The Murder of Josie Abbot

Tw: animal death, child death (metaphorical)

When I was ten years old my cat was run over by a car.

It was one of those perfect summer days where it’s hot enough to swim, but not hot enough to be overpowering. I had invited a couple of friends over for a small pool party, and we were trying to capsize the float my friend Cady was holding onto for dear life. We had just successfully dumped her into the water when my mother came into the backyard to tell me my cat was dead.

When I learned the news, my first reaction was to burst into tears. But the truth was, on some level, I was almost glad she had died, the prospect of adopting a new pet was too enticing. Sure enough, my mother took me to Pet Smart a few days later.

My cat was immediately replaced, and after a few years she was nothing but a distant memory. All the little details about her, the black spot on her nose, the five toes instead of four on her right paw, were nearly lost to time. They only came back to me when I looked through the photo albums that lined the shelves in my mother’s bedroom.

Even when she was alive, I thought my cat was too skittish, too distrustful of humans, too prone to hiss at our guests. However, every now and then I feel a pang of sadness when I remember how little time she was given.

***

In September of the ninth grade, a dead cat was the least of my concerns. I was struggling with a problem that had become hard to ignore. Puberty had brought already existing thoughts from the back of my mind to the front and center. As a child, I considered myself a tomboy, but I was coming to the realization that it was much more than that.

My feminine features were painfully apparent to me and tormented me whenever I looked in the mirror. My name made me cringe whenever I heard it, my voice seemed whiny and childish, my shoulders were too small, my hips too big- I felt like I was trapped in someone else’s body- as cliche as that sounds.

These feelings certainly weren’t something I wanted to focus on when I was going into my first year of high school. I was more concerned about the amount of homework I was going to get and the prospect of auditioning for the school musical during the second week of school. I hoped the week of theater camp I attended would pay off.

The school had decided to perform ‘Annie’, which had been one of my favorite childhood movies. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be just like the title character, and even dressed as her for Halloween one year. In fact, ‘Annie Jr’ was the first musical I had ever participated in, back when I was in the fourth grade, and I was devastated to be cast as an ensemble member.

I could reasonably be typecast as Annie, I was fairly youthful looking, as well as embarrassingly short. I had even played a few minor leads at the middle school, and had proven myself to be a good actor and cast member. The problem was, in my current state, I was not about to play a girl in front of a live audience.

The role I really had my eye on was Rooster, one of the show’s few important male roles, Miss Hannigan’s brother. I flipped between the audition tracks of Tomorrow and Easy Street, knowing which song would get me the lead and which I was inevitably going to sing.

I talked to some fellow actors, a girl named Emma who was enthusiastic about all forms of drama, my friend Isabella who I met in the 8th grade play, and both suggested I go with the song I’d rather sing.

I appreciated the feedback, even if it wasn’t the reality check I needed, even if I knew they were wrong. Deep down, I felt I was betraying my younger self, my inner theater kid. A few years ago I wouldn’t even have considered such idiotic self-sabotage.

***

In the end, I auditioned for Rooster, like I knew I would, got a minor male role, like I knew I would. Only one or two lines, certainly a demotion from my previous thirty-one. I knew the song was too low for me, I knew I didn’t fit the part at all, and yet I did it anyway. It was one of those decisions you knew you were going to make, no matter how doomed it was.

***

This wasn’t the first stupid decision caused by the uninvited thoughts that inhabited my brain. I was no stranger to decisions you knew were dumb all along but wanted to work out so badly you didn’t care. The spring of eighth grade was the time of the most impulsive decision of my life.

Nick Briggs was a lanky ninth grader- I guess he’d be in the tenth grade now- with shaggy brown hair, tinted faintly green from being dyed previously. We became friends around the same time I was Matilda Cartwright in Guys and Dolls, and I was delighted when he showed up to the final performance on Sunday. As with many of my male friends throughout the years, I idolized him to the point that I was completely infatuated.

Nick told me during math class he was going to the show, and on that very same day at 3 AM I decided to ask him out. I texted my friend Isabella to make it official, and when I woke up in the morning I knew I’d have to go through with it.

I deluded myself over those next few days into believing my feelings were reciprocated. Every conversation during class, every text about our favorite shows, was re-read and re-remembered until it became solid evidence of the feeling being mutual. Despite this, I wasn’t at all surprised when he turned me down and never spoke to me again.

***

In reality, I have no idea if I would have gotten Annie or not, even if I had decided to audition with ‘Tomorrow.’ The girl who got the role wasn’t extraordinary, so the casting panel could have chosen me over her. Maybe at the beginning of the show, I thought about these might-have-beens, but by the end, I was preparing to audition for another male role in my next play.

***

The night after the cast list came out, I had a strange dream. I was sitting on a bench at the edge of a wide ravine surrounded by a brick wall. There was a young girl standing precariously at the wall’s edge, throwing rocks, foolishly hoping to see a splash in the river far below.

She looked so familiar that I climbed onto the wall next to her and asked her for her name. As soon as she looked back at me I knew the question was unnecessary. Hazel eyes, black hair in pigtails, flower print dress, she was undoubtedly my younger self.

A mixture of disgust and anger filled my dream self, and without thinking, I pushed her off the wall, into the deep ravine, undoubtedly to her death. I turned away before she hit the ground.