneath the yellow crime scene tape, my boots hitting the mud before scrambling onto the concrete steps. I flew up the stairs like a wild animal, my fingernails curled into claws, my face distorted by a scream that didn't sound human.
"Miley, no! Stop!" the Dean shouted, his eyes widening in horror as I erupted onto the landing.
I threw my weight straight into him, my shoulder catching his chest and shoving his soft, middle-aged body completely out of the way. He staggered backward, his loafers slipping on the wet concrete as he hit the metal handrail.
I didn't care. My eyes were locked on Maxine.
I lunged forward, my fingers catching the collar of her varsity jacket, and dragged her weight down onto the stone steps.
We went down together in a chaotic, violent heap of limbs and jackets, rolling down the first three steps before slamming against the concrete landing.
"You killed her! You fucking killed her, you hoe!" I screamed into her face, my fists flying blindly through the air.
I didn't know how to fight, but the rage gave my arms a heavy, lethal speed.
My first punch caught her clean across the cheekbone; the second smashed straight into her mouth, the distinct, sickening pop of her lower lip splitting open against her teeth vibrating through my knuckles.
Blood—bright, dark red—instantly sprayed across her chin and onto the white leather of her jacket.
"You bully! You piece of shit! You did this to her!" I screamed, my hands clawing at her braids, trying to tear her face apart, trying to make her feel an ounce of the hollow, freezing void that was currently consuming my chest.
Surprisingly, Maxine didn't fight back.
She had the strength to crush me—she was a track athlete, her arms twice the size of mine—but she just lay there on the cold concrete, her hands held up defensively in front of her face, her eyes wide, leaking thick, heavy tears that mixed with the blood from her mouth.
She didn't throw a single punch. She just took it, her body limp beneath mine as I pummeled her with my fists until my knuckles were raw and split.
"Stop! Get off her! Get off her right now!"
Two large pair of hands caught me under my armpits, hoisting my weight completely up off the floor.
I kicked out wildly, my sneakers catching the uniformed officer’s shins as he dragged me backward, my chest heaving, my throat raw from screaming.
Detective Williams was there, her hands firm on my wrists, pinning them to my sides to keep me from swinging.
"Calm down, Miley! Calm down or I'm going to have to put you in restraints!" Williams yelled into my face, her voice cracking through the hysteria.
Maxine sat up slowly on the cold steps, her breath coming in ragged, wheezing gasps. She reached up with a trembling hand, wiping the dark smear of blood from her split lip, looking down at her stained palm. She didn't look angry. She just looked... dead.
"Let her go," Maxine whispered, her voice cracked, her gaze lifting to meet mine through the gap between the officers. "Let her go, detective. She's right. She's right to hate me."
She wiped her mouth again, her chest heaving as she pulled herself onto her knees, looking up at me with an expression of such pure, unadulterated agony that it made my arms go slack in the officer’s grip.
"But you got it wrong, Miley," Maxine said, the tears spilling over her bloody lip. "It wasn't me that broke her. It was you."
"Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth!" I screamed, trying to lunge forward again, but the officer held me fast.
"It was you, Miley," Maxine repeated, her voice rising, shaking with a terrifying clarity.
"Her love for you... it drove her completely mad.
The minute you moved out of that room, she stopped eating.
She moved in with me because she couldn't stand being in 314 without your things there.
All she ever did, every single night, was sit by the window and talk about you.
She loved you so much, Miley. She was trying everything she knew to win you back, but you just kept pushing her away.
You treated her like she was a ghost until she couldn't take the silence no more. "
Maxine reached into the deep inner pocket of her varsity jacket, her fingers shaking so hard she nearly dropped what she was pulling out. It was a small, square notebook with a faded cloth cover—a black-and-pink journal I had seen a thousand times sitting on Alicia's nightstand.
"Here," Maxine said, stretching her arm out, her hand holding the book toward me like an offering. "Here is her diary, Miley. She left it on the desk next to the chair before she... before she did it. All that you need to know is in there. Every single thing."
Maxine pulled herself up to her feet, her boots heavy on the stone, and without another word, she turned and walked past the Dean, disappearing through the heavy glass doors into the dark interior of the building, her head bowed as the investigators followed her inside.
Detective Williams didn't take the diary away from me. She looked at the raw, bloody skin on my knuckles, looked at the small cloth book clutched against my ribs, and sighed.
"I need a copy of that for the file, Miley," Williams said softly, her hand resting gently on my shoulder. "But I'll let you keep it tonight. I'll stop by your room tomorrow morning at ten to take it in for evidence. Read it. Get your closure. But I need it back."
"Thank you," I whispered, the word barely clearing my lips.
Kira guided me back across the quad. The crowd had begun to disperse, the heavy reality of the evening settling over the campus like a wet blanket.
I didn't feel the cold. I didn't feel the stares of the other students.
I just felt the square, hard corners of the journal pressed against my stomach.
As we walked through the rear doors of our building, I looked back once.
The ambulance was driving away, its red lights spinning silently, without a siren, disappearing into the dark Buffalo streets.
The minute we reached Room 204, Kira shut the door and turned the lock. She didn't say a word. She just went to her desk, turned on her small reading lamp, and sat down with her back to me, giving me the only thing she had left to offer: space.
I sat on the edge of my mattress, my legs shaking so violently they hit against the bed frame.
I lifted the cover of the journal. The first page was dated from our freshman year—short, funny notes about the bad cafeteria food, doodles of my face while I was sleeping, paragraphs about how much she loved the way my hair smelled after I washed it.