Whatever surliness Stu Macher had sown in John appeared to have dissipated overnight, for the next time Christina saw him he was of his usual congenial demeanor, engulfing her in a tight hug and pressing a firm kiss to her lips. She sighed in relief against him. She was safe for now.

Weeks passed. The days in Woodsboro were long and hot as August bled into September. Billy did not attempt to speak to her, but the glances they would occasionally share in study hall communicated all that she needed to know—that there was still something there, an intangible thread that had been drawn between the two of them, that seemingly refused to break no matter how hard she tried to pull away.

Eventually, she found an afternoon to take for herself, away from Judy and John—away from Billy's longing gaze and mysterious callers and figures in a dream—and visited the bookstore in downtown Woodsboro. From the stationary section, she picked out a medium-sized journal, bound in crimson faux-leather. The crisp lined pages were edged with gold. It was a handsome; mature. Like something Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks would use for her diary. She proceeded to the front to purchase it.

While standing in line, Christina noticed a rotating display of romance paperbacks and informational booklets. Idly, she traced her hand along some titles before stopping on one that read Ask Dr. Arquette!, accompanied by a picture of an attractive, middle-aged woman wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard, her dark hair pulled up in a sleek bun. She was flanked by two teenage girls in the latest fashions, smiling brightly at the reader. Beneath the image was the subtitle: About Puberty, Periods, Sex & More—With Questions From Girls Just Like You!

Christina picked it up and flipped through it, chuckling to herself as she remembered a time when she was ten and had come across a similar type of book in a convenience store in Los Angeles. Thinking she was mature enough for the material, she had nearly fainted when the first thing she had seen was an illustrated diagram of a woman inserting a tampon. Most of the subjects in this book by the titular Dr. Arquette, however, appeared rather benign—she could tell most of the inquiries were submitted by girls younger than her without even reading all of it, particularly one regarding the validity of the claim that massaging one's breasts with olive oil would make them bigger.

As the line continued to move, Christina was about to put the book down when her eyes were drawn to a bolded header that read "Periods and Pregnancy," and beneath it:

Dear Dr. Arquette,

My friend recently found out she is pregnant. She is very confused because she swears the only time she's had unprotected sex was shortly after her period ended. I'm confused too, because I always thought women could not get pregnant right after their period. Is that not true?

Marley S., 18, California

Dr. Arquette replied:

Hello Marley,

It is important to remember, first and foremost, that engaging in unprotected sex at any point of your cycle—yes, even during menstruation—carries a risk of pregnancy.

Christina skimmed the paragraphs of information that followed, certain phrases jumping out to her like "tracking your ovulation" and "fertility window," and finally, a full sentence: Also, within a female's reproductive tract, sperm can sometimes survive for a period of several days.

Suddenly, the semester of health class she took freshman year seemed pointless; the words staring back at her from the book might as well have been written in some ancient, lost language. Why are you even looking at this? she thought. There's nothing in here that's of use to you. You and John use protection, and Billy…well, Billy removed himself, remember?

She was exiting the bookstore with her new diary tucked in her tote bag when, from the ice cream parlor two buildings down, stepped out a girl who was all too familiar to Christina—although they had yet to share a word directly.

Sidney Prescott, holding a large half-empty Styrofoam cup of vanilla ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce and peanuts in one hand, gripped in the other the hand of a small child. The little girl, about three years old, had brown hair styled in two pigtails, and rosy cheeks, resembling Sidney to an extent. She raised her free hand in a grasping motion toward the ice cream.

"Puh-wease, Sidney," the child spoke. "One more bite, puh-wease."

"All right, Jill," Sidney replied sweetly. She squatted and offered her a spoonful of ice cream, which the little girl happily accepted. "But that's it until after dinner. Your mom is going to kill me when she finds out how much sugar I've given you already. You're going to be bouncing off the walls tonight."

Jill beamed at Sidney with her chocolate-stained mouth.

