You Will Never Read My Letter

My dearest friend,

Do you remember when we first met? It was five years ago, and you had recently moved into town. It was your first day of sixth grade, and you couldn’t find your way to math class. You were wearing you favorite dress, and you made the mistake of asking the school bully where the mathematics classroom was. He noticed you were new to the school, and began to tease you. He called you stupid, and knocked your books out of your hand. You told him that it wasn’t cool to be mean, and he spit on the front of your dress. You covered your face and ran straight to the girl’s bathroom.

I had just drank an entire bottle of water during breakfast break that morning, so I went to the bathroom to do my business. I walked in, and saw you curled up in a tiny ball underneath the sink. You looked up at me and asked me what I was looking at. I didn’t answer you. Instead, I crawled under the sink next to you and gave you a hug. You accepted it and cried on my shoulder. I asked what was wrong, and you whispered what had happened with the bully. After that, I helped you wash the spit out of your neon green dress and braided your long blonde hair for you. The bell indicating lunch period rang, and you had calmed down enough to leave the bathroom. We left and got in the lunch line. It was brunch lunch that day, your favorite. We sat together, and you showed me your schedule. We had the same classes, so I told you that we could go to class together.

The bully saw us eating, and he came to our table and took your omelet from you. You begged him to give you your omelet back, but he didn’t listen. I got up and yelled at him to give it back, but he snarled at me. I yelled to him that animals don’t get omelets and kicked him as hard as I could in the crotch. He fell to the floor and started crying. The lunch lady sent all three of us to the office. You and I told the principle what had happened, and neither of us got in trouble. We got to go back to lunch, and everyone gave you their omelet when I told them what happened. The bully got a week of detention, and he never bothered you again. I gave you a tour of the school, and we became best friends.

Four years passed, and we were halfway through freshman year when you came to school in tears. I asked you what had happened, and you pulled me to the girl’s bathroom, where we sat under the sink together. You whispered to me that your parents were getting divorced and that they were fighting over custody of you. I asked if you would have to switch schools, and you just started to cry again. I cried on your shoulder, for I knew that I would no longer get to spend every day with my best friend.

Your parents went to court a couple weeks later, and your dad won custody of you. You were moving to a little town in the middle of nowhere, so I threw you a going away party. We went to the mall and got you a bunch of different items to remember us by. Then, we ate lunch at Chick-fil-A, your favorite fast food restaurant. Lastly, we went swimming at the community pool, your favorite thing to do in your free time. After the party, I helped you load up your suitcases in the back of your father’s van, and gave you your last present. You opened it, and began to cry at the sight of it. I made you a scrapbook of our favorite memories together. I showed you the blank pages at the back of the book and reminded you that we would see each other again. You thanked me, and hugged me one last time before you got in the van. I waved to you with tears in my eyes as the van faded into the distance.

I waited for a text, phone call, or a letter from you, but nothing came. I tried to contact you, but you never gave me your new phone number or address. I scoured the internet, phone books, newspapers, and anything else that I could get my hands in hopes of finding your contact information. I searched for six months and didn’t find the slightest trace of you, so I assumed that you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I gave up and made some new friends, but they were never as great as you.

A year passed, and I finally received an email from you. You wrote that some bad things had happened in the past year, and you were starting to see no end to it. You didn’t specify what happened, but you had attached pictures which showed your new “fascination” with long sleeve t-shirts and turtleneck sweaters. You explained that your dad had been having a hard time with the divorce and decided to cope with a bottle of whiskey and his belt instead of talking to someone. You said that you sent me a letter almost every day, but since I didn’t write back, you assumed that I moved on.

I wanted to tell you that I never got a single one of your letters, but I could only read on.

You wished that your mother would have won the court case, because then you could have at least still got to message me. In one of the letters I never got, you wrote that you had begged for my help, because your father wouldn’t let you contact anyone, not even your mother. He made you delete your social media accounts, email addresses, and phone numbers because he was afraid that you would leave him, just like your mom. You said not to email you back, because it would only make things worse. You added at the very end of the email that there was nothing that anyone could do, so this was your final letter.

I picked up on your hint, and called the police. I told them that I had a friend that was planning to commit suicide, but the only evidence I had was your email sent from your father’s email address. Within a few minutes, an officer was at my house, tracing your email. He located your house, and called the nearest police station to come and save you.

The officer stayed with me as we were updated on your situation. The police were pulling up your driveway when they heard gunshots from inside your house. They broke down the front door of your house, and found your dad with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a belt in the other. His head was on the table, and blood was spilling off the edge of it, turning your unopened letters red. I screamed into the receiver to find you before you carried out your plans. More gunshots were fired, and I knew in that moment that you had left all of your worries behind. The officers found you on your bed with the gun in one hand, and our scrapbook in the other. You were in your favorite neon green dress, and had surrounded yourself with all of the trinkets we bought at the mall the last time you saw me. The last thing I heard was the sound of sirens before I couldn’t feel anything.

I woke up in my room with my parents and the officer watching over me. They told me that I had fainted, but I was going to be fine. When they said that, I broke down to tears. Of course I wouldn’t be fine. I would never be fine again because you were gone forever. You would never graduate high school. We won’t go to the same college together so we wouldn’t ever have to leave each other against our will again. You aren’t going to be there when I find my true love. You won’t be my maid of honor at my wedding. You won’t be the first one to hold my child and have the honor of being their godparent. Our future children won’t get to see each other and become best friends, just like us. We won’t leave our children with a baby sitter and go out on double dates to movies and fancy dinners with our husbands. We won’t throw parties together when our children grow up and leave for college. We won’t meet each other’s grandchildren and sew matching clothing for them and their dolls. We won’t have baking contests and complain about our aches and pains. We won’t be there for each other when our husbands pass away. We won’t die together, and stand before the white gates hand in hand. No, none of these things will ever happen now. But do you know what the worst thing is?

You will never read my letter.

Without you forever,

Your lonely friend