Prologue

Dylan recounts his events to his lawyer.

"Please sit down, Mr. Peters."

I glanced around the room, my eyes the only part of my body moving. A clean, small grey room. Grey walls. Grey floor. Grey table and chairs. Grey face, paired with a black suit and suitcase. White papers. I wanted to throw some crayons in the room and see if it made any difference.

"Can we go to a different room?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Sorry, Mr. Peters. This is only room the authorities would let us use."

My hand twitched. I clenched it.

"Have a seat," he said. I did.

He put his elbows on the table, hands folded under his freshly-shaved chin. I had never thought I would have to meet the lawyer my parents hired. I didn't really care back then. But when I found out I was meeting him today, I got jittery. Nervous. 

"Let me go ahead and tell you that there is nothing to hide here," he explained smoothly. "You can tell me everything you feel comfortable telling me. There's no harm to it. What's done is done, and there's nothing you can do to change it, so there's no reason to hold back the information."

I scanned the papers that lay flat on the grey table in front of him. There was a pen sitting next to a notepad.

"Why do you have that notepad?" I asked.

He looked down at the notepad, almost like he was checking to make sure it was still there. "Oh, to record things."

"What things?"

"The things that you tell me."

I appreciated his bluntness, but that didn't stop me from scratching out the more private parts of the incident from my prepared explanation to this boring man. I would be more inclined to explain more deeply to someone who at least knew my middle name and birthday. However, he probably knew that anyway. He had read all about me in my file. He knew the general information about me. Born and raised in my hometown. Got good grades at Pine Falls High School. Junior. Sixteen, turning seventeen on the 22nd of March. Only child of Mildred and Luke Peters. 

Convicted of the murder of Sophie Tate, a junior at Pine Falls High School.

I rested my elbows on the table, rubbing my forehead and sighing. The man's eyes twitched somehow, like a camera lens focusing. I stared into the deep indigo depths of his pupils, surrounded by a ring of faded blue. Like an old crayon.

"I'm sorry sir, but I never got your name," I said to break the silence.

He laid his hands on the table. "My name is Mr. Kleppins, but you can call me Greg if you'd feel more comfortable."

Greg Kleppins.

I doubted that I'd remember that name the next morning when he came back to question me some more.

Greg Kleppins, I thought over and over. Mr. Kleppins, Mr. Greg Kleppins. Greg.

Kleppins picked up his black pen, which went along with the lugubrious color theme of the whole room, and clicked it. He began to write at the top of the notepad. I didn't lean over to know what he was writing. I didn't really care. After the incident, I realized how many things there are in the world that really don't matter in the end. In your final moments, that's not what you think of, no matter what it is.

Maybe Sophie thought of those things. What people wrote at the top of papers. How her curiosity caused her body to shift and inspect.

No, that's stupid. Stop thinking about her or you'll never get out of here.

But I'm here to talk about her. How I killed her. How can I not think of her?

Two sides of my mind argued with the other while I patiently waited for Kleppins to finish. He put down his pen, the quiet landing of it silencing my noisy thoughts.

"Why don't you start by telling me what your idea was?" he said.

"My idea?"

"Police reports show there was more than one person in the house at the time of the murder. You must have planned this with someone else, correct?"

These people were too good. I knew it was just their career. They knew everything about unraveling the secrets that you thought could only be obtained if you uttered them. It was disturbing that people did this everyday. It was a lot more difficult than just getting the answer out of the person, but it was necessary.

I nodded.

"Start by telling me how that came about," Kleppins said, bracing himself for the wave of information he had to precisely repeat through the pen and paper.

I closed my eyes for a long time.

"How long will I be here?" I asked.

"A while."

Author's Note

This is just a prologue. The official first chapter should be up by the end of the week.