Melanie Fields drove down her street with an enormous smile plastered on her face and the wind blowing through her wavy hair. The first reason for her happiness was that she had finally bough her silver BMW convertible, which she had spent all of her seventeen years saving up to purchase. The second reason was that she and her best friend, Kayleigh Smith, were going to the new ice cream shop, Collin’s Ice Cream, which was located down the street from Kayleigh’s house. Even though it had opened up two months before, it was still packed every weekend with crazy high school seniors.
Easing down on the brake, Melanie stopped her car in front of Kayleigh’s 1960’s ranch-style abode. Kayleigh did not appreciate the authenticity of the beautiful one-level house, but Melanie loved how it was the only home in Beverly Hills that was not a multi-million dollar movie star mansion. Because it was the end of May, all of the ice cream shops were open for business, so Kayleigh invited Melanie over to get ice cream. As soon as Melanie turned off the engine, Kayleigh opened up her navy blue front door and sprinted over to Melanie’s brand new car, long blonde hair swaying behind her.
“Oh my god, it’s beautiful!” Kayleigh gushed, referring to Melanie’s car.
“Definitely!” replied Melanie as she got out of the car. “But your mom has to drive us because I can’t afford a dent in it.”
Kayleigh’s mom then appeared behind the girls and chimed in, “Let’s get a move on girls. Who wants ice cream?”
“Me!” both of the girls cried in unison as they hopped into Mrs. Smith’s neon yellow SUV and drove off to Collin’s.
When they got there, it was extremely crowded for seven thirty at night, so Mrs. Smith had to drop off the girls out front.
“Kayleigh, can you please order for me? I need to park around the back.” Mrs. Smith sighed.
“Sure Mom, do you want your usual?” asked Kayleigh.
“Yes, please, with rainbow sprinkles on top. Now hurry up and get a table before they’re all gone.”
Melanie and Kayleigh dashed out of the car, while Mrs. Smith circled around the building to find an empty parking space.
  Once they were inside, Melanie grabbed the first booth she saw that didn’t have sprinkles or napkins smothered on it, and delicately put her Coach purse and Hollister sweater down while Kayleigh waited anxiously in line. Melanie looked around to see if she knew anyone, but the only familiar faces belonged to the four people that could drop dead and Melanie wouldn’t care a bit. Ryan Newman, who had olive-toned skin, ominous black hair and muddy brown eyes that captured your attention, was wearing an old Beatles concert t-shirt. He was also Melanie’s ex-boyfriend. His friends, the “Clueless Clones” as Kayleigh called them, Jason McIntire and Cameron Fox, were slumped beside him, deeply absorbed in a L.A. Dodgers vs. Red Sox baseball game. They looked like Ryan and followed him everywhere. The last person sitting in the booth with them was Cara Brown, Ryan’s current girlfriend and Melanie’s enemy.
All of a sudden, there was an icy hand on Melanie’s bare shoulder, and she jumped as chills slid down her spine.
“Relax, it’s just me,” replied a soothing voice.
Kayleigh, Melanie thought, as she turned around and became face to face with a Moose Tracks ice cream waffle cone with chocolate sprinkles and fudge on the top.
“Sit down and enjoy your ice cream. Don’t worry, I paid for it. You just bought a car, so you need something for free right now,” commanded Kayleigh, who was licking her already-melting orange sherbet cone.
“Thanks. You’re the best.”
The girls started eating and gossiping about the end of the year exams and the fashion mishaps at school that day, when Mrs. Smith came back.
“Sorry, but when we leave, we’ll have walk around back to the dumpsters.”   “Its fine, Mrs. Smith. I’ll need to walk off this jumbo-sized wad of ice cream floating around in my belly,” giggled Melanie.
Just then, a peculiar man dressed all in midnight black entered the store. He was wearing a black fedora and a pair of shaded sunglasses that still had the price tag on them. The atmosphere of the ice cream shop turned deadly silent as the man, whose name, according to the identification tag pinned on his coat, was Jeremy Monroe, slid into the booth two away from Melanie and Kayleigh’s and opened up a white Mac laptop with BHH purple stickers plastered on it. Everyone in the shop turned their eyes toward him trying to determine where they knew this man from as he started fervently typing on the keyboard.
