He Did It, Not Her – by Izzy Sharon
Brown curls draped over a stone gravestone one October evening as a pale woman clung to the last memorial of her sister, sad and confused, like she was all those days ago since the murder of Finley Wren. The woman named Winslow could not grasp such an abstract idea even though it was 3 years, 5 months, 6 weeks, 3 days ago. Every other day, she came and visited her deceased sister, wondering why the murderer has not been caught or thrown in jail yet. Nothing ever made sense to her anymore. She left high school without her other half. She went to the college Finn was supposed to attend. Furthermore, she could not handle the emptiness that had opened up in such a vast, unexplored world where others are never supposed to be alone. After all, every stranger with stories walks along the sidewalk every waking second of the day waiting to be met and read.
Winslow quietly sobbed. The stone scratching her face made her skin red and slightly burned as the mini particles of rock laid against her cheek. The burning was a slight comfort, since the comfort of finding the killer was taken a long, long time ago. However, every time Winslow sobbed into her sister, she only felt the soft cushion of a hoodie and her sister’s nails against her under eyes when Finley would wipe them away. Like the time Winslow found out she was supposed to have a twin brother she absorbed in the womb. It was such a silly thing for someone to cry over, but she felt terrible. Little did she know that was the last time she would ever speak to her sister before she slept that night unknowing her sister was dying. Winslow can never forget that image in her mind. No amount of therapy or erasing memories could ever get rid of a scar so deep in the soul.
“Who could kill you… Out of all people, Fin,” Winslow spoke into silence. The wind in the air made her cheeks cold when they blew against her face.
She will never understand why this happened.
She doesn’t know this, but two days from now she will find her mother as she died during Winslow’s sleep. She will never recover from these events and will sit and wonder what is happening and why it is only the people around her who die. The only things she has in this life is her father and her cat. Four days from now, when Winslow is sleeping, she will wake up in the bathtub with a knife halfway through her heart. She is too weak to scream or ask for help, but she can hear the faint banging on the door and inaudible screaming from her father’s breathless, shaky voice. Trying to plead with whatever took over his baby. Winslow laid her eyes to sleep as she heard a voice.
“Josiah gave me back my daughter.”
“No, she took away MY body.”