IT WAS ONLY A KISS!

"Ma'am," the reporter says, "I want to know the truth."

He looks terribly out of place at my kitchen table. Everything about him suggests youth: his doe-dark eyes, his too-straight posture, his tape recorder whirring patiently by his side. He can't be much older than we were back then, back when we were innocent of the catastrophe hurtling towards us, back when we were still we: three bright-eyed best friends with the whole world waiting for us instead of a corpse, a murderer, and an accomplice.

Oh, anyone who's ever picked up a tabloid might think they're an expert on us. They're all wrong. It's been sixty years since Pauline and I fled from Maine with blood on our hands, two since she passed away. The only person who still knows what happened to Gabriel Mallory is me.

Outside, wind lashes at the walls. A clap of thunder cracks the sky in two--

Gabriel yawned and pushed his chair back from the table which had become our entire world. As finals drew closer, the three of us had sequestered ourselves in a dimly-lit corner of the university library to spend every last minute cramming like we never had before. Indeed, the table itself could hardly be seen under the sheer mass of materials that covered every inch of it: British poetry, Italian essays, Greek epics. All those books, all that blood in our veins: that year was a tragedy waiting to happen.

"God, I'd kill for some coffee," Gabriel remarked. "Frances, could you be a dear--"

"Absolutely not," I replied, without taking my eyes off of my own manuscript.

Gabriel chuckled. "That's my girl." He rose, took up his cane, and pecked me on the top of my head. "I'll be back in just a minute."

"No drinks near the books!" Pauline hissed to her brother. Gabe didn't seem to hear. He had already vanished, his coat swirling behind him. At this time of night, the mahogany bookshelves of the library transformed into a maze of catacombs: dark, dusty, inescapable. The building was ancient, and you could tell. Graffiti, long worn to illegibility, covered the antique furniture. Cobwebs gathered in the corners of the ceiling. Window-panes shivered and creaked in the winter wind.

Pauline grimaced slightly. I put my manuscript aside and pushed my glasses up. "What's wrong?"

She glanced from side to side as if to check that we were indeed alone in the library. "I still haven't gotten used to you two together," she whispered. "My brother and my best friend--" She made another face.

"Well," I said, rather awkwardly. "I just suppose you'll have to come around someday."

"I'll be alright. As long as you're happy." She looked at me intently, her hazel eyes catching the lamplight. "You are, right?"

If nothing else, I knew their parents were. The Mallorys had positively gushed over me when I'd gone up to their manor in Maine for Thanksgiving-- a modern girl, they'd said, an intellectual, perfect for our oldest boy. And from such a good family too! Gabriel had me on his arm for the whole week. (Pauline hadn't come-- said she was busy with work that I know she'd already done.) I must admit that Gabriel and I looked beautiful together: his dark hair against my blonde curls, both of us lean and full of angles. On the drive home, Buddy Holly on the radio, he'd taken my hand in his and said he'd never felt this way for any girl before. I'd laughed, high and bright, and said "I love you too."

Did that make me happy?

I didn't want to answer the question, so I passed my manuscript to Pauline. "I'm supposed to analyse this, but I don't know how in the world to start." She took it from me with a raised eyebrow. In these oversized halls, my words seemed strangely childish.