"Watch me!" The child seized the opportunity to snatch her hand away from Sidney's protective grasp and proceeded to hop forward with joined feet. "Bounce, bounce, bounce!" she exclaimed in her high little voice.

She turned to behold Sidney's amused expression, and bounced right into Christina.

"Oh, sorry!" said Sidney, rising to her feet. She grabbed Jill's hand again as the child looked away, ashamed. "We've got to watch where we're going, right Jill?"

"Sowee."

"It's okay," Christina spluttered. She wanted to look away from Sidney too.

"Thanks. Oh"—recognition showed on her face, and she smiled—"hey, you're in my drama class. Christina, right?"

"Yeah," she confirmed, gulping. "Hey, Sidney. Uh, so is this your niece?"

"My cousin."

"Oh—right—you don't have any siblings, do you?" It sounded like an accusation. She prayed she wasn't coming off as unfriendly due to how nervous she was.

Sidney shook her head, her face conveying no offense.

"Not that I'm aware of," she answered jokingly. "I guess I'll see you in class, then."

"Yeah, see you around," said Christina.

Sidney and Jill had already taken several steps away from her when, inexplicably, Christina found herself calling to her again.

"Hey, Sidney?"

Sidney turned to face her once more. She's very pretty, she observed, not too plain or too showy. But her pearly-white, all-American smile was bright and genuine in a way that shook Christina to the core. How could such horrible things befall such a girl, as perfect as she seemed, and yet still leave her capable of smiling that lovely, broad-toothed smile, that gracious countenance? And worse…how could she, Christina, have taken part in one of her misfortunes, even one that Sidney was ignorant of?

So many things could have spilled from her mouth in that instant, but despite the lingering twinge of guilt, one thing in Christina remained prominent over any other emotion or inclination, and that was self-preservation. She could hold a secret clutched to her heart as if her life depended on it.

"I just wanted to say…" she began, "I really admire what you do in drama. Like that monologue you did from The Bad Seed last year—that was incredible."

"Oh, thank you so much!" said Sidney.

"Is theater something you plan to do after high school?"

"Yeah, I'm going to major in it."

"That's great. I think you could really do something with your talent."

"I hope so. That's so nice of you to say." She held the ice cream away from Jill, who had begun reaching for it again. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"What do you plan to study?"

"Oh, um…" She hadn't expected Sidney to ask her that. She really was a nice girl. "English. I want to write. That's actually why I was in the bookstore"—she motioned to the shop from which she had stepped out of—"I was looking for some—uh—inspiration, I guess."

"Well, I hope you found it," said Sidney, briefly releasing Jill's hand so as to hold up her own with a departing smile. "See you tomorrow."

"Bye-bye!" said Jill.

The two turned around as Christina waved weakly in return. She gripped the bag that held her new diary to her chest, treating it as a comforting, grounding presence. As if committing all of her most shameful thoughts to paper would allow her to compartmentalize it, to eventually put it away for good. Perhaps if it was on paper, it would no longer exist within her.

She wondered if Sidney Prescott kept a diary.


September 25, 1996

Dear Diary,

Christina frowned at the lined off-white paper before crossing out the greeting with her pen. She was too old to be intimately addressing an inanimate object. She continued:

D̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶D̶i̶a̶r̶y,

I'm glad I can write again. It's been too long.

John and I hung out at his house after football practice yesterday. I could tell he wanted to make love, but I wasn't in the mood. I can't say I've really felt like it since school started. I haven't felt like myself at all, now that I think about it. Or was this always me, and I'm only just now realizing it? It's hard to say.

It's been a month since I got that creepy phone call. I've hardly thought about it lately. I guess that's a good thing. I can forget about it now. After all, it's not like the creep has followed through on any of his wannabe-psycho threats.


Pulling into Woodsboro High the following morning, Judy and Christina were faced with surprisingly congested traffic, despite being early as they always were. Indeed, it appeared that a small swarm had formed around the premises, most numerous at the front of the campus, where several news vans and police cars were parked.

