I’m going to deny it.
The person who I want to escape from is the same person who I know did it.
You know, I wasn’t surprised that he pinned it on me; I knew he was too much of a coward to own up to it.
He was never very mature; in the eight years I’ve known him, he never took any accountability for his actions. He was that one obnoxious kid who always got everyone else in trouble, yet never got in trouble themself. He was the tattletale, the snitch, the evasive one.
Yet I stayed by his side. I was his mother and his sister and his best friend but the most I got in return was a nod of acknowledgment at school.
When the officer came to my house a couple of nights ago, when I saw his eyes sagging, his wrinkles creasing, his fingers trembling and tapping against the doorframe, I knew something was wrong.
But I wouldn’t let myself believe it.
When he told me that I was being charged with murder the next day, I may have acted surprised on impulse, but I didn’t feel surprised. Just disappointed.
When he listed out my charges, my breath hitched. Not because I was afraid of being caught- but because I was afraid that my desire that he wouldn’t betray me would overpower my rationality. I was that terrified one day, I wouldn’t have a voice telling me to not trust him, to snitch on him.
I had every right to be afraid because I didn’t snitch on him. I didn’t immediately deny it. Even if they didn’t have any proof it was him, even if I didn’t have any proof it was him, I should have said something. I should have begged them to interrogate him instead.
But instead, I took the fall for him.
I tripped on nothing, crashed against the concrete and scraped my knees for him.
Taking the fall meant that he stayed out of trouble, which meant that he wouldn’t have anything to take out on me.
I know I couldn’t do something like that, and he knew it, but the police officer didn’t. The police officer thought that I could have done something that would make my morals shudder and my stomach twist itself inside out, and thinking about that filled me with horror.
Someone thought I actually killed someone.
I had thought about whether I could go to jail for something that I didn’t do. But I hadn’t thought about the fact that someone thought I was capable of that.
My craving to be taken seriously that had desperately tugged at my heartstrings and felt stronger than his craving to keep himself out of trouble, had gone so far that when I heard that they were blaming me, I thought; finally, I’ll be treated the same as a man would. I thought; maybe in jail, I’ll finally be free from him.
I didn’t think; they’re going to see me as a murderer. A psychopath. A monster.