The Creeping

The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy



For Joe


Chapter One


I’m the lucky one; or at least that’s what they say. I’m here to squint up at Independence Day fireworks under an orange-hued moon; to fidget in the violet organza of my junior prom dress; to toast under the midwestern sun while sipping peach fizzies lakeside. But sometimes the luck is harder to see.

I was relieved when Jeanie’s parents moved to the opposite side of town; when they stopped going out in public. Finally, their sideways glances, forever sizing me up, would stop. Naturally, they wondered why I’d been spared and Jeanie hadn’t. Was I growing up to be something special? Was I worth it? By the way their faces always pinched together—mouths pursed, brows touching, eyes narrowed into slits—it was obvious they found me lacking. But who wouldn’t be?

Remember that when you judge me too quickly. Remember that I’m a product of something scary and mysterious. People who didn’t even know Jeanie won’t stop talking about it. I lived it. How else could I have turned out? There’s a burden to being the one left behind, even though I don’t remember a pinch of it. A weight always pressing down on me, like Jeanie’s lifeless body is forever hitching a piggyback, steering me with her sticky hands coiled in my hair. I can’t escape her, and I resent it.

Because if I’m being honest, Jeanie probably would have grown up to be nothing more than average. She was chunky at six, her fleshy cheeks nearly swallowing up her pinprick eyes. While all the other kindergarteners were learning to read, she couldn’t write her own name. She was the alto with a lisp in a pack of singsongy chirping little girls. I know you shouldn’t say nasty things about the dead, but since she never had the chance to become something, it’s unfair that everyone assumes that if she had, it would have been bright and shiny. At six Jeanie was one of those dull pennies forgotten on the sidewalk that everyone steps over but no one stoops to pick up; she wouldn’t have been a diamond at seventeen.

Even still, if I could remember her at all, I’m sure I would miss her. I’m told I loved her.

But since I don’t remember her, and everything I know about her is because of what others say, the best I can do is gratitude. Jeanie’s a ghost I owe my life to. After all, if I’d been alone that day, it could have been me who was taken. Jeanie is why I’m here, resting on the banks of Prior Lake, watching my three best friends propel their bikini-clad bodies from a rope swing, practically buzzing with giddiness over the promise of a whole two months with no school.

“So let me get this straight,” Cole squeals with delight over the scent of gossip. “You don’t remember one single freaking thing about that day? Zip. Zero. Nada. Nothing?” She tilts her head and gawks at me incredulously from where she stands toeing the water. Michaela and Zoey continue hiking up the rocky bank. They’ve spent the afternoon scrambling to the top of a large boulder to swing through the air shrieking as they drop into the crystalline lake from a fraying rope. Besides, they’ve heard this story a million times. Every parent in Savage has whispered it as a warning to their kids, voices hushed and foreboding. Every kid rolls their eyes like it could never happen to them.

“Seriously. I don’t remember a thing,” I repeat for the third time, forcing a smile. Cole’s only been in Savage for four weeks, and she’s a breath of fresh air with her diamond nose stud, ex-hippie parents who smoke pot on the weekends, and the breathy enthusiasm she says everything with—like the world’s a dazzling present laid at her feet. I’ve been chipping my coral-colored nail polish off during Cole’s third degree, and I brush the shards from my lap. I look dejectedly at the frumpy lavender swimsuit I’m wearing. I couldn’t find my new white halter, and I hope Taylor and his boys don’t pick today to surprise us.