Cara Brown, who was sitting with Ryan, got up and leisurely walked to the bathroom, fingertips swaying along the edge of her denim miniskirt, and long, dark brown hair blowing by her like she was in a commercial. Her flawless skin and tight scarlet blouse made her look like a supermodel under the lights and attracted everyone’s eyes to the gleaming hint of gold on her ring finger. Since Cara’s fire engine-red Prada sandals were echoing in the silence, other people decided to get back to their interrupted conversations like Cara was in control of when they could and couldn’t speak.
“Okay, that girl is more full of herself then Ryan,” Melanie mumbled so that only Kayleigh could hear.
“I know! She walks around like she’s the Queen of Beverly Hills High or something, which she is so not!” agreed Kayleigh, with her tone rising.
The two girls lowered their heads and tried to stifle their laughs, but it over-powered them. Soon, they were bubbling over in hysterics, not remembering what they were laughing about in the first place.
Once they stopped, Melanie stood up and said “I have to go to the bathroom. Don’t say anything funny about Cara while I’m gone!” with a smile on her face. Then, she dashed across the checkerboard tile floor to the bathroom and burst through the cream colored door with the sign that said Ladies. 

Justin Collins, a senior whose father owned Collin’s Ice Cream and wore a purple BHH wristband, was on trash duty that night, and if there were a National Complaining Contest, Justin would go home with the golden trophy. Justin was complaining more than usual because he had a lot on his mind. He had just seen a beautiful girl in the store, whom he really liked, but hadn’t gotten the nerve to ask her to the senior prom. 
“When I see her again, I’ll ask her.” he muttered to himself under his breath as he started tying the trash bags closed and labeled them with his crimson colored sharpie.
“Whaddid, you say son?” his father asked.
“Um... Nothing. Never mind.” murmured Justin.
“Well, seeing that you’re almost done that, why don’t you get the trash from the bathrooms while your on you way to the dumpster?” added Mr. Collins.
“But-”
“Buts are for sitting. Now, get to work.” Mr. Collins ordered in a stern voice as he tossed three empty black trash bags at his son.
“Fine.” grumbled Justin as he shuffled to the men’s bathroom with the trash bags.

“Hey dude, isn’t that Mel’s friend, Kayleigh?” Jason asked his friend with a mouthful of strawberry yogurt.
“Yeah, so? I don’t care if Mel’s here or not. I don’t like her anymore, so drop it,” Ryan hissed at his friend as he shoved his almost empty paper bowl of chocolate ice cream in Jason’s face and laughed.
“Right, right, and I am secretly Ryan Gosling,” Jason shot back, knowing that any mention of Melanie was a tender spot for Ryan, who still was not over their break up.
Ryan took off his purple lacrosse wristband and slingshotted it at Jason’s chocolate-covered face to get him to stop talking about Melanie.
A little while later, Ryan and the “Clueless Clones” left the ice cream shop with their faces looking like messed up ice cream sundaes with cherries on the top and went out back to their musty brown pickup trucks.

Kayleigh Smith was not a patient girl, anyone who knew her could say that, and since Melanie had gone to the bathroom almost ten minutes ago, she was jiggling around in the maroon booth, waiting for her best friend to return so they could go home and watch reruns of Gossip Girl. Kayleigh started tapping her fingers to whichever song was number one on Top 40 Countdown that day and groaned impatiently for the fifth time.
“Okay, how long does it take for someone to go to the bathroom?” she asked herself because her mom had gone around back for the car. Since no one was there to answer her, she whipped out her black LG Voyager and stabbed the keyboard like she was doing history essay on the computer. She pressed “1” and got a beeping sound like it was already in use. Where r u? She typed and scrolled down her contacts list to Melanie’s name.
