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I satbeneath the window in the bedroom of our hotel room.
Sunlight glinted in through the gap in the drapes, the bright rays streaming in and clashing against the duskiness that held fast to the rest of the room.
My elbows were rested on my knees, and I held the letter dangling between two fingers.
It was strange that something featherlight could feel as if it weighed a million pounds.
It’d taken me two months to build up the strength to go through her belongings. That long to bring me to do it, though I’d promised my mother it was something I would eventually tackle.
The problem was, I’d been wholly unprepared for what I found. The large keepsake box that had been hidden at the back of her closet. Inside were uncountable letters to Jana, our best friend, who we’d forever lost on that horrible night.
Tortured letters that had begged for forgiveness.
She’d also printed out a ton of pictures and news articles related to the incident, and she’d left paranoid thoughts and speculations all over the edges of them.
When I’d opened her tablet, I’d found much of the same. Tons of articles that had been saved. Letters that she’d handwritten on the writing app, most of them to Jana.
Laments from when our protected world had been ripped open to the horrors and atrocities that really existed. Things we’d been warned about but, in our youth, had been foolish enough to believe could never touch us.
We’d both been stricken by it.
I’d been scarred so badly that I’d turned in on myself.
Sure, I’d tried to move beyond it.
Going to college the way I’d planned.
Trying to act in a way I thought was normal.
Attempting to date and love and explore.
But I’d ended up this shell, a once outgoing girl who’d had dreams of opening a clothing boutique with my sister, who instead, had ended up hidden behind a computer and locked in her house.
Secluded.
Shrouded.
But I hadn’t known the way Emmalee had obviously suffered. The guilt she’d carried since she’d been the one who’d convinced us to go out that night.
It hurt that she hadn’t shared it with me, but I guessed I hadn’t shared the depths of my fears, either.
But what had really ripped the ground out from under me was the letter that had been left with the rest of these things, my name at the top of it.
I’d been shocked when I read it.
A cold dread curling through me when I saw her wishes.
It was a chill that hadn’t left me since.
As if to underscore my qualms, a bout of laughter echoed from the front room, Maci’s tinkling and my mother’s lower as they played memory with a deck of cards.
“I found it!” Maci shrieked, her laughter wild.
“What? How did you remember?” my mother sang.
“Because I got a good brain. My mommy says I’m extra smart, don’t you know?”
I could almost see Maci’s adorable nod to emphasize the point. The smile that would be on her face.