"What the hell?" Christina muttered, perplexed, and turned to an equally concerned Judy. "Did something happen?"

"I don't know. I didn't watch the news this morning," said Judy, the shaking of her head sending her blonde ponytail swishing in either direction. "But I guess if something's going on, we'll hear about it soon enough."

John was waiting by the main entrance, and when he saw the girls coming, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms tightly around Christina. Large groups of students moved around them, chattering loudly, some jeering. One girl was crying, being ushered into the school with a friend on her side, holding her by the shoulders.

"I'm glad you got here safe," said John. "I called your house but your mom said you had already left. I didn't bring it up, but god, this is so fucked up!"

"Tell her what, John?" Christina desperately implored. "What happened?"

Her boyfriend pulled away, looking at her with incredulous eyes. He then looked briefly to Judy, whose wide-eyed countenance also communicated her ignorance of whatever had recently occurred in their small town.

"You guys haven't heard already?" He lowered his head and spoke in a low, severe voice: "Casey Becker and Steve Orth were murdered last night."

"What? Casey?" Christina said slowly, dazed. "She…she sat next to me in English last year."

John squeezed her shoulder. Judy said something, to which John responded, and the two began conversing extensively from there. But Christina heard none of it; their voices became indistinct buzzes in her ears. Everything else seemed to be muffled too—distorted and blurry—as if she was living on the edges of some old, decaying film, the genre of which was readily apparent.

It's good you like scary movies, because pretty soon, you're going to be living in one. All of Woodsboro will be.

By lunchtime, Christina had become aware of all of the gory details through whispers in the hall and hushed, scandalized utterances in class. Casey and Steve were found late last night at the Becker residence. Their bodies had been gutted. Casey's was treated with a particularly malicious savagery, hung from a tree as a gruesome spectacle for whoever was unfortunate enough to discover her—in this case, the poor girl's parents. Throughout the day, students were being individually excused from their classes to be interviewed in the principal's office by Woodsboro Police.

Everything that day seemed to move in slow-motion. She sat quietly between Judy and John at lunch, her friend and boyfriend having shared more words with each other in that day than they ever had before. John had already been interviewed that morning, as had Judy. She nudged Christina gently.

"They'll probably just ask you how well you knew Casey and Steve, and if either of them were behaving differently before yesterday," she informed her friend. "If it makes you feel any better, the deputy is super cute, and young. He made me feel really at ease."

John raised his brow curiously.

"They didn't ask you if you liked to hunt?"

"No," said Judy, not noticing Christina's lack of response to her attempt at comforting her. "Did they ask you that?"

"They did," said John, and then, reconsidering the matter, added, "I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't ask a girl that."

Judy began to speak again, but Christina stood up.

"I'm gonna go use the bathroom."

"Want me to come with you?"

"No, that's okay, Judy. I guess I just…uh, need a moment."

Understanding was evident on Judy's face. John kissed her cheek, and then she walked away from them, shooting the two what she hoped was a convincing smile. The moment she was in the relative seclusion of the bathroom, she locked herself in the least-objectionable stall and began to cry. This wasn't supposed to happen. Whoever the creep on the phone was…he wasn't supposed to be capable of anything other than a threatening call.

After a while, she pulled herself together enough to leave the bathroom, still wiping her eyes, and turned a corner only to run into the last person she wanted to see at that moment.

Billy Loomis placed his hands around her arms, steading her.

"Sorry," he said.

"My bad."

She attempted to push away from him, but he held her in place, regarding her with those intense, dark eyes that she still loved terribly.

"How have you been?"

"I'm fine, Billy," Christina answered shortly. "What are you doing in here? Everyone else is outside."

"Are you the hall monitor now? I was going to the bathroom."

"Sure you were."

His brow raised, a knowing smirk teasing the corners of his lips.

"Okay, I did want to check on you. I saw you walking in and…you looked kind of upset."

