Unsolved

I.

My alarm goes off at 6:30, its time to start the day. I roll out of bed and head into my bathroom to get my shower. I try to take as long as I can because I really do not want to face my friend's Mira wrath at school. Last night we did something that I'm not proud to admit and since then, I haven't been able to reach Mira. Grabbing my phone, I try to send her another text.. 

"Mira pls text me back.", I wait a good five or so minutes before finally taking my towel off and start to get dressed. I decided on a red cropped sweater, light wash ripped jeans, and my black converse. Taking another look at my phone, not surprising, not a single word back from Mira. 

Heading down the stairs to get my morning cup of coffee, shockingly my mother is up and ready for her day at work as well. My mom is the local medical examiner, most of the time she's home for the day. That's one of the perks of living in small town Mayberry, not a whole lot of deaths require a medical examination. But today, something is very wrong. 

My mother looked at me with sad eyes, which only means a very few things. "I'm so sorry Anna, I don't know how to say this," she starts off with, "but it seems as though there was a murder last night; they've called me in.." There's that look again, like I'm about to break. "Hunny, what I am trying to say is, I'm afraid its Mira, they found her early this morning." 

I stumble backwards, not believing what I just heard. I hurried up, grabbed my jacket, bookbag, and booked it out the front door. I'm too shocked to cry or truly process the information I just received. Which it made sense to why Mira wasn't responding to my texts or my calls. Instead of taking my car, I decided to walk. It'll give me some time to process everything before I get to school and have to answer a million questions from the group. 

As I arrive to the gate, I already regret even coming at all. Everyone is already staring and starting to whisper. I continue to walk into the building, just looking down instead of in the eyes of everyone begging to ask the main question. 

"Are you okay, Anna?", Aubrey asks first while Carrie just stares. Not knowing how to respond I just shrug my shoulders. "I'll be honest guys, I don't know if I'm okay or not.", I start with, "I don't really know what to do, I'm half expecting her to walk in right now and claim it was all a joke for her stupid YouTube channel." Of course, that gains me a side eye from Carrie, simply because it was Carrie's idea to start the channel with Mira and then Mira just took it over. Mira definitely had a habit of taking things that weren't completely hers to begin with.  

Speaking of which, cue the awkward ex-who-slept-with-my-best-friend coming to see how I am montage. Avery and I haven't talked in months due to that simple fact, but he has been trying extra hard to get back in my good graces. Unfortunately for him, I'm not ready to look past it. 

"Anna, I'm so sorry for your loss," Avery starts out with, "Is there anything I can do, I know how close you and Mira were." That hurt, I sucked in my bottom lip and tried to bite back the harshness I so desperately wanted to release. "Yes Avery, you of all people definitely know how 'close' Mira and I were.", I started, "Maybe.." I cut myself off, like mom always says, kill them with kindness. 

Avery already looked taken aback at what I started to say, so I took that chance to walk away and go to my locker before I was late for first period. Stepping back from my locker, I look around before taking my phone out of my pocket to check the status of the video. The view counter on it tells me that it has gotten over 21 thousand views, guaranteed most of them from this school. The main person in the video used to be my best friend, until we both entered high school and then we just went our separate ways. 

As if on cue, here she comes with her head held in shame. The shame Mira and I brought to her. It wasn't my idea to follow her and track her to where she went, nor was it my idea to film what she was doing and with who. Mira, of course, played alpha with everything; forced me to take out that camera and film Lourie with an unknown blonde. I don't know what shocked me more, Lourie hanging around a girl with blonde hair or the fact that she was making out with said blonde. 

As I open my mouth to call out to Lourie, she glances up at me and hangs her head down in more shame. The bell rings and I rush to my first period class, History. The whole time sitting there before class actually starts, I get a weird and uneasy feeling. Over the intercom, the principal announces that each grade will have a few hours to attend mandatory grief counseling. The next few words pass through me like ice and take a jab right at my heart; "It is with sadness, I must announce the death of a fellow student," suddenly everyone stares at the empty seat beside me, "Mira Samson will no longer be with us, on that note, would all freshman please report to the auditorium to start mandatory grief counseling." 

My blood runs cold as I realize what is about to happen. Since the principal announced Mira's death, that means details are being released to the public. Which also means, since my mom is the town medical examiner, everyone is going to be hounding me with so many questions. Trying to pry information that even I don't know out of my mouth. Mr. Fitzgerald decides to let us have the whole period to sit and collect our thoughts on the simple thing of Mira's death. If I knew Mira as well as I hope to think I did, Mira's death was no where near simple and it definitely was not an accident or freak thing.