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PROLOGUE

Fifteen years ago

The vivid green of the trees is what I’ll remember about that day. The rain that had drenched the area for three days had finally come to an end, and when the sun came out after all those hours without it, I looked up and saw the truest green leaves on the tree outside my bedroom that I’d ever seen.

That was yesterday. The day I decided to do it. The sun was out, the leaves on the trees were green, and I decided to finally do what I’d thought about.

Kill Amanda Michaels.

That actually sounds far more definitive than how it happened. The thought first came to me that day in late June when she and I were walking through the woods at the end of my street. They sit there like some throwback to before people decided houses and roads were more important than enjoying nature. I’ve strolled through those woods, up and down the paths by myself for years, but one day she appeared, and I wasn’t alone anymore.

I’ll never forget the first words she said to me. “Hey, what’s up? I’m Amanda.” Her voice was what I imagined angels might sound like. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but she sounded sweet and kind. Then she smiled, and all I could think of was what it would be like to kiss her.

She told me she was sixteen and had been visiting the woods since she was around twelve. I think that must have been a lie since I’d never seen her there, but I didn’t question her on that. She liked to talk, and as she did and we walked along the worn paths together, every so often I’d turn to look at her mouth. She had what my mother calls a Cupid’s Bow mouth. The peaks of her upper lip fascinated me. My lips looked like every other mouth I’d ever seen, but hers was different.

Kissable. The kind you wanted to taste.

She never asked me how old I was. She probably assumed I was close to her age since I looked so young. I’ve always looked much younger than I actually am. My mother used to say it was because I’m a Capricorn. She loves all that new age astrology shit. According to her, somehow my being born in January makes my face appear younger than my true age.

One day as we walked along the path we always took, I stopped and kissed Amanda. To my surprise, she didn’t protest or run away. Girls tend to do that when you don’t ask and just steal a kiss, but not her. She kissed me back with that Cupid’s Bow mouth that felt soft and tasted like peppermint because of the lip gloss she used. I’ll never forget the smell of that lip gloss either. It was like how my house always smelled around the holidays.

After we finished kissing, she smiled at me and poked her finger into my chest. “That was nice. I was wondering when you would finally kiss me. What took you so long?”

I don’t remember my answer to her question. I didn’t think a couple weeks was that long to wait before kissing a girl, especially one you didn’t ask first. Whatever I said, she just chuckled and started walking again. I followed her, watching her long blond hair sway left and right behind her as she talked about some vacation her family had planned for later that summer.

She usually did most of the talking, which was fine with me. I didn’t like to talk that much, and girls always made me feel foolish, so her handling most of the conversation worked out in my favor. Not that she ever complained. I had the sense she liked to talk, so things seemed right.

Day after day, we met up in the woods and walked and talked. I never made the effort to go to her house, which I guess would have been polite of me. I knew where she lived, though. Across the street and four houses down from my house. I’d look out my bedroom window at what I imagined was her bedroom every night.

And then those three days of rain came, and all I could think was I couldn’t see Amanda because of the damn weather. Not that a few days of downpours were that out of the ordinary in western Maryland. We got those a lot in the spring and summer.

There was something about those three days being stuck inside and not being able to see her that made me go a little crazy. I sat in my bedroom staring out the window at her house and the window I imagined was hers and wished she’d wave her hand out the window so I could see her.

She never did, though.

I saw her father’s truck come and go from the house with her sisters and her mother but never Amanda. What was she doing that she didn’t have to go to eat or to church with them? Was she spending time with someone else?

As the minutes and hours ticked by, I created an entire scenario about what she was up to. Each time I thought about it, I added another detail. At first, I decided she must have a friend over. Girls love to hang out at one another’s houses and do whatever girls do. Makeup. Their hair. She did sometimes wear braids, so she and a friend were probably hanging out and braiding each other’s hair.

Then it occurred to me that maybe her friend wasn’t a girl like her. Maybe it was a boy. I dismissed that idea at first. What kind of mother and father would let their sixteen-year-old daughter stay at home with a boy while they were gone out to eat or to church? Parents don’t usually approve of that kind of thing.

