Carly Diaz

My Alyssa by Carly Diaz

Hook

Alyssa Woods is on the verge of becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest stars when she’s found lying dead at the bottom of a staircase, just weeks before her eighteenth birthday. Her childhood best friend, a total nobody, will do everything it takes to uncover the secrets surrounding her death and avenge her murder.

Opening pages

 

                                                                     Intro

I wake and it’s dark, but I can still see Alyssa. 

Just the back of her head, because she is turned away from me again. 

I’ve told her before that I miss the way we used to sleep, so close together. She says I’m to blame, with the way my scrawny legs thrash around at night. Like I’m always trying to outrun something.

“Alyssa,” I whisper. “Are you awake?”

I reach out to nudge her but I can’t feel her there. The back of her head has become a lump under the covers, her blonde hair just dark shadows on the sheet.

Maybe she’s gone out to see Jack again. Alyssa knows I don’t like him, I’ve always said she deserves better. 

Alyssa also knows that I hate when she leaves without saying goodbye. 

I feel around for my phone on the nightstand and dial her number. 

The tone is shrill, abrasive. 

We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error…

 

                                                                 Chapter 1

My mom is downstairs. She’s crying in the kitchen. It used to be just me and Alyssa in this house– my mom had moved out after we graduated, but she moved back in again a few days after Alyssa died. Mom said she didn’t want me in “that big house all alone” but really I think she just wanted to be closer to Alyssa. Feel closer to Alyssa. And what better day to feel closer to Alyssa than today, October 6^th.

Because, today would’ve been her 18th birthday.

The doorbell has been ringing off and on all day but I haven’t taken a single step from my bed. I know people are coming from all over to bring presents for Alyssa, even though she’s dead. They’re bringing teddy bears to put in her room. They’re bringing photos of her blonde, smiling face to put on the walls. They’re bringing flowers to cover the lingering smell of her death.  

It doesn’t matter what they bring because Alyssa isn’t here to see it. I know eventually when I leave my room, I’ll have to go comfort my mom, she’ll be all snotty and blubbery, and I’ll have to haul all the flowers and photos and teddies out back to the trash bin because I can’t stand this house looking like her wake all over again.

I get out of bed around 5pm. It takes all the effort in the world to uncurl my legs from under my arms. To slip my naked body out from under the comforters and into a robe. To scoot my feet into slippers.

I find my mom downstairs in the living room, in a red sweater that brings out the blood vessels in her eyes. Her brown hair is perfectly parted, straightened to a crisp. There are two strangers sitting beside her on the couch, I’m sure they are fans of Alyssa’s. There is a forty-something year old woman with strawberry blonde hair, she’s crying, and a smaller, teenage, version of her, in light blue overalls, sitting beside her, also crying. 

They lock hands with my mom and close their eyes and then my mother does that thing I hate, which is rattle off a prayer:

O Lord thank you for blessing us with our dear Lizy, her life so short and bright like a star.

We know now she is an Angel smiling up above us and for that we are truly blessed.

But please Lord, give us the strength we need to continue on without our precious baby girl.

Help us, Lord, to ease the pain of her passing. And may she rest in peace.

Amen.

They open their eyes and smile at each other, and I’m sure they’re feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Then they see me standing there, watching them, in my stinking robe and dirty slippers, with my mousy brown hair matted, and face all blotchy and red from the hives I get when I remember she’s gone. The strangers jump up off the couch, flustered, and the red-haired woman tells my mother they have to go. Her daughter has soccer practice.

My mom walks them to the door. “Come back anytime you need,” she says. 

“Bless you, Angie.”

The door closes. 

I shake my head in disgust. 

These people don’t know Alyssa. They’ve never even met her.

Alyssa’s not their fucking Angel.

I yank a dozen white roses out of a vase on the dining table and I shove them one by one through the garbage disposal. My mom comes over, trying to tell me something, but I can’t hear her over the sound of grinding petals.

                                                          Six Weeks Earlier

It was the makeup artist who found her. 

She’d found Alyssa (Alyssa’s body) at the bottom of the staircase. Alyssa’s eyes were wide open and completely still. Blood had pooled into a massive puddle under her head. The makeup artist, Daniella, later told me that she looked like a volcano, oozing hot lava after an eruption. 

