The Last One to See Him Alive

Chapter 1

Months later...

The police officer had put a glass of water in front of me, it was the nicest thing they had done since they found me on the beach with my clothes completely wet and stuck to my body. However, after running away from them for so long, I knew it wasn't an act of kindness, so even though I still had the salty taste of the sea in my throat, I refused to drink from the glass of water on the table that separated us. Detective Aberman kept looking at me suspiciously as if he could find answers to my lack of expression, while I just wanted to hold on to the blanket the rescuers had given me so I wouldn't freeze. Nobody really cared about me, because, for everyone, I was the main suspect.

"So you don't remember exactly why you went to that place?" the man asked me incredulously and I nodded reluctantly.

I had hit my head on rocks when I fell into the water, and had justified my forgetfulness with that incident. Although that wasn't what really happened, because I'd had to make it up quickly when I heard the police sirens too close.

"We have three witnesses who say they heard a shot," he told me, "what do you know about it?"

"I do not remember."

"Some of them saw a boat," he assured me.

" I don't know."

"What do you remember then?" asked the grumpy police officer.

I remained silent because I still hadn't decided how much I could say. I was sure that the best thing to do was wait for my lawyer. I was hoping that my aunt could help me in some way, even though I had broken my promise to stay out of trouble. It's not that I haven't tried, because from the first moment I tried to keep a low profile so as not to attract trouble. My entire plan had gone according to plan, if it weren't for the fact that he had insisted on being a part of my life.

"Why don't we start at the beginning? How did you guys meet?" the police officer asked, hoping to get some answers. At that moment, I began to remember the day we exchanged words for the first time, and for a moment I felt the warmth of the sun coming through the window, and I remembered that the night before that day I had moved the curtains, and forgot to put them in their place before going to sleep. But at least it helped me wake up on time, because the alarm on my phone died on the battery. So when I saw the time on the wall clock, I hurried to change my clothes and wash my face. My mother would not like this new habit that I had acquired, she always forced me to take a bath in the morning to maintain a good habit of cleanliness. I had tried many times to maintain it, until I started working, and the extra time to sleep became sacred.

At that time, I had been working in a souvenir shop on the pier of the main county town, for at least two months. Mags had talked to some friends, and they gave me the position because I was her niece. Family relations finally paid off into something good. My only problem is that the people were too friendly and cheerful, probably because they grew up in a beach town, or that was the only nonsensical reason I could think of. At first, I wasn't used to seeing everyone walking around with their surfboards, most of the guys my age had tanned skin from going to the beach so much, while I hid from the sun so my skin did not darken as much. I always tried to keep conversations short, I was as professional as possible or at least I imitated what Laurie did, the girl who worked with me at the time.

However, that day there would be a change in my life and every time I would think of my time in that place, I would always recall the scene in detail as if it were from a movie. The first thing I would remember was the sound of the bells at the door, that way you would know that a new customer had entered the store. At the time I was tidying up the cash register area, there were products stacked around behind the desk, in a place where customers wouldn't notice the mess. I didn't worry that someone might rob me, since I considered it a very safe place. So, when I separated some things to organize, I got up, at that moment I saw the blond boy walking from side to side and looking at the key rings and the fridge magnets.

The store had many souvenirs from the beach town with names, obviously they had the most common names in different forms. At first I found it quite interesting, until I saw my name on a dog tag. Anyway, the boy kept looking and I was surprised that he couldn't find his name. After all, I always thought that white boys had the same names. When he gave up, I saw him turn to address me, and at that moment I noticed the way he moved his hands and I knew he was nervous, although I didn't know why exactly. I tried to show little interest in him, but something in the aura that surrounded him kept me aware of his presence. Little did I know that this would be one of the moments that I would remember the most and repeat in my head over and over again. That was the moment our story began. He stopped in front of me and made some noises in his throat to get my attention, because I had started typing meaningless things on the computer. I wanted to look busy so he wouldn't bother me. Of course, that wouldn't help me, since only I was there and my coworker was in the alley outside on her short break.

"Excuse me, I wonder if..." I gave him a short look, and let him speak, although he didn't seem very sure about what he was going to say, and he was intimidated because I gave him a simple sidelong glance, "I'm looking for a souvenir with my name and I can't find it, I've seen it before but it's gone today... I guess we're more than I thought —he explained his situation and laughed nervously, so I had to turn around to be able to give him my attention and act like a good worker.

"What's the name you're looking for?"

"Owen, my name is Owen," he said, as if he were introducing himself and not as if he was looking for what he was saying, even placing a hand on his chest to make it more obvious.

"What kind of souvenir are you looking for?"

"I don't have a preference, I just want it to have my name."

I nodded to what he said and let him know that I was going to look in the boxes behind me. I wasn't sure if I had seen the name because I never paid attention. It always happens to me when you should read a great book but you don't want to, and you give it a quick glance, skipping parts of little interest, that's what I always did at work. Then I turned around and started looking in those boxes while I felt how he was watching me, I can't guarantee that he ever looked away, but I felt as if he had never done it. So, I found a fake license plate with Owen's name and the city. That's the one he agreed to buy without paying much attention to the details.