After a few minutes of waiting, Kayleigh gave up. She checked the time on her J. Crew wristwatch and it read eight fourteen. Now, her patience was about up, so she furiously stomped over to the ladies’ bathroom. As she opened the door, she tripped and fell into Cara, whose face showed signs of horror and had lines of bright red blood trickling down her pale cheeks. Her normally-piercing green eyes seemed glassy as they looked past Kayleigh and seemed to say Don’t go in there, but Kayleigh just got up off the grimy floor and cautiously walked past her.
  When she entered the bathroom, the first thing she noticed was a message on the mirror. In what looked like mascara or eyeliner, the words, “Get out before you’re next,” were written in a slopping scrawl. On the floor, puddles of what appeared to be fresh and dried human blood seeped out from the handicapped stall. The green bathroom stalls were decorated with long rolls of toilet paper draped along the doors. Lying on the sink counter by a puddle of blood was a collection of items that appeared to fall out of a purse: a container of M.A.C. lipstick, white headphones, Trident Layers gum, and a small purple BHH wristband. Did Cara do all this? Kayleigh asked herself as she peered into one of the closest stalls. She couldn’t have. Something was definitely fishy about this and it was not the new fish ice cream rotting outside in the dumpster. Kayleigh peered under all the other stalls, not knowing if someone was going to jump out at her, and called Melanie’s cell phone again. No answer.
At that moment, Kayleigh saw a single-paned window along the wall of the bathroom slightly ajar. She also heard a cell phone ringing, but it was coming from outside the winder, in the dumpster. That’s funny, Kayleigh thought, that’s the same ring tone as Melanie’s, but why would that be in the dumpster?
Peering through the tiny window on her tip-toes and with the help of a few stacks of toilet paper rolls, Kayleigh got a glimpse of a dark silhouette, probably about her height, leaning over one of the bulky black dumpsters and throwing something large into the trash. But before she could get a better look, she went tumbling down onto the bathroom tile.
Once Kayleigh got back on her feet, she glanced through the window again, but no one was around the dumpster. Still, Kayleigh knew she had heard Melanie’s ring tone, and whoever that person was had to have seen Melanie.

Walking to their trucks, Ryan and the “Clueless Clones” heard a beeping noise coming from the nauseating dumpsters, and because they were eighteen year old boys, they had to investigate it. As they slowly approached the dumpster, the boys heard a loud clang of something hard being struck against a brick wall, but since there was no one in sight except a worker who was going back inside to the kitchen, the boys didn’t think twice about it.
When they reached the dumpster, Ryan saw the dim light of a cell phone, and when he looked closer, he saw that it was wrapped around something. A hand. Ryan thought. The hand had a diamond-studded ring, but Ryan knew that it wasn’t diamond, it was actually quartz. He knew that because it was the same one that he had gave his ex-girlfriend last year when they were still together. Ryan snatched the lavender Motorola RAZR from the olive-toned hand and looked at the one unread message, which was from Kayleigh. It figures. She always texts Mel. Ryan thought. It said that the message was sent at 8:10 p.m.
“Jason, Cam, help me pull this thing out of here, will you?” Ryan asked his friends.
“What do you want us to pull out? ‘Cause I ain’t touching any raw food in there.” Jason declared.
“Stop being a wimp and give me a hand. Pull this arm.”
“Who’s arm?? Is it a fake?” Cameron asked with a hint of fear in his voice.
“I don’t think so.”
The boys pulled out a blood-soaked Melanie with her head wrapped in bloody toilet paper. Her eyes were shut and her mouth was a gaping hole. She was dead.
“Oh. My. God.” all three of them whispered, staring at her.
At that exact moment, Kayleigh raced around the corner of the store and saw lifeless Melanie dangling from Ryan’s hand.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!?” Kayleigh screamed at the top of her lungs to Ryan, in between gasps for air from sprinting over to them. She felt like her lungs were about to disintegrate between seeing the lifeless girl in front of her and how little air was circulating in her body.
“I know what you’re thinking but I swear I didn’t kill her. I just found her lying here in the dumpster. Even though I’ve lied to you before, I’m not lying now,” Ryan pleaded, but his voice was firm.
Kayleigh gradually looked up from Melanie, and even though tears were blurring up her vision, she could see from the earnest expression on his face that he was telling the truth. “What are we going to do?” Kayleigh asked, but because she was choking on air, it came out like a loud squeak.