"Thanks for the observation," she sniffled. Her reddened eyes itched with the irritation of more tears to come.

"You don't have to be so sarcastic. I'm just trying to help."

The hold on her arm turned into a comforting squeeze.

"I'm sorry. This is all really…really fucked up." She looked away from him, the façade beginning to crumble.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

The simple question was her undoing; she shook her head and tried to smother a sob, holding her hand to her mouth. Billy pulled her to him, and she welcomed his hug, even with all of the implications that it entailed—his sweet musk flooding her nostrils, his hands running up and down her back, and her sordid enjoyment of it all, deep within her heart.

"It's so f-fucked up, B-Billy," she cried. "H-how could someone do that to them? I wasn't close with Casey or Steve, but they both seemed nice. N-normal. How could anyone"—she removed her arm from Billy's waist so as to press a hand to her lurching stomach—"g-gut them?"

"It's fucked up, I know. The world is a fucked up place, Christina, you have to learn that. If you're lucky you meet a handful of people who don't completely suck." He held his hand beneath her chin in that familiar, intimate way that he did, making her eyes meet his. "Listen, have they interviewed you already?"

Christina shook her head.

"Do you think you're up for it? If you say no, they can't force you."

"I d-don't know anything that could h-help them…except maybe…you know…that thing I told you about."

Something changed in his face, a slight tightening in his jaw.

"Do you want to tell them about that?"

"Do you think I should?"

"Well…" His eyes wandered, as if he was deeply considering the matter, visualizing the potential outcomes in different corners of the otherwise empty hall. "If you do, they'll probably want to check your phone records. And you didn't tell your parents about it, right?"

"I didn't. But what if it's the same guy, Billy? What if he meant what he said?"

"I doubt that, Christina. Losers like that don't progress from making a creepy phone call to gutting two entirely different people just like that. You'd only be worrying yourself all over again. And they'd definitely have to get your parents involved."

She shuddered at the thought.

"You're probably right," she said, wiping her eyes. "I've mostly let it go before today, but…"

"What?" he asked, his gaze soft with concern.

"I'm scared, Billy," Christina admitted in a whisper. "I'm so scared."

"Shh." He squeezed her tighter against him. "I don't want you to worry about any of this. What happened to Casey and Steve…it's got nothing to do with you."

"You don't know that for sure."

Billy licked his lips contemplatively.

"My dad is acquainted with Mr. Becker. He's a very influential businessman. And Mrs. Becker is involved with state politics, I think. Who knows, they could have had enemies."

Disgust rumbled deep within Christina's belly, and she withdrew from Billy's embrace, placing her clammy hands to her forehead. Her skin was hot to the touch, and her eyes stung with tears.

"It's sick for us to be standing here conjecturing about the Beckers when Casey and Steve—they're—they'll never—" She choked on another sob as she pushed her hair out of her reddened face. "Oh God, this is a f-fucking nightmare!"

Unperturbed by her outburst of emotion, Billy reached out to her again and took her shaky hands in his own.

"I've got you. Nothing's going to happen to you." Her body tensed in apprehension at the intimacy of his declaration, but he continued in a low voice, tinged with melancholy. "I know you think I'm an insensitive asshole most of the time, but believe it or not, I've got feelings. This shit has me shaken up like everyone else. I had classes with Steve, and Stu used to date Casey. I wish you'd drop this stupid act you've got going so we can get through this…together."

He raised his hand and tenderly touched her cheek—the same spot where he had once pinched her the last time they were this close—and she was momentarily distracted by the memory before she had the mind to push him away, to force herself to reject his touch, regardless of how it still set her weary heart ablaze with longing.

"You're getting too bold with this. We're in the middle of a hallway, Billy," she scolded him. "And I don't know what act you're talking about."

"You are so stubborn," Billy huffed, his tone bordering between amusement and annoyance. "But I guess I am too." He chucked sadly and patted her shoulder. "Just remember that I meant what I said."

