Too Young to Wilt

The thick green grass of the hill was dotted with explosions of colour, as wildflowers of every shape and size danced around the glade. Like the fingers of a waking giant emerging from the earth, huge ancient trees circled the palm of the meadow, kindly offering shade with their canopies.

A group of bright yellow marigolds shone with a proud golden splendour, harmonising with the beauty of their surroundings.

That's where they found her. That's where they found Katie Collins.

For the whole of fourth grade, I'd been able to say about four words to her. Three of those were 'there it is' as she'd frantically looked for her pencil sharpener after lunchtime.

I was in love with Katie. Well, probably. They say you can't even possibly begin to understand what love is until you're older, but I know how I felt.

Nobody in our class liked our excessively strict teacher, Mr. Gallagher, but when he moved me to the seat behind her, so I could spend every lesson staring at her long, straight chestnut hair, I didn't mind him quite as much.

Fifth grade was different. A new teacher, a new class, a new me. Taller, wittier, more confident: I was ready for the year.

The other girls noticed first, but they were just a part of the background to me; all I could see was Katie.

We became part of the same circle of friends and began to see each other more on the playground. No longer was I scared to talk to her, and after a few months we became good friends.

This would eventually culminate in an anxious me asking her to the end of year prom.

The image of her standing at the school gates, in a black dress, with her blue eyes shimmering, was the greatest image I had seen in my life so far. It would soon be followed by the greatest moment of my life, as we danced to 'castle on the hill' and she leaned in to kiss me quickly on the lips. In that moment of nervous excitement, I was the happiest I'd ever been.

6th grade came with a bang. Mr. Gallagher returned as our teacher and the year marked the arrival of my relationship with Katie. We spent every day together, going to one another's houses after school, or going down to the creek to spend hours skimming stones and talking and kissing. I was top of the class at History, but Katie was top of the class in everything else; she'd got so far ahead of the rest of us that Mr. Gallagher had started giving her extra tuition on a Tuesday and Thursday after school. My life had become a blissful dream; it was as if I was floating along on a cloud.

But then Katie went missing.

It was a Saturday when it happened. Katie and I had been starting to build a treehouse on a huge old oak down at the creek. After hours of much effort and laughter, we had achieved little and decided to head home.

When we got to the gate, she went left on her bike, and I went right on mine.

I looked back, as I always did, watching her until the trees cut her from sight.

She looked as beautiful as always, giggling her perfect giggle as her chestnut hair billowed behind her.

'Don't get lost'.

The last words she said to me. A private joke that originated from me getting lost in the dark on the way back from her house to mine a few months before.

There must be people out there who can cherish the last words of affection and love their other half left them with, but not me.

Don't get lost.

Useful words I suppose, but they did nothing to ease the crippling pain that strangled my chest.

I'd gone straight to my room when my dad told me they found her.

Even before he said a word, I could tell from his face what it was he would say; there was a deep, sad pity in his eyes.

And even though I knew, I still looked back at him with hope in my eyes, willing him to tell me Katie was ok.

But she wasn't.

I ran upstairs and I cried and cried and cried, hitting the hard concrete wall until my knuckles were swollen red, feverishly tossing my possessions around my room, and then eventually falling into a choking, sobbing heap on the carpet with no more tears left to cry.

After a few hours, there was a knock on the door.

My Dad slowly entered.

'They got him, son. Spotted his car on CCTV. He confessed everything. He's a sick bastard son. A sick, perverse bastard! I need you to be strong for me now'.

He didn’t want to, but I made him tell me everything.

Mr. Gallagher had stopped her on the way home, shortly after we left each other, and offered her a lift. She'd said yes, and then he'd driven her to Goldmore hill. Then he'd strangled her in the car until all life left her, and once he’d done that he threw my Katie's body from the top of the hill down into a bush of marigolds below.

There were other things that happened that my dad said he wouldn't tell me, but my mind filled in what he did not.

Then more tears came. Buckets of them. Dad hugged me close to him, telling me again and again it was going to be ok.

It didn't seem like it would, but with every single part of myself I wanted to believe him.

I hated Mr. Gallagher more than any person or any thing I'd ever known, but I didn't want to be angry. I didn't want to be sad either.

I wanted to be empty; empty so I could fill myself up with memories of her and nothing else.

I promised myself, there and then, as I wept into my father’s chest, that I would never, ever forget a single thing about Katie Collins - and I never will.