  “I think that we should place her in the back of my truck, so we don’t have to hold her dangling like this anymore,” Ryan informed his friends and Kayleigh.
“Okay and I’ll call the police and report a murder.” Kayleigh said with her voice quavering. 
She whipped her black cell phone out of her pocket and before you could say “murder”, dialed 911. Her phone was shaking in her hands because she was so close to having a nervous meltdown. Within minutes, a piercing siren echoed through the silent night, and bright flashing red and blue lights appeared out of nowhere down the street, warning the neighbors that something dreadful was happening.

It was almost closing time when Mr. Collins heard the emergency police sirens approaching the shop from the east. He cursed under his breath as he wiped his clammy damp hands on his white apron and went to open the door to greet the unwelcome visitors. “Hello, officer! What brings you here on this fine night?” exclaimed Mr. Collins, who tried to muster a smile, which looked more like a grimace.
“I was just called here on a report of a murder. Have you noticed any suspicious behavior happening recently?” the officer questioned with a stone cold face.
“Well, not that I know of. Why don’t you go to the parking lot and look for evidence or something-” coaxed Mr. Collins, but didn’t finish because the officer already left. Mr. Collins’ purple veins nearly bulged out of his neck as he screamed “Justin Michael Collins! Get out here right now!” Only the echo of his scream answered him, so he decided to look in the bathroom for his son.

  Justin peered out from behind the slit of the Employees Only door, where he was able to see all of the parking lot. Darn it! He muttered to himself under his breath when he saw the cops asking Kayleigh, Ryan, and the “Clueless Clones” about Melanie. He thought that they would just leave Melanie alone and he could “properly” dispose of her body in some way, which he was in the process of, when Ryan and his stupid friends had to come out at the very second when Justin was talking to Melanie behind the dumpster. He quickly struck her in the temple with a loose brick hanging in the side of the wall. Her weak body trembled down onto the cement, blood streaming into her flowing light brown locks. Justin had tossed her into the dumpster and threw some moldy food and leftover ice cream cartons over her so she wouldn’t be seen. That wasn’t the plan from the start though, he only wanted to talk to her and see if she could ask her pretty friend, Kayleigh, to the prom for him. And I bet she would’ve said yes.  Justin thought. He panicked when Ryan and his friends turned the corner. Justin thought that since Melanie was Ryan’s ex-girlfriend and all, Ryan would have gotten into a fist-fight. Ryan was a football jock, and even though Justin was in shape for his age, he wouldn’t stand a chance against the one-eighty-seven pound ogre.
Mustering up all the courage he could, Justin ever so slowly crept out of his hiding spot and made his way to the mini-crowd that was forming next to Ryan’s truck, which was where Melanie’s body was. He kept his eyes to the gravel and walked up beside Kayleigh. Justin slowly reached for her hand because he felt like that was the best thing to do right now, besides tell the truth.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, and magically, even with all of the shenanigans that were going on beside them, Kayleigh heard him. Through her sniffles she softly said, “Thanks. But it wasn’t your fault she died, so you don’t need to feel guilty.”
Justin pulled her away from the truck so the others couldn’t listen and mumbled, “Actually, it was,” so softly that she probably did not hear, and lowered his gaze to his black Converse sneakers so he would not have to look her in the eyes.
Kayleigh was in shock hearing Justin’s confession. Her sky blue eyes widened as big as white saucers when she heard what Justin, whom she had a secret crush on, had said.
“What?” Kayleigh whispered on the bridge of sobbing right in front of everyone. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Justin said a teensy bit louder this time, “that I was the one who murdered her.”
“B-b-b-but, why? I-I mean, why would you do such a thing?” Kayleigh said, her voice cracking and eyes brimming up with tears.
“Um... It’s a long story. But right now, I’ll just turn myself into the police and get arrested. It’s not like I’ll be going anywhere for a while.” Justin replied, hating to see her miserable.
