Member-only story
The Mind’s Eye Manifesto
Paranormal Fiction
I didn’t mean to do it. Please believe me. I didn’t want things to end this way.
Let me go back.
It’s been a month since Stacey Curmough disappeared. She was my best friend, the light of Tinwear High, and we all lit our candles so that Stacey would come home. Brett Garrison stood right beside me and rubbed circles on my back through my windbreaker. But I didn’t look at him. My eyes were on Stacey’s picture — her blue eyes, her dishwater blonde hair, her perfect teeth that had been straight and white forever — staring at me through the glow of candlelight.
I lied, okay? That’s the truth of it. I lied when I said I had no idea where Stacey was. I fooled the police, the teachers, even Stacey’s parents. They believed me through the tears, through the sobbing, through every moment I shook my head and assured them Stacey hadn’t told me a thing before she left her house on the night of May 13th.
But she had knocked on my window that night. Gently, tip-tap, tip-tap, as if she would have gone away into the night just as easily as a ghost if I hadn’t been up and working on my Gothic literature report for Swanson’s class. I swept back my curtains and found her looking through the glass, her cheeks rosy and her smile effervescent. She looked like she was in love, as weird as that sounds.
