Dear Emma

Audrey

Dear Emma,

Nate left Australia a couple of years ago. His father had a job in America. It got lonely after that. I was the last one left in our special group. I’m still here, in the same old house we had that sleepover in, when you ran away, and we never saw you again.

I started high school a week after you left. I was still so sad, so inconsolable then. On my first day, I didn’t say a single word, not even to the teachers. I refused to participate in those ‘introduce yourself’ activities they always have. I was the last in the whole grade to make friends, but I guess I did. They’re still my friends now. Lasted all through high school. I wish you could’ve, too. They’ll never replace you, but I think you would like them.

Did I tell you I’m going to uni next year, Emma? I’m studying criminology. I don’t really know why. I guess I want to find out what happened to you and why that sick person did it. Not that it will really help anyway. I wish we could find you, Emma.

Better yet, I wish you were alive.

Life now is so different. You’d hate it. Last year, I spent so much time studying, I hardly even saw my friends. In year 12, there’s so much pressure on you. Well, there was for me, anyway. How well you do in all your tests determines your career, and how fast you get there. Of course that wouldn’t have mattered for you. You would have gone to all the parties, and still aced every exam. You were brilliant like that, Emma.

You could have still been brilliant.

Do you ever wonder what we’re doing, Emma? Up in heaven? Or can you see us from there? I wonder what you and Nate are doing all the time. I haven’t talked to Nate for a couple of years now, and I haven’t talked to you, well…

I miss you so much.

Love,

Audrey