Evanescent

Fourteen

Mom lets me go to Annie's. I pack my small bag and head over there. As I walk up the familiar steps to ring the bell, I hear another car pull up behind me. It's a pizza car straight from Dominos. Hallelujah, this is exactly what I need.

Annie runs out of the door and pays the man with a big smile. She takes the pizza and runs inside grabbing my arm on the way.

We walk inside and Jaclyn and Grace are sitting on the couch watching our favorite show, Shadowhunters. "Nessa! Have you seen episode eight? It's amazing!" Grace calls back at me.

I plop down on the couch beside them,"No, I haven't had time."

"Well now you do!" Says Jaclyn and passes me the popcorn. I love them.

We watch the episode and they're right, it's awesome. Then we sit on Annie's bed, eat food (of course), and play truth or truth. Our favorite game.

"Did any of you know I was going to jump?" I ask first on a serious note.

"Nessa," Annie says,"do you really want to talk about it?" She glances at me for a second then goes back to reading her People magazine.

"Yes, I really do"

They all sigh simultaneously. And we sit there, all of us playing a silent game in our heads. They wait for me to get bored of waiting for them to answer and move on. But I won't.

"I knew," Grace says. Of course it's Grace who confesses. She's so selfless. You could ask her to jump off of a cliff in someone else's place, and she would do it in a heartbeat. "You called me that Monday, it was a snow day. You were saying you were the cause. The cause of the many things that were messed up. You said,'The only way I can fix it, is to give the world what it wants.'"

This gives me a clue as to why I did it. I wasn't mad at anyone else, just my own self.

"I was scared that you were talking about one of the three of us so I picked them up. And drove to your house. We were going to try and convince you to stop but when we pulled up, you were laying in your driveway. You laid there in a pool of blood-stained glass. So we called the ambulance and then they brought you to the hospital."

"What was going on at school those two weeks? Why did I do it?" I ask almost immediately.

"Nothing major, Hanna tricked people into thinking you stole Annie's diamond earrings. But nothing else."

Then It's Jaclyn's turn. "Who do you like?" She asks to all of us. I don't want to answer.

"I don't like anyone," Annie says, but we all know she's lying by her tone of voice.

"Annie tell the truth," Grace laughs," we all know you like Dylan." Dylan. I haven't talked to him since I got back. He was really sweet though before I forgot.

"Just a little," Annie smiles,"and Grace we all know you like Ash!"

"Can't lie," she laughs.

We play "marry, kiss, kill" and talk about boys. The usual. Then watch a movie and lay in bed. Of course Annie and Grace want to watch Clueless and Jaclyn and I want to watch Bring it On. Jaclyn is cheer captain and hasn't seen it so she feels like it's kind of a necessity. Her reasoning is pretty convincing so we watch Bring it On and go to sleep. I sleep amazing expect I woke up for a second when Annie went to the bathroom.

•••••

The next day, I wake up first. Darn it. I want to just scroll through my Instagram feed but I can't find my phone. I reach for the nightstand, not there.

I walk around the room checking every nook and cranny. Drawers, couches, everything. I walk into her closet it looks like it was chopped of of the Kardashian house and glued to her room, as usual. Except for the remote control dog that disables cars she made. It got first place at science fair.

She has a giant collection of shoes and purses. I get a little side tracked and decide to look at a purple tote. My clumsiness never fails and of course manage to knock down an old suitcase.

It doesn't look like it belongs in her closet of glamorous clothes so I open it. And the first thing I see, is my name written on the inside of the lid. Then I dig through a stack of papers. All of them have are typed out and have
"-Vanessa" at the bottom.

Maybe these are the key. They look like diary entries so I check the dates. All of them are between February 14th and February 28th. Perfect. I better not read these now, so I slip them into my overnight bag.