by Dahlia Adler
But then I lost.
To him.
* * *
I didn’t cry when he won. Over the next two years, this reflection would become my rallying cry. My point of strength as I stood before a mirror too distorted to trust and searched for the grit to keep going.
It was a position I faced again and again—losing, that is, to any number of unqualified boys. Although more often than not, I lost to Jonah Prescott, my first and most formidable nemesis. After my failed class-president bid came first-chair viola; I challenged Jonah for the seat per our orchestra’s rules, and we both knew I outplayed him. He was as surprised as I was when he won, not even flinching when I told him to his face that the decision was bullshit. Then I was ranked second on our school’s mock-trial team—this, after I single-handedly led the prosecution in the conviction of a white police officer for the murder of an unarmed black man. Jonah outscored me with a closing argument for the defense in which he invoked the words of MLK in an appeal to disregard evidence of racial bias because to not do so was racial bias. Furious, I filed a complaint with the competition’s governing body, only to be told the decision was made purely on technical merit and was “in no way an endorsement of the ideology presented.”
There was also the junior-class election—I ran for treasurer that time, bowing to lowered expectations and still losing out—and finally, in the greatest of insults, I was chosen as the alternate to our National Honor Society’s annual citizenship award. This one stung because from what I could tell, Jonah was named the winner for no reason other than the fact that he didn’t expect it. Not to mention the citizenship award was a stepping stone I’d hoped to use in my quest to become valedictorian senior year. This was the crowning achievement of Middlefield, and obtaining it was the driving force behind most of my ambition. But for every inch of recognition I sought, victory proved a moving target. Always, I was deemed too loud, too pushy, too intimidating, too something. Anything that could be used to justify doubt so that someone else could reap the benefit. Bottom line: People didn’t like me, and the cruelest twist was that what they didn’t like were the precise qualities that made me worthy of winning.
Still, there had to be a way to reverse my fortune. I wouldn’t be so close to the top if there wasn’t a way to get there. So it was with an open mind that I went straight to the source—Jonah himself.
We began spending time together, Jonah and me, and in a lot of ways he was a standout guy. He was sweet and kind and cute in a blue-eyed corn-fed white boy sort of way. However, he was equally insufferable in that he had no interest in accolades or awards. Even as he won them all! This careless ease was what I craved and longed to emulate. It was the key to his success. I was sure of it. But Jonah was uncrackable. The harder I tried to understand him, the more inexplicable he became. He charmed because he didn’t care not to offend. He stood out because he refused to stand for anything. I told him this in a fit of anger, insisting that his apathy regarding the outcome of his actions was not a sign of character. Or intellect. Far from it.
It only meant he had nothing to lose.
“I think the problem’s that you care too much, sweetheart,” he chided me softly. “All this validation you’re chasing—it’s meaningless. Constructs created to divide us. You need to learn how to play outside the lines. Define your own worth, you know?”
I nodded. Not because I agreed with Jonah, although he was right, in a sense. Accolades and achievements only mattered when society said they did. But they mattered to me because I’d seen the way injustice after injustice had been decided with the wave of a hand, the shrug of a shoulder. Indifference was no better than outright bigotry, and playing outside the lines was something only people who made the lines in the first place ever got to do. The rest of us had to do everything just right, all the time, and so the utter dismissal of things like skill and competence in favor of what was easy, was not only infuriating, it shut real doors. Limited real access. Had real consequences. For people like me.
But I nodded in that moment because Jonah Prescott and I happened to be lying side by side in the school meadow, cooled by the afternoon shade of a weeping willow and serenaded by the coo of the chickadees. His hand was on my bare thigh, his fingers tracing small circles there, filling me with an urgent sort of heat as I rested my head against his chest, absorbing the soft thumping roll of his heartbeat. We’d been there for hours, debating back and forth, and I’d felt myself get angry, tense, as I raged against the unfairness of my world. But somehow, incredibly, that whole time, Jonah’s heartbeat had remained slow, steady, and unperturbed. It was only as his hand began to creep higher and my own crept lower that I felt his pulse finally quicken, spurred from its position of ease and willing tranquility in order to reach between my legs and chase the one thing he clearly cared very, very deeply for.
* * *
I didn’t cry when I killed him. We were seniors by then and I didn’t love him or anything, so you should know it wasn’t a matter of the heart. This was no crime of passion or malice of a spurned lover. It was an act of reason. A motive of pure gain.
You see, my goal all along was to be named class valedictorian. And for good reason. Two years prior, while preparing for my sophomore class president bid, I’d run a statistical analysis of the available data and learned that Middlefield valedictorians obtained success in their chosen career at rates far higher than the rest of the alumni population—even when compared to the top 10 percent of their graduating class.
Well, that commanded my interest. Numbers don’t lie, and what those numbers told me was that the title of valedictorian—not salutatorian or any other honor—was uniquely predictive of future greatness. Success I wanted. Success I deserved. It was an achievement correlated with future Nobel prize–winning research, a Supreme Court justice appointment, even Academy Award–winning filmmaking, among other notable distinctions. My point is that this was an honor that mattered.
Tangibly.
