It's still Murder if you apologize (Chapter 1)

Preface
I can see beyond his broken eyes, empty face and scabbing arms. I can see past the pained cries he screams in his sleep, the blood on his sheets, the knife on his night stand and the broken bottles on the floor. The peeling wallpaper, the bloodstained pillow that never dries from his tears at night. I see through it all to the inocense deep beneath the layers of hurt he fails to hide from the world to see. When he is with me, a laugh might crack from the cage he calls his chest. And one single, dry, blank laugh is enough to see preogress. Even though he pretends nothing is wrong, I know him all too well to blow something off as if it seems it doesn't matter. Everything matters to him. It means the world.
Chapter 1: Excited
   Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Drops of water hitting the pavement outside the screen mesh door. It smells of fresh rain out there in the cold. Like grass. My eyes refrain from opening and I refused to move from my curled up spot on the couch. Tap. Tap. Tap. I water wouldn't stop dripping into a piddle on the ground. The sound wasn't rythmic, just pitter patter on the thin roof... just what I want to wake me up in the morning.
My eyes flickered from the white patterned cieling to the kitchen to the screen outside the door and back to the cieling with every drop of water that hit the pavement; with every force of gravity pulling down on a single droplet of pure. It was better than an alarm clock, at least.. The quiet dripping was nothing compared to an annoying nasal beep.
   I liked to start my day with a bowl of plain cheerios. I stepped up from my comfortable couch in the livingroom of the co-ed dorm. I didn't know why I was there. I should have been inmy room.I've never drank a drop of alcohol in my life,which doesn't explain how Idon't remember much of last night.Days like yesterday always came and went like a hit and run on a busy street. I stood on my very tip toes to reach the box of cheerioson top of the fridge. Being 5'1'' has its certain downsides, after all. Successfully, I held the cardboard box in my hand confidently with a smug grin on myface.
   I found myself reaching for the Sunday Paper after I took myfirst milky bite of cereal. Last Sunday's, but who cares? News is news, and comics are comics. I just wanted a bit of entertainment for mydragging morning. Just as my eyes skimmed over the newsprint, the boldheadlineshot me almostimmediately.
LOCAL MAN VICTIM OF HOMICIDE ATTACK
   I zoned out for a few minutes at the most, for what seemed like minutes at least, when a musical sound hit myears, but wasn't music.
  "Hello.", I looked up from the newsprint sharply, startled by the soft chime of a familiar voice.
  "It's just me, Mary... Jeez.", and she was right, and it was just her. Just Ella. My best friend since grade school from ages 7 to 20. She had short choppy blond hair, and pixie like features.The ballerina charm around her neckrepresented her and everything about her and the way she walked, even.She danced in her step, and when she pranced along, no one heard a thing. I knew every thing about her, and we had no secrets between the both of us. It was just Ella.
  "Oh.", embarrassed by my jumpiness, I shoved my spoon in my soggy cheerios a few times.
  "Is something wrong?" Ella slipped into the stool next to me and slid mea glass of orange juice. Where did that come from? I questioned silently. Sometimes it seemed like she pulled random things out ofnowhere.
  "Just tired..." I said, and swiftly moved my eyes away from herdeathgaze, and tossedher the paper. Her eyes overviewed the headline and the article and he chuckled a little in ahigh pitchedChortle.
  "You don't actually believe this could happento you, do you? You are so weird, Mary. You get scared by meer things that happen miles away, andyou get all paranoid.I mean, like... you have no reason to panic. You have to actually do something toget killed by the murderer. I'm sure the guy had areason to get murdered, and you've done nothing wrong." She assured me, by simply rambling on for a few minutes in her soprano voice. I turned back to her and sighed slowly and steadily. She was completely right, but how could I still be scared? I felt the butterflies still in my stomach and I kind of bit on my lip. The feeling of crime being so close, it was like a gut feeling telling me that maybe it's not so far away at all.
  "Well who knows if I have a reason to be killed or not?" I asked. Ella supressed laughter and itched the back of her head.
  "The killer does." she said. And that didn't help one bit. I just itched the back of my wrist and gave up on the subject.
