Stranger

-4-

Those were the earliest days. The days when I first met Victoria. I'll just say it now. We became very good friends. She was outgoing and kind, while I was shy and kind.

Until September 25. That was the day Ginny didn't come home from school. My mom got a call and we all drove to the intersection. Ginny's car... It was, well... It's still hard to say. We grew up together, we were born best friends. From the moment we saw her car both my mom and I knew the police were telling the truth. The whole front of her car was in shreds. The windshield was shattered, along with the rest of the windows. Mom cried days on end. I didn't shed a tear. I was just frozen. Feelingless. I thought that she would still take me to school. The next morning I went to her room to wake her up. She wasn't there. No one was. The funeral was nice. It turns out he man I answered the door to was Ginny's boyfriend that had proposed the night before. She was going to get married. She could've had kids. She would've had a house and a life and job. She would've been happy.

It was a drunk man. He died as well in the crash. Instantaneously. It was in a flash.

The funeral was nice. Lots of flowers. Her boyfriend was there. He seemed to be paralyzed like me.

"Is she really gone?" He asked me.

I just nodded. "S-she is."

"I never got to say goodbye. My last words to her. They were: see you tomorrow. I expected to see her tomorrow," he explains to me.

"So was I, but we'll never see her again..."

There was nothing to bury, so we just put a tombstone.

Ginny Caroline Thompsons: a loving sister, daughter, girlfriend, and woman. 1995- 2015 R.I.P

After that, I disappeared. I sat for hours on end in my room.

I read the whole boom within an hour. After I read it, I didn't call Victoria when I finished. I didn't call rover. I didn't call the teachers to tell them I wouldn't be in class. I didn't call anyone. I just wanted to be alone, and I was.

Until the door bell rang.