The Morning I Killed Tyler Grey

I don’t feel like I was particularly dedicated the morning I killed Tyler. I hadn’t started the morning with murder on my mind, but sometimes things just happen, spontaneously and not how you really intended them to go. But Tyler was dead and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“My name is Everly and I killed Tyler Grey.” Saying it out loud felt weird, but I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out through my lips. I couldn’t process the thoughts swimming in my head.

Brains have a habit of blocking out traumatic things from our memories. I suppose that’s why I don’t actually remember killing him. I know that it was me though, no one else could have done it. There was no one else around when it happened, so there’s no one else to blame. Not that I would want to anyways.

It took longer for me to snap than I thought it would. When most people snap they end up yelling, screaming, generally going off the deep end only to come down when all of their anger had been spent. I let years of Tyler build up and I couldn’t take it anymore. I guess that’s kind of what happened to me, though my energy hadn’t been drained by yelling. But I was drained nevertheless.

They would be looking for me soon. Probably Tyler as well, but they wouldn’t find him. I hoped that they wouldn’t be able to find him, he was long gone. The walls seemed to be closing in around me, trapping me in the space he once had been. Cutting off my breath, suffocating me and bringing me closer to him, where he was. What he wasn’t

You’re the most aware of how suspicious you look when you’re trying not to look suspicious. The days you are confident, no one notices. The days you wish Most days you don’t focus on the way that you walk, or if you look like a delinquent if you’re wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up. I had never been so aware of how quickly I was walking or how squeaky my damp shoes were.

So I suppose you’re probably wondering why I killed him, if that hadn’t been my intention from the beginning. If I’m going to be completely honest with you, and I’d like to be, we’ll just have to start from the heart of the matter.

“My name is Everly and I killed Tyler Grey.” That’s the best way to start. Tell them the ending, let them draw their conclusions from my actions not my words.

I had never been a fan of Tyler since the beginning. No one really was. The world was full of people who only tolerated Tyler Grey, but I couldn’t tell you when I stopped being one of them. I tried to avoid him the best I could, you know? It’s always best not to associate with people you don’t like. 

They always say “If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all” but I always had something to say and none of it was nice. I didn’t want to bully the kid but it's hard to say he didn’t deserve it. If anything I was more of a target, he had a lot of built up anger. It felt like he went around with a goal of irritating every person he came across.

Or maybe it was just me. He had to know that I couldn’t stand him, yet he was always around me. Even in the maze of winding hallways and lively classrooms, Tyler somehow managed to pop up around every corner. How such an obnoxiously loud person could continue to take me off guard, I had no idea.

Tyler wanted my attention constantly. He would never leave me alone, no matter how hard my friends and I tried to push him away. It would work for a few hours, day if I was really lucky, but he always popped up again. He tried to joke with me about my looks, insulting me and calling it funny when I would get offended. 

“You just don’t know how to take a joke!” He’d insist, refusing to leave me alone or apologize. I knew how to take a joke, he just didn’t know how to make them

Eventually, he began getting more and more upset every time we would turn him away. He liked to play the victim, claiming that we all had to share the same space and there was no need for him to leave when we could just as easily. Yet he followed us whenever we tried to escape him.

As a result, we got meaner too. Eventually, all of my friends constant insults started to get to me and I began distancing myself from them, which only made me an easier target for his pestering words. He kept pushing and pushing. He cornered me alone and I guess that’s what pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t take another day of him constantly whispering in my ear, hovering over my shoulder.

“My name is Everly and I killed Tyler Grey.” It would haunt me wherever I went from here on out. If I couldn't evade him in life, there was no way he would leave me alone in death

It was hard not to worry that I had left some sort of evidence on me. That someone had noticed what I had done, where I had been. Panic is an overwhelming emotion, I could feel myself tensing up, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for my world to come crashing down around me. It was only a matter of time before they found out. Minutes at worst, days at best. I wouldn’t be able to hide him forever. Murder has a way of following you. 

Can I even call what I did murder? I did the world a favor. I did an objectively good thing today. He wasn’t going to be bothering anyone anymore. Especially not me. And isn’t that doing the general public an enormous favor? Free from his reign of irritancy and ill-timed “jokes”.

I guess it’s no use trying to convince you that I am not the bad guy here. I’m really not. Maybe he’s not really dead, you know? It’s possible I didn’t actually kill him. They always say that serial killers claim to have more victims than the police can ever find. You don’t have a body, you won’t find one. Maybe his spirit will come back to haunt me, I can never truly be rid of him. I know I will never truly be free. He’ll find a way to come back, to wreak vengeance on everyone I loved, and there’s only so much I can do to protect them.

We can’t change the past. I did what I did because I had to. He left me no choice, left us no choice. It was either him or me and I was not going to let him control me anymore. I hadn’t started the morning with Tyler on my mind, I didn’t know that today would be the day. But Tyler was dead and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

“My name is Everly Grey. I’m not Tyler anymore.”