Short Stories from the Teenage Mind

Remember My Name

Flames crackled quietly from the fireplace, the tongues flicking through the air artfully. The room glowed orange and gold between the fire and the soft yellow light of the overhead fixtures. It was just the ambiance Loralei and Corey had intended when they picked out the color scheme, back when they had first moved in, when the future looked bright. It was after Loralei had truly fallen in love, before she had learned Corey never had.

Now through bloodshot eyes, everything looked rusted and red. The woman on the couch was none the wiser to Loralei's heated gaze from the shadows of the hallway, scrolling mindlessly through her socials, awaiting Corey and the wine he would undoubtedly present to her. Loralei licked her cracked lips. Her eyes traced the back of the woman's head, following the flow of her reddish brown hair down to the limited view of her bare shoulders. Loralei had only seen the woman entirely for a moment before she took her seat on the couch. The woman was reminiscent of Loralei herself, maybe a bit taller, with sharper features and darker eyes. Corey certainly had a type.

Loralei's grip tightened on the steak knife in her grasp. She wasn't sure why the similarities made it worse. Maybe because it meant Corey could've seen her as worthy of loving, of building a life with, and what she was about to do would destroy that chance. Or maybe it was just proof that they never could have had that. The truth was she was only decoration. A piece to complete a false aesthetic, to keep the media at bay from spewing their accusations of star actor Corey Mors being a womanizer.

Accusations Loralei had believed until his manipulations.

"Method acting," he had said. "I put on a persona for interviews, thinking it would promote my movies, but really it just gave me a reputation."

Loralei's face contorted as if she had tasted raw rhubarb. In hindsight she should have known how easy it was for him to act like he cared, but at the time all she had felt was guilt. At the beginning, she only wanted to use him for fame, thinking he deserved it if he was anything like the media painted him. She had even lost friends over it, with them thinking she was going too far by pretending to be in love just for recognition. But then she fell for his false sincerity and then fell for him, and went to the extreme to make up for her ill intentions, giving up everything. Her music, her ambitions. Her dreams. All because he had become her new dream.

And he spit all over her sacrifices by seeing a new woman every week for the past year and a half.

Why? Why did he need more? Dozens of copies of the same women whom he didn't care to get to know past their appearance. Loralei crept out of the dark hallway, quietly approaching the woman from behind. Why was she never enough for him? Did this woman treat him kinder? Love better? Taste sweeter?

Loralei covered the woman's eyes with her hand. The woman could only gasp before Loralei pulled her head back and met the woman's lips with her own. Alcohol and red lipstick mixed on Loralei's tongue, leaving an unpleasant flavor in her mouth. Abruptly, Loralei pulled herself back, letting go of the woman. The woman's eyes fluttered open, and at once, her lustful expression dropped, giving way to pure panic. She screamed, and Loralei quickly silenced her, slicing her throat with the steak knife.

Scarlet blood spurted from the woman's neck, turning the tan cushions muddy. Loralei heard Corey yelling as he ran up the steps. Loralei dropped the knife next to the dead woman and melted back into the shadows. She watched calmly as Corey sprinted into the room, the anguish of his scream playing in symphony with the shattering of glass. She smiled with satisfaction as he fell to his knees, shaking, eyes large as moons.

The wine bottle had remained intact when Corey dropped it, and it rolled slowly to Loralei's foot. Gently, she picked it up. Apothic Red. Her favorite. She raised the wine bottle above Corey's head and brought it down with the force of all her rage.

The authorities would find her later that night, seemingly in shock, with two corpses, one being the hanging body of actor Corey Mors. Loralei would go on to share with the media a story of how Mors had come home after a night bar hopping to her and her lover. Alcohol had led to anger and poor judgment, and once he had seen what he'd done, Mors had taken his own life. Loralei had always been too scared to accept her sexuality publicly, but while she admitted her infidelity was wrong, she never would have imagined such a tragic ending. The media ate up the drama, publishing story after story. Everyone would remember her name, never knowing how many stars she needed to hang around her to finally find heaven.