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Marissa had let Abigail in the second the doorbell rang, and both of the girls made their way up to her room. The movement was close to involuntary for Abigail, as if it was an automated response they had perfected. Abigail was on the brink of being overly conscious of what she was wearing, her insecurities threatening to emit off of her skin - although the clothes aren’t what warrants that particular emotional response, it’s… everything. They walk down the hallway, turning to Marissa’s room, and the door is shut; a small comfort to the girl, as if Marissa is shutting out everything from the outside world, and telling her don’t worry, only me and you need to exist for now.
This room will always have a special place in Abigail’s heart, from the faint smell of smoke covered by the most atrociously tacky perfume, and the feeling of the unironed bed sheets they sit on, to the way the light could hit the high points of Marissa’s face, whenever she would smile or laugh. This room is where she had gone for refuge after arguments with her father about college, where he had been demanding that she stay closer to home. In hindsight, she considers, that really wasn’t so bad. Abigail would give all she could if the most complicated aspect of the relationship with her paternal figure would switch back to being arguments, it’s just got all too confusing now. This room, she truly believes, is the singular place on earth where she feels she can truly be herself and can remove the mask weighing on her face for every other person.
The thought of Marissa finding out about anything she had done made her feel all consumed by a wave of sadness, and ultimately, of guilt. Marissa will never get caught up in this, if it all goes to plan, she tells herself, as a way to grasp at straws of comfort. She can’t fight the nagging feeling that if anything ever escaped about any of Abigail’s ‘family hunting trips’, Marissa would be struck with shame whenever she ever heard someone mentioning her name, and Abigail can’t bear that.
Abigail has been sure that she was coping with everything as well as she could be - ‘everything’ being the murder, the luring the victims, her father’s murderous instincts being unleashed, and everything that came as a package deal with
- at least, she thought she was. If there was one person who knew the inside and out of Abigail Hobbs, it was undoubtedly her closest friend and confidant across the years of her life, Marissa Schuur. It wasn’t like many people could read the girl, she much preferred to be a passer-by, sticking to the sidelines of life.
Abigail, Marissa asks, what’s wrong?
Abigail is struck with an unbearable longing to confess, to tell her friend everything, and set free the unpleasant truth, but she knows she can’t. Abigail should lie, but she knows that she will be transparent, and her lies will have no effect on Marissa. As a compromise, Abigail settles on telling her a partial truth, enough that she possibly can.
My dad still isn’t pleased with the prospect of me wanting to move for college, she confesses, I think he’s starting to get distant, tenser, and more aggressive. I’m not in danger, but just it’s weighing me down, I just wish my teenage and young adult years had a possibility of being defined by me, and me only.
After expressing this, Abigail stares off into the distance, and Marissa has to tilt her head to get a proper look at the girl’s face. She sees a look of sorrow, and all she wants to do is wrap her arms around her, and consume the constantly deepening void in the pit of her stomach. Abigail was never one for extreme bursts of exuberance, or anything too pronounced, but this Abigail that had been emerging these past few months was… new. She was so still as if she was a hunter waiting to bounce on its prey, but the stillness also projected, if you looked deep enough, and knew where to search, the same essence of the look you find in a deer’s eyes when you go to slam on the brakes to save the innocent creature from death.
When the silence becomes unbearable and tries to blanket the entire room, Marissa does just what she wants. She reaches out to Abigail, turning her torso, and gathers her fragile frame in her arms.
If Abigail could frame a moment forever, it would be this one. She would later be asked questions like this, and her traumatised people say things that were so mundane and too sweet, like the day they went to Disneyworld, and feel the need to suppress a scoff. She cannot see any value in remembering her life without accepting every ugly thing. She can only truly value happiness when it is in the form of something that makes every pain, every second of suffering, feel just. Right now, everything is right, not perfect, or happy, but right.
She feels Marissa’s arms around her and knows that amongst the cruelty and ever-so-present destruction found in her life, there is one light in the tunnel. Abigail thinks she could happily accept any fate thrown at her, if she just held on to keeping this memory alive in her consciousness, just a thought away to run to whenever necessary.