2 Usual Suspects

Breathe in. Breath out.

I look at myself in the mirror. Straight jet black hair, hazel eyes that only gleam under sunlight, fair skin, average height. I am almost the same image as my mother when she was young, except for the eyes. These were the eyes that was staring down at those little girls locked inside our basement. These were the last things they saw. Eyes that weren't showing any hint of mercy. The eyes of their killer.

The only thing that my dad was able to pass down to me before his death row were these eyes and the burden of being his daughter. I wonder what he was thinking before his death. Could a person like him feel guilty of what he's done?

A hear a sudden knock on the door. I hear my mom's voice on the other side.

"Tessa, honey? Finish up in there. I still need to drop you off for school," my mom said.

I opened the door and see her smiling at me. She's all that I have left. The only link that I have left from my past. I changed states, we even had to change our last name, I had to leave behind a lot of things. She's the only one that remains unchanged.

"I love you, mom," I told her.

"I love you too, honey," she seems fazed but said it back nonetheless. She caressed my hair and looked at me with a gleam on her eyes. "Now, come on. You shouldn't be late for school."

When mom finally dropped me off of school, I immediately rushed my way to homeroom class. Luckily, I was able to get inside the classroom before roll calling for attendance began.

"Let's meet at Munchies later," said Cole. He was scribbling things on the back of his notebook, going back and forth with different colors of his highlighter. "Fries are on me."

"Why? What for?" I asked.

"We need to discover who this mystery girl is remember," Cole said tapping on his notebook. A silhouette of a girl was drawn on it and some key words were scattered around the page supposedly connecting to each other. "We can't let this school year pass without knowing her. Come on, it's going to be fun."

"So like, the squad from scooby doo but only the two of us. And we're just actually bored."

"Don't— dude, don't say it like that. You're making us seem like losers."

"But that's exactly what we're doing here. Except we're not after a villain. We just want to expose an innocent girl."

"Well, yeah. But imagine the possibilities," Cole continued to whisper. "We can have her for an interview. True Crime channels are going to have an anniversary special of the killings and we'd join in 'cause we're friends with that serial killer's daughter."

"Seriously, Cole? You're capitalizing on girls being murdered? Are you sure you're not the psycho-killer in this case?"

"After class, we're going to Munchies," he said as he dismissed all the questions that I threw at him.

I shook my head in exasperation. There's no stopping him from being this curious. I'm just going to lead him to the wrong conclusions to make sure I'm not outing myself.

Homeroom class finally got dismissed and I was ready to head to my Statistics class when a girl with short ash brown hair and emerald eyes stopped me in my track. She had this intimidating aura around her— besides the fact that she's inches taller than me while wearing flats.

"Hey, Tessa," she said with a smile on her face.

"Lauren," I smiled back at her. "Do you uh, need anything?"

"Yes, actually," she said. "It has come to my attention that you haven't submitted your yearbook quote to the online forms that the committee posted over the weekend. Since it already closed, I'm getting it directly from you to avoid the hassle."

She seems stiff. Not tense. Those are different, because her body language seems domineering. It's no wonder she's a power figure in the school. Going from one club to another, always involved in committees, and always a frontrunner in terms of student rankings. Unlike her, I had to break a sweat and sacrifice my time to keep up with my grades being above average.

"Oh, um— I'm sorry for taking your time. It must've slipped my mind," I said, embarrassed for a moment.

"Let me just take note of it," she said, fishing out her phone from her pockets. "Mind saying it now?"

"Oh okay, w-well. I guess— hmm," I didn't actually have anything. I was immediately put on the spot. "How about: live for another day, to see a better version of you."

"Very well," she said as she typed in the last few words. "Very fitting... for the likes of you."

The last words she muttered struck me for some unknown reason. Before I could ask what she meant she hurriedly said thanks and got out of the classroom in a haste. I was left dumbfounded for a few seconds before I shrugged it away and moved on to the next class.

When my last class finally ended, I texted Cole that I'm already heading to Munchies and that I'll be waiting for him there. To my surprise, he's already seated at our usual spot. He waved obnoxiously as if I wouldn't see him. When I sat down across from him, he already told me that he placed the order before I even got there. I guess any relation to murder really fuels his enthusiasm.

"Before we go into your whole buzzfeed unsolved episode, do you know anything about Lauren Fox?"

"Why? She your type?" he wiggled his eyebrows, implying something obscene probably.

"No— why would I," I sputtered. "I just think she's weird. So kept and tidy and everything orderly. You just know she's hiding something that reeks."

"You think she's the mystery girl?" Cole said as he leaned in. "You think that's why she's so eager to cover everything up with her squeaky clean reputation?"

"Aaaand here's your fries," the waitress said as she sets down the cheesy fries on our table.

Cole's train of thought must have been broken because he was wolfing down hard on the fries right after the waitress left us alone again.

I can't possibly frame someone else regarding this issue, right? I don't have it in me to tell Cole that Lauren might be the suspect that he's been looking for. I don't have it in me to just have Cole follow a trail on someone that I don't even have small talks out of school responsibilities. I don't have the guts to possibly ruin someone's life because of miscommunicatio—

"It's probably her," the words were out of my mouth before I could even stop them. "There's something shady about her."

Cole takes note of it under a list that has the word 'suspect' as a header. She's the first name written on it. Cole will probably get off of my back and start pursuing Lauren and dig up something about her. I just hope this doesn't turn into something big; school drama isn't really my cup of tea.