And when Daniella found her, she just started screaming. 

Everybody loved Lizy. It was horrible. It was a tragedy. Lower the flags to half-mast, everyone, we’re mourning the death of our nation’s hero! 

Eventually one of the neighbors came over to check out the commotion. He’s the one that finally called the cops.

They were in our house for over two hours, the makeup artist, the neighbor, and the cops, fussing over Alyssa, taking pictures of her body, dusting for fingerprints, looking for clues, before they even realized I was home. The makeup artist, whom I’d met a few times before, completely forgot when the police asked, that Lizy had a roommate. 

And I’d almost drowned.

I was laying in the tub when they found me, completely unconscious. 

Rohypnol. 

They said the bathwater came up right to my lips, they said it was a miracle I was alive. They said I must’ve found just enough strength to turn off the water before it overflowed the tub and killed me. 

There was vomit dried inside of my nostrils and down the sides of my mouth and chin. There were chunks of it floating around me in the water. They said I was lucky the drugs alone hadn’t killed me.

And the idiot cops thought I was dead at first, too. So pale, they told me later, and so still.  Eyes closed and peaceful, unlike Alyssa, who they said looked like she’d spring up from the ground any second. 

Then I started snoring and the female police officer yelped and the male police officer hoisted me out of the tub with his big strong arms and set me on the cold tile floor. He draped the robe that had been hanging over the bathroom door onto my shoulders and he asked me, over and over again, if I was alright.

I wasn’t.

Then he asked me what happened.

 

 

Assignment 1: Story Statement

Celine must figure out who killed her best friend and avenge her death. 

Assignment 2: Antagonist

The antagonist in this story is an introverted 19 year-old named Martin Peters. He is pale and lanky, with jet-black hair and dark brown eyes. He rarely sleeps, and is distrustful of technology, the government, and society as a whole. We first meet him in the main character’s bedroom, drinking cheap beer and smoking cigarettes out the window with her as she mourns the death of her best friend, Alyssa. At this point, Martin and the main character, Celine, are lovers, and he seems to be the only person in the world that can understand the complex feelings of grief, anger, and loneliness that she is experiencing. Martin’s role in the novel is to constantly push Celine past her boundaries and make her embrace the dark truths about herself that she’s tried hard to ignore (ie. the fact that she is secretly happy that Alyssa is dead and that she may have played a larger role in her death than initially realized). Martin  sees Celine as being the “same” as him– dark and misunderstood in a world of phonies, and he wants her to accept this part of herself. His unwavering devotion to Celine, even as he kills and maims others, prompts sympathy from the readers.

Assignment 3: Breakout Title

My Alyssa

Killing Alyssa

Death in the City of Angels

Assignment 4: Smart Comparables

Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten - Extremely similar premise and themes. A girl is investigating the suspicious death of her best friend, whom she’d had a recent falling out with. Told in first-person, using flashbacks to reveal more about the characters, and the narrator has her own dark secrets, too. Close examination of female friendship.

The End of Everything by Megan Abbot - Similar premise and themes, although the MC is slightly younger (13 y/o vs 18 y/o), the target audience is still adult. A girl is investigating the disappearance of her best friend, and unravels secrets that make her wonder how well they really knew each other. Exploration of girlhood, friendship.

Assignment 5: Hook

Alyssa Woods is on the verge of becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest stars when she’s found lying dead at the bottom of a staircase just weeks before her eighteenth birthday. Her childhood best friend, a total nobody, will do whatever it takes to uncover the secrets surrounding her death and avenge her murder.

Assignment 6: Inner Conflict & Secondary Conflict

Inner Conflict: Celine struggles to move past Alyssa’s death, partly because of the fact that their friendship was in shambles when she died. Celine loved Alyssa more than anyone, and her whole life revolved around supporting her. But once Alyssa got a taste of fame, she essentially dropped Celine for her new Hollywood friends. This abandonment led to Celine trying to take her own life, inadvertently triggering a series of events that would end with Alyssa’s death. Now, with Alyssa gone, Celine must grapple with grief, resentment, jealousy, and most of all, guilt.

