Case Study

"Kleo."

"Stop," I hissed at her. "I go by Clara around here."

"Right," she chuckles. "New identity. New life. Serial killer dad."

"Glad you actually have a brain to connect the dots."

She laughs humorlessly. She's not used to talking to someone who bites back or she just doesn't know I actually bark at people who aggravate me.

"So you do bite back," she said. "You don't want to get that comfy with me, Clara. Are you forgetting I'm part of the school newspaper? People trust my word more than yours. Could you connect the dots for that?"

We both hear the door screech as another girl enters the restroom. She widens the gap between us and pretends to fix her hair in front of the mirror. The girl quickly enters and exits the cubicle. It was lunch time, everyone was in a rush. Except for the both of us I'm guessing.

"Please don't tell anyone," I plead.

"Why shouldn't I?"

Shit. I wanted to wipe off the arrogant smirk on her face. Maybe if I threaten to kill myself in front of her she would budge. But why would she care about that. She's already threatening to ruin my life, that's as bad as killing me. Suddenly, she frowns then stares at me in shock.

"Clara, you're bleeding," hearing my fake name roll off her tongue, it seemed so foreign now that she used the real one.

I brought my fingers to my nose and noticed warm fluid going down to my lips. It keeps running down and I could only wipe it off again and again to stop it from making a mess.

The trip to the clinic was awkward. I didn't want to make small talk with the one who would spread my secret around like some hot celebrity gossip.

I looked at her and she seemed to be in panic mode. Which was weird. She wasn't worried about me a while ago. Is it possible that she isn't actually a cold-hearted bitch?

She tells the nurse that my nose started bleeding out of nowhere. But I knew it wasn't just my body malfunctioning. It was the result of me stressing out the whole night out and getting little to no sleep.

She wanted to stir something up and she got exactly what she wanted. But why are her brows furrowed? Why is she fidgeting with the hem of her shirt? Why is she showing genuine concern for me?

It must be nice if we actually became friends and met under different circumstances. Instead, my blackmailer is the one accompanying me in the clinic while I stress out about the things that she caused. I don't think she'd be the same person that she is to me if we were actually a couple of "sesh-buddies" in her car or just talking about random stuff under the school bleachers.

The nurse closes the curtains around the bed I was sitting on. I continue to pinch my nose just like what the nurse told me to do. Anya drums her fingers on the side of the bed. She stayed with me even after the bell echoes around the hallways.

"Why are you still here?" I asked in a hushed tone. "Do you even have any idea that you're the one who caused this?"

"I can't have you around being sick," she said. "We have so much to do in the summer."

"So much to— what do you mean? We're not friends."

"Ouch," she placed a hand on her chest and pretended to look hurt. "But not really. What I mean is I can't have my main character going sick for the rest of the story."

I give her a puzzled look. She sighed in irritation as if I should be catching up on what she's saying.

"I'm a writer, remember? And I'm going to write my best work yet," she taps my nose. "And you're going to be the main character. I'm going to write about you."

She looks like she's about to throw around some jazz hands after what she said. Her enthusiasm was all over her face, the same couldn't be said about me. I think my left eye probably twitched in anger while she was smiling at me.

"Are you actually fucking insane?" my breath comes out heavy. I can feel more blood rushing out of my nose. There's no end to this nosebleed if it was caused by stress.

"I know right? Most insane ideas are also cash-grabs," she said those words with her pupils noticeable dilating. That's when I knew my secret fell on the hands of the worst possible person who could know about it.

"So you're telling me," my words come out nasally. I wish it wasn't so I could emphasize each word with anger and loathing. "That you want to profit off of my childhood trauma? A trauma so fucked up that it reached the national news."

"Well, if you put it that way it sounds bad."

"It is bad," I started to raise my voice before I remember that we were still in the clinic. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because I want to tell your story."

"It's not yours to begin with."

"This one's going to have different characters, a different setting," she said with some sort of twisted optimism in her voice. "Fiction still has to be close to reality. So I'm not going to dox you to the whole world so you could relax. Well— unless…"

"Unless what?" I asked.

"Unless you don't get along with my plans. The whole school should know by tomorrow morning."

I don't avoid her gaze. She knows exactly what she's doing. Out of all of our interactions it's clear to me that Anya likes to mess around with some sort of power play going on. She has this look of utter satisfaction whenever she knows that she's going to get her way.

I felt stupid to think that she changes just because I saw a glimpse of her being concerned. This was the same Anya who threatened me in my backyard. The same arrogant evil bitch who knew exactly how to play me since day one.

"So how 'bout it, Clara," she said my name with a mocking tone. "Won't you be my case study? My little guinea pig?"

That night I thought of different ways to kill Anya. It was like counting sheep, but instead I thought of how I'm going to look like with her blood all over me. I got way into the details, I started to get scared.

Is this what it felt like when my dad was plotting to kill all of his victims? Did he think of them before he fell asleep? Or were they simply another number to his record?

No one had the guts to tell me this, but I think my dad used me as a lure. After he was arrested, it took a lot of years before I could befriend someone again. I felt like whoever I was going to be friends with would be killed in cold blood. I felt like I was helping him again.

Some families have expensive heirlooms that they pass down to their children. I on the other hand is left with the ghosts of the people he killed. I could never get rid of the thought that in those pile of bodies, I took part in stacking them one after the other.