Just then, the phone rang. I wouldn't have been surprised or jumped out of my skin if the phone went off often. But the truth is, it didn't. It barely rang at all. My eyes shifted from my soggy mush of a bowl of cereal to look at Ella. Her blue eyes were looking at the phone with a exasperated glare and I could tell she was just as surprised as I that the phone, that very phone, was ringing. She was giving off the emotion like a strong perfume.
   She snatched the phone up with her pale petite hand as if it was an explosive and put it to her ear when she was sure it was on the last ring.
  "Hello?" Asked Ella. her ballerina voice sang through the reciever. She listened and slowly nodded her head through the murmur on the other line I could just barely hear and gradually, a small smirk that showed little teeth sprung on her face. "Yes, of course!" she said through her smile. She hung up and her face was ecstatic. "A new boy. Named Luke." she said, and clapped her hands together twice before jumping up and down a bit. I'm surprised she didn't offer to take me clothes shopping right then. But she just skipped happily out of the room, leaving me alone with my poor excuse for breakfast.
   There's no use for breakfast anyways. I thought. I stood up and picked up my cereal bowl, full of the puffed up grain, floating in the white liquid. I dumped it down the sink and dumped my orange juice down the drain along with it and then walked to my room to just sit for a while, considering that the hectic morning had gauged away my need for anymore sleep, and I felt too nervous to anyways. Too afraid. My neurotic brain had tortured me into thinking a killer was out to get me, leaving in a paranoid whirlwind. It wasn't the way to start any morning, And even by 10 o'clock I realized it wasn't going to be a good day.
My eyelids had just dropped and my mouth had just drowsily fallen open when my phone buzzed. BZZZZZZT. BZZZZZZZT. I groaned, half asleep, and reached my arm out aggressively to the side table to grab my phone. I put it to my ear.
  "Hell...o?" I asked tirely. No response, and the phone buzzed again, tickling my ear with a vibration. Note to self: pick up the phone before answering. I pressed the green phone button and put it back to my ear.      
  "Hello?" I reitterated. All I heard was a giggle.
  "Why are you sleeping!? It's not nap time! It's make-over time, sleepy head!" Ella enthused. I heard an unenthusiastic cry for help arise from my throat."Ella.. it's nappy time. I don't need a make-over. I'm perfectly.... fine." I moaned out. My words slurred together out of exhaustion.
  "New boy." She sang into the phone like I was oblivious.
  "Why didn't you come in here and get me..." I asked, only my question wasn't reallya question.
  "I have to use up minutes on my phone so my mom thinks I have a life.", Ella said. I chuckled and she sighed. "Just come in here!!" It made me laugh, because her enthusiasm never matched mine. Mine was lost and forgetten in her lost quest for attention.
          My blond hair, a monstrosity.
          My grey eyes, crusted over.
          My pale skin, never matching up to Ella's porceline complexion.
  "Damn, Mar. When was the last time you brushed your teeth?" she asked. And my response on autopiolet, I said "I don't know." and she brought one corner of her beautiful natural pinked lips down and said "Shower?"
I began feeling like I was on a lie detector. "A few days ago." I said as I looked in the mirror, and saw her disgusted face behind me. "How do you do that?!" she shrieked.
  "Extra deo." I said with a smile. She rolled her eyes.
  "You won't get Luke if you don't shower." I laughed,
  "I'm in college to study to be an oceanographer. Not to pick up guys." I glanced to her and her face read the single wordless expression of 'durrrr'. She tossed me a rag and sighed. "Just wash your face and take a shower. And if you have a push up.... use it." she said witha simple face of satisfaction that that didn't read on my face. I nodded just to make her happy, despite being slightly insulted. God knows I'm lying. But Ella is never in a better mood than when she has everything exactly the way she wants it.
  "Sure, Ell. Whatever. You. Say." I said and slammed the door in her face harsher, harder, and louder than usual, indicating my irritation. Maybe she picked up the signal, because I heard her light footsteps skidder back to her room and I breathed out a sigh of relief. Solitude.