The Police said many things at first, but eventually, no matter how they tried to talk of something else, their narrative kept coming back to her hair - their eyes forever searching the ceiling as if the image of her tresses drifting hauntingly upwards had burnt itself into their memories. The Chief had been the first to enter Rico's apartment and even after informing Crimson's parents - when he stood in the sunlight miles away from where her body lay, his eyes continued to search the sky as if he expected that the hair must have followed him in the breeze. Her locks had been long and as he searched the sky for them he thought that they would be vertical - drifting upwards and shining in the sunlight.

**********

The apartment was old, and except for the shiny black marble tiles of the new fireplace nothing in it was worth looking at. The previous plastic tiles had spent years there disintegrating - breaking into small powdery pieces when fingered. Crimson hated the paste that formed when the dust mixed with the sweat on her hands. She asked Rico often why he didn't have the landlord replace it; but he only sneered, and eventually it was she who made the journey downstairs and into the community office. An old man inside with a good suit and sour cologne looked up and down her body and promised to take good care of her. She smiled at him, but was surprised when the new hearth was installed.

Rico said that it wasn't marble at all. Just linoleum. Fucking cheap.

She didn't care. It was the only thing that looked happy to see her when she walked through his door. The clear-cut white streaks running untamed through the black background were the first thing her eyes would catch, and she imagined that if she could just stare for long enough than the rest of his apartment would disappear, and she and Rico would be set free. She imagined an unreachable world where everything shone, and was beautiful.

**********

They said that by the time they found her the blood was already dry. Clumps of her hair had caked into it and had to be pulled off the black linoleum slowly so as not to break the evidence.

Funny how careful they were not to break her hair.

The same hair that every morning for the last twenty-two years had been pulled wet and recklessly through a metal hairbrush and stuffed into a rubber band. She never could quite keep all of it organized, and even in the earliest of her soccer pictures, loose strands were visibly picked up by the wind; and her split ends, like fairy-sized angel hands, seemed to fan out around her.

Her elementary teachers say they knew the girl who had such lovely hair - but inside, in the secret parts of consciousness that no one likes to talk about, they know she is more than a memory - she is something they cannot forget. Her hair floats around their thoughts of her and glows as if - at least while they knew her - she had always been standing in sunbeams.

When she was in sixth grade her little sister played with it and begged that she wear the new style to school. She walked around proudly with hundreds of glittery butterfly clips covering even the remotest inches of her head. The other girls smirked and wondered why she was not embarrassed. Crimson said that she looked that way because a little girl had made her beautiful.

While she was in Junior high her youngest brother was born, and she liked the way his fat baby hands grasped at her face. Once, when she came out of the bathroom clothed in only a towel, he shrieked and pointed at her flat wet head. She did not laugh as the rest of her family did, but first dressed herself, and then rocked with him for hours singing sweetly as he cried. He fell asleep with his small fingers grasping tightly at a tangle of locks.

**********

"Imagine" was playing on the radio when they first saw her body. Rico hadn't touched her after it was done, and she lay across the linoleum in a fetal position; her hands almost to her head as if she had been trying to return to that world of safety but had been stopped. Half-way.

In the second bedroom of the apartment Rico's roommate John had just emerged from the shower and was watching a Robert Deniro movie. The melody of John Lenon softly begging for peace was momentarily interrupted by the surround sound of an automatic cinema gun emptying its magazines.

John had taken a shower and then turned on the TV to avoid hearing the constant clumping sounds that accompanied her screams. When they burst into his room he had only a red towel wrapped around his waist.

John said he thought that the last thing he heard before turning on the shower was Crimson screaming one word.

"Mommy".

**********

Crimson would never have had a red towel. Crimson hated red. It always reminded her of the moment that no one choose to remember except her - the moment when she first looked down and noticed the bloody streaks causally descending her leg. Her roommate, who was studying nursing, said that the baby was definitely gone.

She screamed and tore at her head. Random stands of dirty-blonde waves fluttered from her hands to floor.

