A Misplaced Life - Excerpt by Kathryn Layne
October 2, 2013
Then across from where I stood, I saw Trent standing in
the pool. Something wasn’t right
though. He was in the front side of the
pool by the house and the darkness partially obscured him. There was, however, an object in the pool
with him.
With my heels clicking against the cement, I approached
him. But, he didn’t move. It was as if he was so focused on whatever he
was doing that he hadn’t heard me. I
watched the expressions cross his face.
There was a mixture of rage and pleasure upon his features. In front of him in the pool was a body. The lifeless body of a woman. Gasping, I stumbled back in fear. He had killed someone. Oh, God.
What if he saw me?
As I turned to creep away, a silver glint caught my
eye. The bracelet on the woman’s wrist. It was a diamond tennis bracelet, identical
to the one I’d received on my sixteenth birthday from my parents. The only definitive characteristic that set
it apart from others was the XO pattern throughout it, a playful expression of
parents’ love at a time when I was a teenager, still just a girl becoming a
woman.
Gradually, things became more recognizable. The blonde hair that turned a strange
greenish hue under the water, the fair skin and the black heels with the
crystal buckles. The breath lodged in my
throat at the discovery.
The woman in the water was me. Her eyes were dull, open and staring up at
nothing. The black dress was bunched up
around her waist from the struggle. Her
legs were stiff but around his waist from force.
I was dead. Trent
had killed me. I could almost see the
headlines. ‘Alexa Hamilton, dead at 23
of a brutal rape and murder’. I had been
murdered. I couldn’t breathe. In an instant, I was transported back to that
last living moment. I was consumed by
horrible pain and a strange floating feeling.
People were wrong. Death wasn’t
painless. It wasn’t peaceful.
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