Now maybe it would seem that actually earning an honor isn’t as important if you’re willing to kill for it. But for me, both had to be true. I had to be the best in addition to becoming it, and so I fought for that title. All year, my grades were impeccable. My leadership skills, my service, my music, my athletic pursuits—I excelled at everything I put my heart into. Jonah did, too, of course, and there were times I longed to tell him to slow down. To screw up. To get messy or say something offensive so that blue-eyed corn-fed charm would tarnish. Just a little. Just enough so that I wouldn’t have to go through with my plan. After all, he wasn’t going to college. Not right away, at least. He wanted to travel. Find himself. Play outside the lines and do shit like fly to Tibet and rub shoulders with monks. Or write the next great novel. Or walk down Fifth Avenue with a loaded gun—whatever it was that rich white boys did when they knew they could do anything and get away with it.
The thing was, Jonah didn’t screw up. My grades were equal to his, but valedictorian selection would come down to faculty nominations and I knew I would fall short. I always had.
This sealed my decision, although it wasn’t until March that I acted. I should’ve moved sooner, but I gave him every chance to fail. Right up until the last minute, which is how you know this was not an impulsive act. This was a murder as premeditated and deliberate as the scientific method itself. Trust me when I say there was no emotion involved. I merely followed the steps and executed my plan. It went like this:
The senior boys’ dorm was located right next to my own. This was a supposed “benefit” of our maturity: nightly proximity to one’s classmates, regardless of gender. While we never officially dated—he insisted on not using labels and I was only too eager to agree—Jonah and I spent many nights together. My room was easy enough to sneak out of and so was his. Our usual hookup spot was in the school theater, but now that the weather was warm, I begged him to meet me down at the boathouse after midnight. I loved the night air, I said. The sound of crickets chirping and the lapping wash o
f the river.
Jonah agreed, and for three nights we met like that. I’d hidden a tarp, blankets, and other items under a pile of life vests, and I’d be lying if I said there was no passion between us. No spark of lust in the danger and the darkness. We spread the blankets out, tore off our clothes, and the rest was instinct. After, Jonah would sleep, while I had never felt more awake. I sat beside him, my eyes wide, my mind ablaze, as he snored gently, a mortal metronome ticking off the finite seconds of our lives.
Wednesday was the night I did it. It wasn’t easy. The conditioned pull of my gender was strong, a fervent, sentimental whisper that urged me to accept love as the greater good, the higher calling, but I resisted. Turning toward the light was folly when you lived among shadows. Like all women, I’d been raised on faith and goodwill and the belief that having a man was better than having it all. But I saw those lies for what they were—worthless currency in a world that rewarded callousness and mistrust. Action, ambition: these were the qualities that would define my future. Not dreams or feelings.
Definitely not love.
Like Monday, like Tuesday, we had sex right there on the floorboards with the sound of the current rushing beneath our joined bodies, an urgent swiftness that told me to go go go to take what was mine. Later, I softened in the afterglow, lying naked with Jonah and listening to the slow, soothing rhythm of his heart while my own rattled around like a high hat working double time.
But there was no moment to waste. This was the eve of my eighteenth birthday and thus my last best chance. When I was sure he’d drifted off, I pulled away from Jonah, crawling across splintered planks to the edge of the dock where the sculls sloshed and bounced in the frigid water. Starlight snuck through the rafters, lighting my way like a well-kept secret. I held my breath and plunged my hand in, reaching for the knife I’d hidden in a plastic bag beneath the surface of the water, taped to the bottom of a boat. The cold shocked me, but my only hesitation came when I felt the pull of Jonah’s heartbeat from across the boathouse—that easy hypnotic lull.
That dream of something more.
Arm dripping, knife in hand, I crawled back to where he lay. Stared down at his restful face. There was no tension there. No worry. Only the gentle peace that comes from knowing that for you, the dawn will always come. I closed my eyes. Let myself swim in the warm promise of his heartbeat.
Put it down, it said.
Be with me, sweetheart.
Forever.
My eyes flew open. I gritted my teeth and struck. Hesitation gone, I brought the knife down into his chest with the combined force of gravity, my weight, and my conviction. With a whistle and thwack, the blade pierced flesh and bone to land in the center of his beating, sleeping heart.
The rest was agony. He screamed. Fought me. I threw myself on top of him, muffling his cries while burying the knife deeper, twisting it through his organs and striving for damage. Blood flowed, my hands growing slick, wet, hot. It was everywhere—what had been inside him—and I lost it for a second recalling that moments earlier he’d been inside of me and what the holy hell was I doing? Madness loomed, a swirling menace, but it was over after that. I was still on top of him, my naked form sprawled across his, one arm shoved into his mouth, but he’d stopped moving, stopped fighting me, and when I sat up, gazed down at his face, no longer peaceful but most definitely at rest, I knew that was it. He was gone.
Revulsion swelled up in me, unbidden. Unwanted. But I’d planned for this. There was no thinking required from here on out. I’d rehearsed the following steps so many times, my body went through the motions with minimal effort. I rolled Jonah up in the tarp we’d lain on, knotted it tight with cord, and dragged his body into one of the boats, a canoe. Here I clipped weights to the cords, then unhooked the canoe from the dock. Using a paddle to push off, I ducked low to clear the boathouse door as we drifted toward the center of the river.