"About what? You've said a lot of things."

Billy looked at her for a while without answering. Then his face twitched with a small, sad smile, his gaze heavy with something Christina couldn't quite discern—a strange cross between frustration and begrudging adoration—and he tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. Her breath hitched at the contact.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I hate seeing you upset."

"I appreciate your concern," she replied half-sarcastically.

The uneasy smile spread across his face.

"Good kid," he remarked affectionately, before finally leaving her to stew.

Christina watched him walk away and placed a hand over her heart, which was pounding with despair for Casey Becker and Steven Orth—but also with an unrelenting love for the boy who had left her in such a state.


By the time she was in study hall, Christina had almost convinced herself that the inevitable had evaded her when, sure enough, a student office aide came into the library with a folded note and handed it to the librarian, who interrupted the silence of the room with a low, solemn utterance of her name. Billy shot her a reassuring look at the other end of the table as she stood up and collected her effects.

She was escorted to the principal's office by the aide, where she was sat before Mr. Himbry, the fifty-something, balding Sheriff Burke, and his boyish deputy, who was almost too cute for his own good. He looked less like a cop and more like an up-and-coming actor playing a cop on television. Christina wondered how his looks fared for him down at the station.

"Deputy—uh—Riley?" she asked, noticing the name on his badge. "Are you related to Tatum Riley, by chance?"

The young man smiled at her, as warm and inviting as the freshly brewed coffee she smelled coming from the nearby break room.

"She's my little sister."

"Oh." She wondered if Judy was aware of that.

As it turned out, her friend's summary of her own interview that she had attempted to convey to a barely present Christina at lunch was applicable to Christina's experience as well. Mr. Himbry hovered protectively over her while Sheriff Burke first asked if she knew Casey Becker or Steven Orth well.

"Not really," she answered honestly. "I sat next to Casey in English last school year. She was nice. I just moved to Woodsboro in March, and when I saw her in class for the first time, she smiled at me. I hope…" She got teary again, words she already resolved not to say burning on the tip of her tongue. "I hope you find out who did this to her. To the both of them."

Mr. Himbry patted Christina's shoulder in that paternal way he seemed to interact with all of his students, proud of her bravery, although she treaded back to study hall minutes later feeling like shit.

When she returned home later that afternoon, she was struck with a distinct, savory aroma emanating from the kitchen. A smell of meticulously prepared and seasoned meat, spices, vegetables, Sunday afternoons following church, and the homeland of her family. She knew what it was immediately. Menudo.

Her mouth began to water—she was actually quite hungry, physically speaking, having barely been able to eat anything at lunch.

"Is that you, mija?" came her mother's voice.

"Yeah," Christina replied softly. "Is that menudo? It smells great."

"You know it! It's almost ready. Your father called, he said he'll be home early today."

Christina dropped her backpack by the door and all but dragged herself to the kitchen. Her mother was chopping a lime, the biting acidity of the citrus fruit cutting through the air, contrasting so deliciously with the earthiness of the broth and the tender tripe stewing within it, and the warmth of the corn tortillas waiting on the counter. Her stomach growled impatiently, yet her mouth suddenly went dry.

How could she eat, when not even twenty-four hours ago, two of her classmates were savagely murdered? How could she sit there and enjoy her mother's cooking, when they would never again be able to do the same with their own families? She closed her eyes, a strange sort of guilt washing over her. A survivor's guilt. Why had the man on the phone spared her, but not Casey and Steve?

It wasn't the same man. You know that. You talked about this with Billy.

Still, the thought persisted as a small voice in the back of her head. She opened her eyes and looked at her mother, who was none the wiser as she moved on to chopping up some cilantro, humming to herself. Her dark hair was styled in a single plait that fell nearly to the small of her back, swishing as she moved deftly about the kitchen.

She still didn't know. She couldn't know. Christina gulped and licked her lips.

"Mom," she began in a hoarse, trembling voice, "you haven't watched the news today, have you?"