"Your hair is very pretty," he told me as he worked the register to give him his change, and I looked back to study his expression. I had already gotten used to people complimenting me out of the blue, and in the kindest and most unexpected way, I guess that was the Californian culture or that's what I wanted to think.

"Thank you, nice shirt," I replied without even looking at the shirt, it was just something I used to say in response unless the person giving me the compliment was wearing a dress. He realized this because he didn't seem pleased, instead he seemed to wonder what he had done wrong.

"Do you want your receipt?"

"Yes, Rossy is your name?" —He answered, and then asked a question, pointing to the tag on my shirt.

"Yeah."

"How long have you lived in this place?"

"I don't live here," I responded immediately, waiting for his receipt to print.

"Me neither, I live in Aptos."

"That's good," I commented with little interest.

"Do you like surfing?"

"I've never tried," I said, and hastened to hand him the newly printed receipt along with a small bag of her purchase. "Have a nice day," I said goodbye and he looked at me embarrassed, you could tell he wanted to say more, but he hadn't had enough time and I didn't want him to have more time.

"Thanks, you too."

I saw him walk out with his head down and a little sad, then through the window I saw him join his small group of friends who were waiting to ask him how it went with me, the answer he gave them seemed discouraging, but they probably told him there would be a Next time. No one turned to look at me because they probably knew I was watching them and they didn't want to be exposed, or that's what I wanted to think.

"I think she likes you," Laurie told me suddenly. I hadn't even noticed the moment she had walked in through the back door, and that's why I got scared when I heard her voice. "Don't worry, I'm not some kind of serial killer or whatever you thought," she added jokingly and began to organize some boxes to renew merchandise.

"I just didn't hear you come in," I commented.

"Of course not, because you were looking closely at that boy's eyes, he has quite an impressive color and his whole surfer-boy aura is quite attention-grabbing. You should go out with him and have fun. You're too young to be cooped up here every day. What do you do after work or on the weekends? Do you have time to go out and have fun or should I cover for you once in a while?" She asked me with a smile and I realized that she meant it. I could tell that she meant well and only wished that I could live my youth.

"I bet you tell me all this from experience, were you a party girl in your college years?"

"I wouldn't call it that, I just went out with friends and enjoyed time with them. This is a place where you can live a quiet life while getting lost in the waves of the sea... So let me know when you want to take a breath."

When I had done the interview for that place, they had asked me many things. I had told them that my parents traveled a lot for work and I had never been able to stay in one place. And so I had to drop out of school for a while and now I was studying to pass the exam, which could help me avoid high school. She had also been there at the interview, and she was very touched by my tenacity as she herself had said. I just said all that to look good and show the facade of a studious girl and not like a problematic girl, they had believed everything and they kept offering me help, and asking me if I needed a few days to study. Mags had taken it upon himself to find a tutor for me so he went to the library almost every day to meet a guy who was in his senior year at college. I wasn't sure how she had found him, I could only attribute to her that he had been a very good choice.

"I'm going to take out the trash," I told my coworker and she looked at me strangely because she had already taken care of it, however there was a bag in the administrative area that I had forgotten to put outside.

So I went out to the small alley outside and took a deep breath, the smell of the sea that entered through my nose certainly felt good, it made me believe that I was part of a strange and fantastic world. It's not like it was completely untrue, because that place seemed to me that it belonged to a different world. With that in mind I went back and continued with my working hours, until the end of the day came and Laurie gave me a ride to the bus station, because she lived in the opposite direction from me. We shared the morning shift from time to time, but sometimes the boss's daughter worked with us to learn to be independent, or so her father said. Anyway, on my bus trips I liked to listen to all kinds of podcasts or sometimes I tried to learn a language, that's why I knew words from everywhere, but I never finished learning everything. That was my boring and quiet life, sometimes I would go straight to the library to study and other times I would go straight home without attracting anyone's attention. But, on Wednesday mornings I would go out early for a walk, it was one of the few days that I worked in the afternoon or not at all. So that day I came to the neighborhood and went to see the sunset before going home.

To watch the sunset, I liked to go to the top of the mountain, or to the cliff that overlooked the sea not far from my house. My aunt used to say that she really liked sports, since she did not hesitate to walk all that way to the top as if it was nothing to me. She didn't know that she was wrong on all counts because I never liked to exercise, but I had my reasons for contemplating the beauty of the sky. So before losing the sunlight, I walked for almost an hour. I did it at a slow pace that didn't cause me much trouble or fatigue. The road was lonely at that time of day, although from time to time I saw cars going to the parking lot of the natural park or to the few houses that were there.

When I finally got to my destination, I calculated how many people could be there from the parked cars. After that I entered the lush forest and followed the paths that led me to the river, the sounds of the wind, the birds and the moving leaves accompanied me until I found myself at the top and carefully observed how the sky was dyed orange. . I had to walk down in the dark to return home, illuminated by moonlight and some houses around.

After remembering all that, I just told the police the truth. I told them that I had met him because he was a regular customer at the gift shop, so they kept asking questions and I told them everything that happened afterwards.