Dear Annalise

I told her she was going to be ok.

That was the first lie I ever told.

I held her hand until the heart monitor went silent. I don't remember what happened after that. There was a mixture of screaming and crying and doctors dragging me away. That was the first time I thought I would die. I had so many more things I wanted to tell her, so I picked up a pen and started writing.

Dear Annalise,

Hey Anna! This is the first letter of many. I have so many things I want to tell you but I'll start from the beginning, the day I met you. I knew no one the first day of grade 3. I had just moved from France. No one wanted to get to know me. They all thought I was weird, except you. You introduced yourself as Annalise the Queen of swimming. Your dream was to be in the Olympics. Since my English wasn't very good, you made facial expressions and drew pictures that made me laugh. I still have one of those drawings. We became good friends quickly after that. Remember our first sleepover! We had pizza covered in pineapple because you insisted that fruit brought joy to the pizza. After that we went to the mall together for the first time to get matching My Little Pony shirts. Your mom drove us in her new car. We sang along to Taylor Swift for the whole ride. I miss those times. I wish you were still here. I wish we could do our hand shake just one more time. I'll write to you again next week.

Sincerely,

Mia