Dead Girls Make The Best Friends

There was nothing inside of her. Her therapist had once asked Maryanne to describe her inner self. She told him she felt like a cup with a crack in it. No matter what you poured in, it didn't last. All the joy, all the pride, all the anger, and the sadness leaked out. It wasn't that she felt depressed; it was that she couldn't. She had no laugh to give or tears to shed. 

She had been married to a man with an easy smile. They'd met in a pre-college program put on for low-income families. There, on the cusp of her adult life, Maryanne felt something for the first time. She'd been on her way to class, a single short text on her phone. 

I love you. 

That had been the first time anyone besides her family had said that to her. She'd marry him just a few years later, and he became the light in her life. They even had a kid together. But time ruins everything, and his kisses became shorter, his hugs fewer. Then, it was like living with a stranger. Before long, that light leaked out like everything else. 

Then she found the corpse. 

If you ask for help about feeling low, when the blue days never stop, there is always that one guy shouting about how the gym will save you. "Just Lift," repeated like an infernal chant. Maryanne didn't lift, she ran. Every morning at seven am, six days a week. She was dedicated to it. Her body took over her mind when she ran; all those dark thoughts pushed out by the movement of her legs—that anaerobic focus. 

She saw the bloody rock first. Then, the shoes that poked out of a brush pile. They were bright pink. Maryanne moved aside the torn-up branches and leaves to uncover the girl underneath. Her shirt had been torn to shreds. The left side of her head was smashed in. A black wound cut deep into her forehead. A flap of skin with part of her nose hung over like an elephant's ear. She knew she should run, call the police, get help, but she didn't. 

There was a twisting in her chest. A strange feeling overwhelmed her when she looked at the dead girl. Something called to her, a pull more intense than anything she had felt before. She followed it the way migratory birds follow the call home. Maryanne knelt and slowly placed her hand on the soft skin of the dead girl's exposed stomach.

The feeling of overwhelming connection was instant. 

A strange kinship made her smile, and a warmth spread through her. Completed the puzzle of her heart like a long missing piece. The dead girl was empty like her. Maryanne trembled and sank lower to rest her head just above the corpse's navel. 

Words spilled out of her lips like water from a crack in a dam. Things she had never dared say out loud. She told the dead girl how she fantasized about her boss at work, a loud and friendly guy who was always moving around with a restless energy. She wanted to remove his legs and arms at the hips and shoulders, then watch him inchworm his away through her yard. He would look so cute struggling in the dirt. 

Maryanne confided in the body that she daydreamed about how she would die. Often, when driving, she would imagine how her own body would look if run over by the large trucks on the road. Would it be torn apart, or would she get wrapped up on the wheel itself? Bent and twisted like that, how long would she be conscious? These thoughts brought her comfort on the bad days.

She stayed with the dead girl for hours, well into the afternoon. This trail was far out on the edge of a state park; one of the reasons she loved to come here was how few times she'd seen other runners. When she couldn't put off leaving any longer, Maryanne covered the body in the brush again, made sure to tuck in the shoes, and promised to be back in the morning. 

The rest of that day, she walked with a spring in her step. A weight had been lifted, and for the first time since her husband left, she felt light peak through the clouds of her mind. The next day, she raced down the trail only to stop dead at the sight of yellow police tape. The body was gone. The whole area around was blocked off. 

She broke down. To have that connection snapped as suddenly as she'd felt it was too jarring. She was alone again, dead and empty, but forced to keep smiling, keep hiding it, keep pretending. Her eyes, blurry from tears, settled on a fat rock. It made her think of the bloody stone next to the body. 

She asked herself, "How hard would it be to swing one that size?" Maryanne picked up the rock and tested its weight. 

She might be alone now, but that didn't mean she couldn't make a new friend.