Ten Letters

The Best Friend

"Can you send Hannah Larson to the office, please," I was confused as to why I was being called down to the office; I never get in trouble and, as far as I knew, I didn't have an appointment today. I left my books in Mrs. Black's classroom and made my way to the office. The walls in the school were different shades of gray and black and white, it made the school seem even more like a prison. When I got to the office, Lacy, the secretary directed me to the back offices.

I stepped into the counselor's office, and there sat my theater teacher. She was crying, which I thought was weird since she never showed any emotion. "Hannah, sit down," I followed her orders. She wiped her eyes and composed herself, then took in a shaky breath. "Allie's dead," I didn't hear anything after that, I don't even remember what we were talking about in class. All I know is that day forever changed my life.

***

"Hey guys, I'm, uh, I'm Hannah," I looked into the group of unfamiliar faces, "I am, I mean was, Allie's best friend." all of the faces just kind of nodded along. "I know that we are supposed to talk about how great of a person that she was, but I can't bring myself to do that right now," I felt my breath catch but then I knew that it was not time to cry. Not yet. "Allie was selfish. I say this because she knew that she could talk to me. There were so many times that we would spend laying in bed talking about these dark thoughts that we'd have. Allie could have picked up her phone and called me, I would have gotten in my car and drove to her house for chrissake. Allie was a sweet girl, but there was absolutely no reason for her to do this to us. We are all people who she could have talked to, but instead, she swallowed a bottle of pills and went to sleep."

I am so ashamed of what I have just said that I walk out of the classroom and sit myself in the hallway. I started hyperventilating and caught myself using the breathing techniques Allie had taught me. She's mocking me from the grave, I swear. I was cursing myself and Allie just as I heard the door swing open. I waited for the shuffle of a herd's feet, but I just heard one set. Then I heard the person sit down next to me. I was too exhausted to look up at them, so I waited for them to say something.

"I understand," the owner of the feet had a calming voice, I looked up into deep brown eyes, looked at this country boy and knew exactly who he was. "I'm Tyler."

***

"So, I wanna tell you about this boy," Allie looked over at me, she was grinning and I knew she was serious about "this boy"

"Go ahead," I agged her on.

"Okay so, he's a country boy and his name is Tyler. And, this time it's different, I feel it. I know it, Hannah. It's not just a crush, I'm pretty sure he likes me, too. I'm gonna make a move soon," Allie started rambling on.

"How does he make you feel?"

"I can't really explain it, he makes me feel warm. Just looking at him makes me feel like I have just drank a cup of warm tea. This is how I feel about him," she started to pull out her green composition book, her "thoughts book" where she would keep all of her sketches and when she would think of a writing prompt or a catchy one-liner, she would scribble it into this book. She starts furiously flipping through the dated tabs at the top of the book. I have a feeling she knows exactly what she is looking for, has the date memorized from how many times she has visited this page. She finally finds the page and hands me the book.

The page has beautiful swirls all over it, the ink is practically carved into the pages from how hard she pushes down. I run my finger over all of the doodles before I even make it to the words. Then, in almost perfect handwriting reads the saying: "Sometime you meet someone and even though you never liked brown eyes, they are suddenly your favorite color." I guess this perfectly sums up Allie.