Forgotten

~Five~

My breath caught in my throat as the faces of the people I trusted most in the world appeared in front of me. All of my friends were here and alive. Nicole was standing beside me, too, looking just as shocked as I felt.

There was Abby and Hannah, their skin whole without any scars on their arms, and their necks void of any rope burn marks. Both had had a suicidal tendency, and despite all the depression medication they took and the therapy sessions they attended, both eventually took their lives. Abby and Hannah were sisters, and I remember the phone call I received from their parents the next day, their voices broken and raw from crying over their daughters' deaths. I was so numb that I really couldn't process the information, until all the grief slammed me like a brick wall at their shared funeral. There, I was an absolute train-wreck, freely sobbing over the closed caskets of two of the best people in the world, and my other friends were holding me back from murdering the bullies that pushed Hannah and Abby over the edge.

Then there was Richard. He was the only guy in our friend group, but he was like the big brother figure. I know that I thought of Richard more of a brother than Luke, and his death was even worse than Abby and Hannah. He had been at band practice that night with the rest of the band, and he was already old enough to have his license and a car. I heard that practice that night ran until eleven, but it was on a Friday, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Now, I don't know exactly what the circumstances were, but I do know that a drunk driver crashed into Richard's car head-on, crumpling the windshield and dashboard of his car, and the wheel slammed into his chest.

The paramedics told his parents that the wheel had been what killed him, crushing his ribcage into so many fragments that it punctured his lungs and heart, killing him instantly. What's even worse is that the only injury the drunk driver received was a broken leg from the impact. He was the reason that another one of my friends were gone, and he only had an injury that anyone could receive! I think Richard's parents sued him from manslaughter, but they never really spoke about his death that much. I couldn't blame them.

And finally was my best friend. She was the sister I never had, being my identical in every way except for our appearance. Her death probably hit me the hardest out of all my friends. Cassy was by far one of the most attractive girls at our school. You couldn't enter a room with her without at least ten boys staring obviously at her; some even outright drooled! Her brown hair always seemed to be in perfect ringlets, with a few strands adorning her face while the rest was in a bun like a princess. Cassy wasn't one for makeup either -- only some concealer and the faintest trace of eyeliner; she was naturally beautiful. Despite the stereotype that everyone that is remotely attractive in high school is a complete ass, Cassy was the opposite. She had a generous and loving soul, always kind to everyone unless you gave her a decent reason for her to act any other way. And she was ridiculously smart. She had maybe one more requirement to fulfill and she'd be valedictorian.

Many times people would take advantage of Cassy (mostly for her smarts), in more ways than one. Richard was already her boyfriend at the time, but boys continued to pine after her in the most undignified ways. I remember that on her birthday, we were all hanging out in her house, and there was about twenty guys from school on the premises, screaming the "Happy Birthday" song to the top of their lungs. Cassy's father threatened to call the police, and that sent them scurrying pretty quickly. But it was her trusting nature that probably ended with her dying.

Richard's death broke something within Cassy, more than it did in the rest of us (the rest of us being me and Nicole). For a while, she secluded herself from us, saying that it reminded her too much of Richard when we were around. I understood that, and for a few days, the three of us didn't talk to each other to get over it. On the fourth day, I went over to Cassy's house to talk, because I knew we would be more at peace if we grieved together than separately. And then I saw the blood...