But she spent hours in the woods every day and no one ever came looking for her. So maybe they didn’t watch over her like a hawk as other parents did.

The thought of another boy with her made me feel like I wanted to throw up. She kissed me. Weren’t we together? No, we’d never been out on a date, but some people might call what we did in the woods dating. It had never progressed further than kissing, but was that a bad thing? Was there something wrong with not moving faster?

I watched that window I was sure was hers for hours on end. I never saw a light come on when it got dark, but the reasons why didn’t make me feel any better. She was in that room in the dark with someone. He was tasting her lips, those lips named for a cherub’s weapon. The lips of the girl I thought of as an angel.

Whatever else he was doing I couldn’t let myself imagine. I didn’t want to think about Amanda being that kind of girl.

By the third day, I was sure I’d never see her again in the woods. She’d stop coming to walk with me because she had someone new in her life. Someone she liked enough to spend day and night with. Someone her parents thought was good enough to let him stay with her while they went out.

Someone not me.

Then I woke up that next day and the rain was gone. The sun shone down on everything, making the grass and the trees so green. Finally, I’d be able to go back to the woods, but would Amanda be there too?

It turned out she didn’t come back to the woods that first sunny day after all the rain. I walked those paths alone as I had all those other times before she appeared that one day. After the storm, everything smelled so fresh and alive.

And I hated all of it.

Why should everything be so alive while I felt like I was dying inside? I knew I wouldn’t feel like that if she would just join me, but she didn’t. Hour after hour I walked along the trails, and by the time the sun set, I’d spent the day alone, my mind racing with thoughts of how I wanted to get back at her for abandoning me.

At first, I decided I’d just not talk to her when she walked up to me. I’d look away and not be sucked in by her big blue eyes and pretty mouth, no matter what she said.

By mid-afternoon, that idea had morphed into something darker. I would talk to her, but I’d take what was mine whether she liked it or not. I’d hold my hand over her mouth if she screamed or cried, even as I hoped she wouldn’t.

She had spent the past three days with some guy. She knew me for weeks. Why would she have a problem being with me in the woods after all that time?

Just before the sunset settled in behind the mountains and the red and orange remnants of the day gave the world one last surprise, I abandoned the idea of having sex with her for something else. It wouldn’t be special anyway since she’d been with whoever he was during all those rainy hours.

No, I’d do something that would ensure she never spent time with any other boy again.

“I had a feeling I’d see you here today. I wanted to come yesterday, but I was busy with getting ready for vacation. My mom insisted I clean my room and wash all my clothes. She’s so silly sometimes. Who cares if your room is clean when you aren’t even at home? We’re going to Myrtle Beach next week. What did you do on those rainy days?”

Amanda’s words came tumbling out of her Cupid’s Bow mouth like she had no control over them. I listened, unable to turn away like I originally planned. Her voice was just so sweet that I couldn’t stop myself from hearing her out. She did say she wanted to come to see me yesterday. That’s something.

Still unsure who she spent all that time with, I mumbled my answer about what I did during those three days of rain. “Not much. Just hung out in my room.”

We began walking, and a few seconds later, she turned to look at me and gave me a smile. “Is your room at the front of your house? It’s the white house with the blue shutters, right?”

I nodded, happy to know she took the time to think about where my room was like I had done with hers. “Yeah. You can always tell it’s my house because of my father’s car. Nobody has an El Camino anymore.”

With a giggle, she said, “And your room is the one with the windows right in the middle?”

Again, I nodded as happiness filled every crevice of my being. She had thought about me those days we couldn’t be together. Maybe she hadn’t spent all her time with someone else she liked better than me.

And then she said the words that will forever be tattooed on my brain. “I thought I saw you sitting in the window. I was going to wave, but I figured what was the point?”

As each syllable left that beautiful mouth of hers, my heart sank deeper and deeper until it felt like it came to rest somewhere in my gut. She didn’t see the point to doing something as simple as waving so I could see her.