Everyone had told her that she couldn't keep a baby on her own and Crimson knew that the Father would not come back. She had begun to think that maybe they were right, but now, as she watched its life flow away she knew that she was being punished. God knew that she had thought about killing her baby and now she would not escape His wrath. She was astounded at how quickly a red circle formed on what had only moments ago been dry white denim. Her roommate said that the bleeding was normal, but the red flow on the pallid background reminded her of the hour glasses she had so often tipped in her Grandfather's house as a child. Her little brother played with it now, and always - just as it was about to finish - he would begin chanting in his most evil play voice - "Your time is almost up."

**********

She met Rico the next day.

He looked at the bare skin her v-neck shirt neglected and said that she looked good. As if she were a snack...

Six months earlier the Father of her baby had said, "Too bad for you" and walked away. Since then she had gained weight. Since then she had thought about killing her baby. Since then God had punished her by taking it away.

"I am not a good person," she thought. "I am lucky that this guy wants me."

... She smiled at him and noticed that his boots almost looked as if the original designer had tried to make them marble-colored. Really it was just white paint on cheap black boot material. Really Rico's friends had graffitied on them and he had tried to rub it out.

**********

They said that the whiteout on his boots was what made the blood found on them look so light colored. They said that it couldn't be positively identified as her blood because the chemicals had mixed, and they couldn't get an untarnished sample for DNA.

**********

The day before he killed her she walked into his apartment and saw another woman standing at her hearth. The woman left without introducing herself and Crimson asked an already agitated Rico:

"Who was she?"

"I don't know Crimson." She had tried not to be accusing, but his tone was already harsh.

"You don't know who was in your own apartment?" she questioned.

"What? Are you trying to call me a fucking liar? Don't ever call me a fucking liar!" And he hit her.

And the strike had made his hand hurt.

And the pain made his anger worse. And he began screaming:

"How do you fucking know that she wasn't here to see John. You didn't even ask. Just because you sleep around and get pregnant doesn't mean that everybody is like you - you fucking fat whore."

She covered the swelling eye and cheek with her right hand. She tried to tell him that she had only been curious. She tried to tell him that she hadn't really suspected anything.

Rico sneered, left, and slammed the apartment door behind him.

Immediately she rebuked herself for having provoked him:

"I am always so jealous. I always think the worst about other people when really I am the guilty one. I am the one who killed my baby. God punished me and now Rico punishes me because I need to be a better person."

She looked at the hand that had been on her cheek. Red streaks dripped down white fingers.

**********

She fasted and decided to buy a votive candle. Maybe if she asked him, Rico would pray with her...

**********

They said that the tangled hair around the votive candle had been covered in so much blood that the blonde color had been completely changed to a rusty brownish red.

**********

When she showed him the candle he screamed at her.

"You fucking think you're so much better than everyone else don't you! You're such a little bitch. Why don't you see if your fucking God can save you now!"

He grabbed her by the hair and told her to pray.

**********

They said that he just lost control.

They said that he struck her ninety-seven times.

They said that all of her internal organs were split.

They said that when they found her the living room seemed alive with hair. That the parts of it that hadn't stuck to the fireplace, or the floor, or even the inside of her car after he took it; seemed to float endlessly in the evening breeze. They said that when they first walked in they saw not her body, but a thick tangle of fairy-sized angel hands reaching out endlessly for a world where everything shone, and was beautiful.

I can't believe you would be so insensitive to post a story about something that really happened and about a family you OBVIOUSLY don't even know that well. You didn't even have the decency to change the names. This story does way more harm than good. I only hope her parents never see it. Think of your own stories in the future instead of making up stories about someone else's tragedy.

[Ryankia]

There is no real harm meant here. Yes, stories have been created through other people's tragedy and of course, names and a couple of things have changed but the main plot usually stays the same. There are over 6 billion people in this world, and for two people to not experience a similar situation is nearly impossible to believe. Just make a point that names should be changed but this stuff is published all the time.

[Ryankia]

Just rereading this after so many years...

...powerful.