By S.E. Drake

Adam, my husband, is dead. 

I wanted to scream again, to cry, to get down on my hands and knees and shout. I wanted to deny it. I wanted to somehow reverse his murder by sheer willpower as though if I believed he was alive hard enough or shouted “no!” loud enough it would make a difference. 

Instead, I was coiled up on the couch, unable to move. The truth was bludgeoning me down. I felt like I was being slowly decapitated, slowly suffocated, as though every burst of reality in my mind was the blow of an ax. He is dead, wham, he is dead, wham…. I wanted it to end soon.

Mom shifted in her seat on the other couch and looked at the door. Then I heard it too, a rat tat tat at the door. I didn’t care who it was. I rolled over and forced my face deep into the moist and slimy pillow I was cradling. It was Adam’s pillow, and it still smelled like him, like shaving cream, laundry detergent, and sweat. 

“Alyssa Lee,” a voice boomed behind me. I rolled over. I knew I was a mess, but I was rather apathetic at the moment. 

Two police officers who looked vaguely familiar were planted in the middle of our living room like a couple of linebackers. When I saw them, I sat up and started trying to brush the hair out of my face. 

“Alyssa Lee, you are under arrest for the premeditated murder of Adam Lee.”

My brain scrambled to understand his words, and they had me on my feet listening to my Miranda rights before it sank in. One officer grabbed my hand and jerked it behind my back. Every ounce of hope I still had evacuated my heart when I felt the cold metal bite; they were handcuffing me. 

I don’t remember much else besides Mom trying to stop the officers as they pulled me down the front steps between them like I was a drunken sailor. The moon was resting over my neighbor’s house, and a million tiny stars glinted in the sky and winked at me from the deep, soft quilt of blue that made up the sky. The air smelled so sweet and fresh, unbelievably fresh. Did it always smell like that? The trees were still covered with little droplets of rain like the perfect, fluorescent roses specked with dots of glue in flower shops; they were so beautiful. I fixed my eyes on the moon and took one last gulp of pure air before the officer put his hand on my head and forced me down into the squad car. 

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S. E. Drake has been writing for over seven years. She teaches high school English and is the author of the Dark Secrets Series, a young adult murder mystery trilogy. Her favorite book is either True Grit by Charles Portis or The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. She lives in Ohio with her fur-baby, Sadie.