Her thoughtlessness crushed me. Suddenly, my head filled with thoughts of rage like never before. She didn’t even want to bother waving, an action that would have brought me more joy than she could imagine. She saw me and didn’t care enough to let me know.

Everything I felt for Amanda Michaels evaporated into thin air in those seconds after she said those words. If ever there had been a shred of possibility I wouldn’t kill her, she dashed that to pieces with her careless statement.

I walked beside her as she continued to chatter on about something. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t listening anymore. My mind had shifted into a gear that included a single thought.

I had to kill her.

When we came to where the woods grew denser and the pathway turned to mostly grass because few people ever walked this way, I looked around even as I knew there wasn’t another soul in these woods but us. The trees with their very green leaves blocked out the sun so this spot felt perfect for what I needed to do.

She stopped to pick up something from the ground, and that’s when my body sprung into action. It was almost like I was hovering over myself watching as I jumped on her back and pressed her to the grass. She let out a tiny whimper, almost as if she didn’t mind me doing this but felt like she needed to protest a little for appearance’s sake.

But I wasn’t trying to get into her pants. The time for that urge had long passed.

I wrapped my hands around her neck and was struck by how small it was. I never noticed that. She had a neck like a tiny bird. Easily snapped if I wasn’t careful.

She said my name, but she sounded far away, like a memory of some voice I couldn’t clearly remember. My fingers pressed against her petal-soft skin, sinking into her flesh as they slowly cut off the air flowing through her windpipe. I didn’t know how long it would take until she stopped breathing. I’d never killed anything before.

As the seconds passed, she clawed at my hands, but she was no match for me. I may have looked like a teenager, but I had more than ten years on her, and that time came with more strength than she could handle. She croaked out my name over and over, along with wretched pleas for me to stop.

But I couldn’t. Amanda had to die. I was too far gone down this path to let her leave these woods alive.

“Stop!” she begged hoarsely. “Please stop!”

I heard those words, but my brain couldn’t process them. The singular thought that she must die crowded everything out so all I could think about was killing her.

As the minutes ticked by, she slowly stopped her futile struggling, and then she fell still. No more crying out my name. No more begging for me to stop. No more frantic struggling to pry my hands from her throat.

Nothing but silence.

When I finally pulled my hands off her, I collapsed back onto the grass and stared at her lifeless body almost as if I expected her to roll over and look at me with confusion about what I’d done filling her eyes. She had no warning that today was her last day on earth. No hint that anything she could say would make me do this to her.

She woke up like she had every other day of her life and went about with her plans, never knowing that someone had entirely different plans for her. One minute she was alive and saying thoughtless words, and the next she was lying face down in the tall grass gone from the world.

I don’t know how long I sat there with her body just inches away from me. I should have been worried that someone would find me lounging out next to a dead girl, but the thought never entered my head. No thoughts came to me as I stared at her for what felt like hours. I had no feelings either.

For a second or two, I thought I might throw up right after the deed was done, but that never happened either. Nothing happened. It wasn’t like in the movies when someone kills another person and then runs away or instantly regrets what they did, scrambling to hide all the evidence so they don’t get caught.

I simply killed her and then sat down. Then later, I stood up, walked back down the same path she and I had taken, and strolled out of those woods. There was no one waiting for me. No one with questions about where Amanda was. Nothing. Just a beautiful summer afternoon fading into evening.

The police and their questions for all of us in the neighborhood came later the next morning when her body was found. Did you know her? Were you friends? When was the last time you saw her? Did you see anyone suspicious walk into the woods yesterday?

My answer to all their questions was the same shrug and forced sad expression I knew they expected from someone who may have known Amanda Michaels as a neighbor. My mother spoke more to the police than I did, expressing her utter disbelief that something so heinous could happen in our beautiful small town with such a low crime rate.

And then the police left after a few days, and I heard from my mother that they had no leads in the case. It appeared as a news story for a week or so on the local TV stations. Nothing makes the news gods happier, it seems, than a beautiful blond who’s had something terrible happen to her. Then the story faded from the limelight, and I was left as the only person in the world who truly knew what had happened to sixteen-year-old Amanda Michaels that hot summer day in late July.