Prologue:
The door creaked open and Annie tiptoed across the floor. She began poking my arm trying to wake me up, even though I was already awake.
"Julie," she whispered "can I sleep with you? I don't want to be alone tonight"
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I said through a yawn "Annie, you've been sleeping alone for three years."
Shifting from one foot to the other she said "I feel funny. I don't want to be alone."
Giving a sigh I opened the blanket up for her and she crawled in, wrapping her arms around me.
~~~~~~~
That night Annie died. June 21st, 2002. Age five. Still today, eight years later, we don't know why she died. We could have found out if we wanted to, but my mother refused to let them cut open her dead daughter.
Since that night everything changed. My mother stopped speaking, my father grew angry easily and eventually left us, and my older brother looks at me now as if it was my fault.
