Chapter Text
I am not
a puzzle piece
created to complete
him.
I am
the finished product.
I am my own
piece of art.
I am
the fucking gallery.
― Michelle K.
The first time Bedelia Du Maurier killed someone she was barely eighteen. While on a date with a professor from the chemistry department, Dr. Tanner ignored Bedelia’s request to end the evening and instead drove her to his cabin north of town.
When Bedelia recalls this evening, she likes to pretend she had more control over what transpired. She ignores memories of his unwanted wondrous hands and thinks about the Zinfandel he poured, her first taste of good, red wine. She can barely recall specific details that led up to the stabbing, but never will forget the feeling as he took his last breath, a high unmatched by a lover since.
When Bedelia returned to her dorm that night, she invited a boy from down the hall into her room and replayed the last few hours as the taller sophomore roughly moved on top of her.
Bedelia was still surprised when Dr. Tanner did not show up for her Monday morning lecture. She waited in her seat, silently listening to speculation on the no-show professor. She tried to hide her smirk as classmates make joke about him dying over the weekend.
Rumors started flying fast once they found the body Tuesday evening. While Bedelia didn’t dare assume she was the first student Tanner lied to his wife about, she was offended by the shear quantity of names she heard confirmed as she listened for her own.
Wednesday class was cancelled, but by the time they regroup on Friday for a smaller study group, more details came to life. One TA lets slip that he heard Tanner was stabbed 10 times, four more than Bedelia personally remembers. A former student is rumored to be a main suspect after a roommate outed her affair with Tanner along with her history of mental illness.
Bedelia still assumed a police officer would appear at her dorm sooner or later. While she knew to hide the knife and clean up any real trace of her being in the cabin, she still drove his car back to town and would have thought at least one person would have remembered them out together. Maybe his ability to sneak around from his wife was more developed than Bedelia originally assumed.
Bedelia had a whole story worked out for the inevitable cop. Tears as she would tell him how Tanner blackmailed her into a date, a small, terrified voice as she detailed how he attacked her in his cabin. She only used the knife as self-defense then panicked. Half-truths were always safe. It wasn’t perfect, but she knew with her grandfather’s lawyers and her tears, she would walk.
Her story became moot after the former student killed herself and the cops decided to pin it on her. Overall, it was really better for Bedelia. A trial or police investigation, no matter what the outcome could have affected her plans for medical school. If this was to happen again, she would need to be more careful.