The Hunt for The Wallflower

Prologue

We are walking through the Point State Park, My best friend Abby and I. This is to be one of her last nights on Earth, and she has chosen it to walk to the park, as we always do. Outwardly, she still looks the same, cheerful Abby. It's not until you get closer that you see the bags under her eyes, her dry, tired skin, her greasy, uncut hair, her heavy, rattling breaths, and the expectance in her eyes that will scare anyone away.

Mother Mary, it scares me too. She doesn't look like Abby anymore.

But she is still Abby. The girl who laughs and smiles. The girl with curly red hair and huge blue eyes and the best skin in the world. The girl who is the rock of the people she knows.

And again, I shall list all of her qualities, and every one of them is redeeming.

She is beautiful, smart and funny and kind. She is sporty and trusting and sweet. She is a would-be pediatrician, a would-be student at Yale. She is rich and likes stadium pop and has pumps that click loudly on the floor. She has cashmere sweaters and leather jackets and designer jeans. She flirts and dates and cares. She laughs and smiles through tears. She is selfless. She listens, and answers.

I have nothing to be proud of.

I am grim and serious. I am too smart, too suspicious, too uncaring of my looks. I am the one who cuts her hair to shoulder length because she hates doing her hair, the one who washes her face only because Abby implores it of her, the one who eats donuts for lunch and doesn't care, the one who's personality comes in bursts. Smart, suddenly, angry, suddenly, scared, suddenly. I am artistic and scared and stupid. I am contradictory and angry and envious. I wear hoodies and jeans. I like the Smashing Pumpkins and the Beatles and the Smiths. I am selfish. I whisper. I am uncool.

Abby has leukemia. She is dying. That she should die and I should live, shows how unfair this world is. It shows that the corrupt can overpower the good. And even the most heroic all have a price to pay. The better you are, the shorter you live.

That is how I know that I am corrupt. Abby often says that I am one of the smartest people on the planet, but thinking like nothing takes only selfishness.

"So," Abby says," I've been receiving letters from a boy named Charlie Kelmekis for like a long time now."

"He trying to get into your trousers?" My Irish accent shows though I look much like my mother, who is Vietnamese.

"No. He's.....he's just like us. Just like you and me."

Ever since we met, we are not Emily and Abby. We are EmilyandAbby. AbbyandEmily. We are one. That is why I fear for her mortality.

"He's scared, innocent, artistic, sweet, gentle, obedient....he's like a child, you can't forget him."

"He still writing to you?"

"Nah..last I heard from him was 1992 August 23rd."

It is now August 23rd, 1999.

"And how old was he?"

"He was sixteen."

We were about to become juniors. He would be about to study his third year in college.

"So you were twelve?"

"Yeah. He-"

A car honks, and Abby's worried mum comes out.

"Abs, we gotta go, honey!"

She is so worried for Abby that she might as well be Abby herself, fighting the disease for her.

"Okay mom!"

And she whispers the last words I will ever hear from her.

"Read the letters. Find him."

And she hops off into the sunset. My best friend, Abby.