My plan was to drop the body at the deepest point and, while I waited, I lay atop Jonah again, pressing my cheek to his chest. He was dead, I knew this, yet through the crinkled tarp I still heard the lazy, lulling rhythm of his heart. It was impossible, but impossible was what I needed in that moment. It eased the maelstrom of panic over what I’d done and what remained ahead.
The boat slipped through darkness to bob in the current. When enough time had passed, I popped my head up and looked around. The whole world was silent—in awe, perhaps, at the shrewd nature of my actions. The boat drifted to a stop, and with no fanfare I dumped him into the water. The splash was gentle, forgettable, and I leaned over the side, eager to watch him vanish into the depths, but saw nothing.
After paddling back to the boathouse, I scrubbed the canoe clean with bleach. Same with the floorboards, my hands, my skin. When I was finished, I dressed myself and took the knife, his clothes, the bleach, and buried it all deep in the woods. Then I made my way back to the school, slipping through my dorm-room window under the stealth of night and sliding into bed like a goddamn winner.
My victory, after all, was now a foregone conclusion.
* * *
I didn’t cry when the cops showed up at Middlefield two days later and said they wanted to talk to me. I was eighteen now and I could say yes, even without my parents’ permission. This was a point I’d debated in my mind: agreeing to their demands or claiming I needed protection. I was sure the school administration would step in on my behalf if asked. But what would be the point? They’d never taken my side before and besides, I had nothing to fear.
“I’ll do anything I can to be of help,” I said when we were alone. The two cops investigating Jonah’s disappearance had asked me to follow them down to the riverbank and away from the school so we could speak more freely. They knew I was his girlfriend, they told me, and they’d heard our relationship was trouble free. I nodded, surprised our classmates had assumed so much when they knew so little. But I remained unfazed. Of course, I replied. I loved Jonah dearly, and he loved me back. Speaking these words out loud eased my guilt in a way I found pleasing. Lies felt a little like truth when other people believed them, and maybe that meant one day I would believe them, too.
Then the cops told me things I didn’t know. That Jonah had been seen by the boathouse Wednesday night. That someone had heard a scream. These facts did not please me, but I knew how to respond in a sensible way. My alibi was easy and my distress well-rehearsed. I only doubted these cops would see anything honorable in me. After all, I’d been misjudged my entire life. There was no reason to assume this would stop in the face of my proclaimed innocence. In fact, reason could only conclude it would not.
But I was unshakeable. Every question they asked, I gave a more than adequate answer. My performance, in short, was flawless, and to my surprise, the cops believed me. It was surreal. Euphoric, even, and empowering, too. Deceit, it seemed, was the true path toward being taken seriously, and I soon grew dizzy with my own bravado, my ability to misdirect, cast doubt, and—for the first time ever—charm. This, this, was what victory felt like.
Entitlement.
The only problem was that I couldn’t stop talking. The more I rambled on with my perfect excuses and perfect composure, the less sure I sounded. It was as if now that people were finally listening, my mouth couldn’t stop speaking a truth that wasn’t true. My stomach knotted. My palms went damp with dread. Hell, I’d killed Jonah, hadn’t I? Next month I’d be named valedictorian, but I hadn’t earned my entitlement; I’d simply taken what I’d believed to be mine. It was awful, really. Treacherous. I’d become everything I hated and had fought against. Standing in that meadow, the river in full view, I felt panic bubbling up from my gut, a froth of confession pushed forth by my guilt, my terrible, terrible guilt.
The female officer thanked me for my time, reaching out to pat my shoulder and offering her hope that my boyfriend might return. This was the moment. I had to tell her! The words I did it, I killed him, I killed Jonah Prescott! hammered at the back of my throat. But then I heard something
, faint at first, but unmistakable. It was Jonah’s heartbeat—that slow, soothing lub-dub pulse. The sound was clear as day—I’d know that rhythm anywhere—echoing up from the river. Startled, I bit my tongue and listened closer. How could this be? Jonah was dead, sunk and lost to the fathoms. And yet …
“Are you okay?” the officer asked. Her eyes narrowed as my lips parted once more to shout my guilt, admit my evil, only to be interrupted again by the steady throb of Jonah’s murdered heart. No one else seemed to hear it, but in my ears, the sound rang out, growing louder and louder still. Every time I went to speak it stopped me, snapped my jaw shut, until nothing I could say would drown it out. I squealed in fury, clapped my hands over my ears. How dare he!
The cops stared, aghast at my theatrics, but then it came to me. Jonah wasn’t trying to drive me insane. My guilt was my own. I could deny it just as easily as I’d denied any romantic impulse or sense of tenderness toward him. Just as easily as I could deny my spite at his constant interruption and keep my eye on the goddamn prize. Killing him had been no act of emotion—it was one of pure cunning and exquisite design—and what Jonah wanted, I realized, wasn’t a confession or some wild descent into madness. No, his hideous heart simply wanted what every man wanted from the brash, pushy, outspoken women in their lives. For me to shut the hell up.