Instantly, both of them thought about the senior prom at the same time. Justin really wanted to ask her to go with him, and Kayleigh wanted to get asked by him. Oh, well. Life doesn’t always go how you want it to. Justin thought to himself.
“Before I go to jail, I just wanted to say that I really like you, Kayleigh, and I am extremely ashamed about what I’ve done to your best friend. I was talking to her about asking you to prom but that’s out of the question now. I just wanted you to know that.”
Before Kayleigh could even get a word in, Justin turned to the cops and Ryan, and told them that he was the one who had murdered Melanie.
For a while no one spoke, and the only response Justin got were bewildered faces, but then a middle-aged officer whose name tag read Chief Freeman, informed in a stern voice, “You know, son, that you will might to face the charges of prison time for murder, correct?”
“Yes, sir. I am ready to face my consequences,” Justin said, still looking down at the black pavement.
“Hold on, we need to see if your fingerprints match the ones found on Melanie’s bandages. If they do, you’ll be arrested for second-degree murder.” Chief Freeman went on as he took out his fingerprint scanner and inspected the toilet paper wrapped around Melanie’s head.
The fingerprint scanner confirmed they were a match to Justin’s and Chief Freeman handcuffed Justin and forced him into the squad car. “I am very disappointed in you, son.” Mr. Collins announced to his son as Justin was going into the vehicle.
“Yeah, well so am I,” Justin murmured under his breath to himself as he struggled to sit upright in the hard seat in the police car.
“We’ll take this body with us, and properly dispose it,” Chief Freeman said to Ryan and Kayleigh as he took Melanie and stuffed her into the trunk of his car. When he slammed the trunk door, everyone flinched at the thought of Melanie, once a bright and cheerful girl, being stuffed in uncomfortable positions in a police car trunk. Then, the police officer sped away, leaving the homicidal scene, and many confused faces.

**********Epilogue**********

After living the dismal prison life for one month since the dreadful night of murdering Melanie, Justin was paged to go to the head chief of police’s desk. What did I do wrong? Justin thought, Well, besides murdering a teenage girl. He chucked softly to himself as he slowly walked to the room with a plaque on the door exclaiming “Owen Tyler, Commissioner.”
When he walked through the door, Justin saw, of all people, the beautiful, Kayleigh Smith, whom Justin hadn’t stopped thinking about since he left her behind almost four weeks ago. She was wearing a silky sapphire gown with sparkly diamonds sprinkled along the dress. She had soft blue eye shadow on, and her hair was pinned up in elegant curls. She looked like she was going to a dance. Oh, shoot. The prom’s today! Justin thought. She probably has a date already, seeing that she definitely is going. But in Kayleigh’s other hand, the one that wasn’t clutching her chest, was a brand new tuxedo, all fresh and ironed.
“Umm... Justin, I was wondering if you would like to go to the prom with me.” Kayleigh said, with her voice sounding like soft velvet.
“This young lady’s bailing you out Justin. You are free to go home now,”
Mr. Tyler explained from behind his bulky desk.
“What? Really? Oh my god, are you serious?” Justin asked surprised, and looked around the room for hidden cameras.
“Absolutely. I got enough money to bail you out, and I know that something just took control over you... that night, and you would NEVER do that again. I also really wanted to go to the prom with you, so here’s your tux. I mean, if you want to go that is.” Kayleigh went on, shutting her mouth before she word-vomited even more.
“Wow. Thank you so much Kay. You’ll never know how much this means to me. You’re the best! How will I ever repay you?”
“Well, here’s your suit, and we can go to the prom right now if you want to.”
“Totally,” Justin said as he caught the onyx colored suit that was tossed to him and raced to the bathroom to change into it. “I’ll meet you in the car,” he said with a grin on his face.
“Okay. Thank you Mr. Tyler for letting me bail him out.” Kayleigh said turning toward the husky old man.
“Adieu to you Ms. Smith, and you too, Mr. Collins.” he said with a warm smile, but Justin was already in the bathroom changing into the suit that Kayleigh had given him.
“Thanks.” Kayleigh replied, smiling as her hand met Justin’s and they walked out together to her navy blue Mercedes-Benz and drove to the senior prom.