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A girl, flowers in her hair. A girl, standing still, the edges of her silhouette faintly outlined by the light. A girl, suspended in a movement, as if she might at any second turn and smile at me. But she doesn’t. She never does, and I never see her face. Instead, her lips move, and waves of inaudible words wash over me. I wake up. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It’s dark at night, and always lonely. Even lonelier now that she’s gone. I keep waiting to see her just around the corner, bent over a drawing or painting on an easel with strands of dark hair tucked behind the ear. She’ll smile, eyes unfocused, seeing but not really seeing, lost in the little world she’d created. And now her pencils and paintbrushes lie untouched, collecting dust. It doesn’t seem real, even now. An ordinary April afternoon was when it happened. The phone rang and as someone spoke, their voice became softer and softer, the meaning of words bleeding away. I can barely remember now; it’s all a blur. An accident, a fatal accident. Quick and over in an instant, no pain at all. But it all seems so distant, so strange, because she’s always been there, smiling that smile of hers so much like the springtime, paint on fingers and cheeks. Suddenly, for her to be gone, for her to not be there anymore, strikes me as so absurd I almost laugh. It can’t be real. It can’t. Because if I have to live in a world without her----- Then------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A girl, flowers in her hair. Closer now, ever closer. She walks away from me, and I follow. The green grass withers away into yellow, and even the sky falls into darkness. First, I see a cracked photo frame, dusty and old. Then, a knife, gleaming red. Then, a doll half-smashed to pieces, the head still intact, cold blue eyes fluttering open and closed, open and closed. “I used to be happy,” a voice speaks. Her voice. “I had a mother and a father who loved me.” She says more, but I can’t hear, her words falling into waves of sound again. I wake up. I think she was calling my name. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hannah was my best friend. We’d always been together. Playing dress-up and hopscotch, tea parties and racing cars. There was, of course, the period of time where I was teased for playing with a girl. Even though we fought sometimes, in the end we were together. And then we studied together, had late night cram sessions, talked about the future and laughed and cried together. She was an artist. She’d applied for a prestigious art school and I knew she was bound to get in. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I wished I could be like her, so focused and passionate about the things she loved. Then we stopped seeing each other as often. Over time, we became distant. There was a barrier growing between us. The moments we had were short. Painful. I didn’t know what to do, because, after all, it’s a lot easier to let something fall apart than it is to hold it together. She became increasingly stranger, paranoid and hunched over. The last time I saw her her nails were bitten down to bloody stumps. I knew something was wrong. I was afraid. I was afraid but I did nothing. I did nothing. And now she’s gone. Everything’s changed. The world still spins crooked on an axis and the sky's still blue and life goes on but not for me. Not for me. I still see her, out of the corner of my eye, not carefree and beautiful like she was, but stooped over and hunched down with dark places where her eyes should have been. I try to forget---- It chases me. I see hair in the sink and blood on the walls and cold fingers strangle me. I run and run and hide and hide. She’s a monster now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A girl, flowers in her hair. “I wanted to tell you everything,” she says. “But I couldn’t. After my father died…. I got a stepfather. And he...he….” she breaks off, and I can’t see her face but her body is tense. “Then, high school. You never noticed. You never did…. But they’d hurt me. They always did. They would shove me and spread rumours. You never noticed….” She is crying now. “My whole career, ruined, because I couldn’t get myself together. I failed all my tests, I couldn’t handle it….. I couldn’t get away, not at school or at home. So I turned to other things. Drugs. Alcohol.” Her shoulders shake with sobs. “How come you never noticed, Aaron? I was crying out to you but you never….” She breaks off, and walks away, and disappears. Never looks back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I wash my face in the sink, blinking cold water, shaking my head, shivering. A noise like shattering glass interrupts my thoughts. I slowly walk out of the bathroom to investigate. I see a figure, hunched over on the carpet, black and bloody. It lifts its head, a terrible, cracking sound in its neck. It’s face is twisted horribly, with empty eye sockets streaked with blood. “No!” I scream, and back away. It opens its mouth, black, sharp teeth. It stands up. Its not human. Its not…. “Aaron,” it says my name, voice like wet blood bubbling up. I scream. I run. I’ve been trying to forget---- “Leave me alone!!!” I cry. “I hate you!” “Why?” It asks. “We were best friends once….” “No!” I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about that. “You weren’t there for me. You left me all alone… and look what I’VE BECOME!” It screams so unnaturally that I stuff my hands against my ears to block out the sound. “NO!” I scream back. I keep screaming. My voice cracks. “I’m sorry…..I’m sorry… Hannah. Sorry I didn’t help you….” I curl myself into a ball and start shivering, tears running down my face. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A girl, flowers in her hair. She leads me to the final place. I recognize this as her house, the attic. A rope with a loop hangs there. She gets up with the help of a chair and puts the loop around her neck. She kicks the chair away, and finally turns toward me. She’s not the Hannah I once knew. Her eyes are gone, dark holes where they were, trails of crimson blood sliding down her face. And somehow she is crying. Her words are clear to me now. Help me… ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I’ve been trying to forget. Hannah didn’t die in an accident. It was just something I made up because I didn’t want the pain. I remember now. That day, I finally decided to do something and went to her house. But I was too late. I saw her. Hanging from the ceiling. I’ve been trying to forget. She’s made me remember. Weeks later I’ve been diagnosed with schizophrenia and PTSD. I don’t believe I have either of those. Because it’s real. Everything’s real. She’s not gone, but she’s not quite there, either. She haunts me now, a friend that I couldn’t save. She haunts me. And somehow, I’m happy, because this is what I deserve.