Secondary Conflict: Celine has always hated Alyssa’s ex-boyfriend, Jack, because he treated her like garbage. That anger intensifies when she learns that Alyssa and Jack had made a sex-tape earlier in their relationship, and that Jack had blackmailed her with it in the weeks before she died. Jack may not be the killer, but he sure is guilty as hell, and deserves to be punished.

Assignment 7: Setting

Set in Hollywood, CA, the novel takes us to beaches, boardwalks, marinas, L.A. nightclubs, a Halloween festival in Calabasas, ritzy mansions in Hollywood Hills, dingy pubs on the outskirts of town, and even to the set of Alyssa’s TV show, Prom Queen. 

“Rhea’s house was a work of modern art nestled deep in Hollywood Hills. She whipped through the neighborhood streets far faster than she should’ve, flying by perfectly green grass, manicured yards with palm-trees lining the roads, and mansion after mansion, most of them behind big remote access gates made of iron or wood.”

Flashbacks to Alyssa and Celine’s highschool years, primarily set in the suburbs or on the beach, create a strong contrast to Alyssa’s stardom, where we have scenes depicting elaborate parties in clubs with ice-luges, cocaine, and dancers hanging from hoops in the ceiling. 

“Alyssa and I laid in the sand.

Alyssa laid flat, arms and legs spread out like a starfish. The top string of her bikini was untied, tucked into her boobs. Alyssa wanted no inch of her skin untouched by the sun. I laid beside her on my side, knees tucked up to my stomach, tracing shapes on my towel. I figured I was getting burnt. I wrapped one arm around my waist. I curled my knees in closer.”

“I turned my attention back to the pink hoop girl. Her arms and legs spread to every corner of the hoop, and she threw her head back, spinning slowly and soaking in the lights, the eyes of the audience, the thumping bass. She dropped down so she was sitting on the bottom of the hoop like a swing. She spun faster, arched her back, and I saw every inch of her body. Her strong legs and arms, her flexed back muscles, her waist –small but sturdy, with washboard abs. Then she dropped again, hanging from the bottom of the hoop by her hands. People in the audience clapped and whistled over the music. It lasted just one rotation. Then she swung herself back up with some-what of a pull-up, throwing her stomach over the bottom rung, and then grabbing the sides of the hoop and pulling herself up further so she was once again sitting on the rung. I tried to imagine myself up there. I was thin, like her, but ghoulishly so, with no athleticism. I imagined myself, hanging onto the bottom of the hoop with my scrawny arms, trying to pull myself up, but it was too hard, and my hands were clammy, and then I slipped. I imagined the freefall, I savored it. I saw my head crash into the stage floor, my skull cratered, blood gushing out of my eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. The lights dancing over my skinny dead waist, the neon thigh-high socks with the cutesy bow at the top, legs unmoving beneath it. What a show.”

The season plays a big role as well, with most of the novel taking place in Fall, and one major scene happening on Halloween (costumes, Halloween decorations, leaves changing color, etc).

“At the entrance, Jack buys my ticket even though I half-heartedly offer to pay my own way, and then we officially enter Haunted Nights.

A Ferris wheel lit up red spins sinisterly in the distance. Six-foot long ghosts hang from lamp posts and blow in the wind. I smell a petting zoo I cannot yet see. A child runs blindly in front of us, holding a stick of pink cotton candy bigger than her face. After passing us, she turns and scans the crowd, looking for her parents. Pink crusts of cotton candy are stuck around the corners of her lips, and her mouth. Her eyes look so solemn, I almost suggest we stop to make sure she’s alright. But I’m still gripping Jack’s arm, and he pulls us past her. I hear a woman call out, “Piper!” and turn back to look again at the girl just in time to see her running into her mothers’ arms, her wild blonde hair flying behind her. The swirl of cotton candy lays face down in the dirt beside them.”

Lastly, the novel contains several scenes set by the ocean; in sailboats, swimming, or just walking along the beach. The ocean is, for the most part, a serene place and its beauty and vastness reminds Celine of some of the more savory memories with her dead friend, Alyssa. 

“I feel closest to Alyssa here. Maybe because she always reminded me so much of the sun. Shining and bright, inescapable, but at the same time, always out of reach. I pick up a shell and toss it into the water. It skips twice, and then sinks. I keep walking the shoreline, I walk all morning and into the early afternoon.”