Five friends and my twin sister.
That's what was taken from me. I lost the six people who I was closest to.
Abi.
Austin.
Maggie.
Jonah.
Xenna.
Ivan.
It still hurts to say their names aloud. You'd think that the amount of guilt I carry over their deaths would harden me, make me strong as a diamond.
It doesn't.
Every day, I feel the cracks widen a bit more; I feel myself dip lower to the ground.
No one ever tells you this, but guilt presses.
Every.
Day.
Maybe talking about what happened will help. Maybe talking about what happened will heal, but I doubt it.
We all met in Mrs. Williams' kindergarten class. Mrs. Williams was the nicest woman I'd ever met. She always had time for the most ridiculous question any of her students could ask, but something was off with her.
I think it was her eyes that gave her away. Even though she would smile wide for all of us, you could still see the sadness in her eyes.
Everything started with Mrs. Williams' class. I think if she'd put me in a different group that morning, things wouldn't have ended like they did.
She split the class into groups of seven.
Once she had everyone calmed down, she asked us all a question. Each group was supposed to go around their circle and answer it. Mrs. Williams picked Abi to start our group off with each question.
I remember that day because it was Abi's birthday. She was wearing the bright green ribbon I'd given her that morning. She was also wearing the sparkly, red plastic ring Xenna gave her when we were waiting in the cafeteria to be led to our classroom.
"Everyone ready?" Mrs. Williams asked.
Some said yes, some nodded.
"Okay," Mrs. Williams said. "First question: who is your best friend?"
As the other groups around us began to answer the question, Abi looked across the circle at me and smiled. "My best friend is my brother."
Austin was next. He had a birthmark that covered the lobe of his left ear. "My best friend is my dog Jake."
Everyone giggled. At that age, saying that your best friend was a dog was the pinnacle of comedy.
"My best friend is Xenna," Maggie said.
"My best friend is Maggie," Xenna said.
"My best friend is Jesus," Ivan said.
We all giggled again.
"My best friend is Abi," I said.
Jonah stared at the empty carpet in the center of the circle for a while before answering. "I don't have a best friend."
No one laughed. We didn't know how to respond to that. The rest of the class seemed to be having a great time, but our circle went quiet.
"Everything okay over here?" Mrs. Williams asked when she stopped by our circle.
"Jonah doesn't have a best friend," Maggie said.
Mrs. Williams frowned for a second and then smiled wide. She looked like a wind-up toy that the spring had wound down in and then wound back up real tight. Mrs. Williams gave us her biggest smile. "You can be my best friend, Jonah."
Jonah hadn't broken eye contact with the empty patch of carpet the whole time. He shrugged Mrs. Williams' words off like a jacket.
"It's alright," Jonah said. "I'm not very good."
Mrs. Williams did that winding down thing again.
"Sure you are," she said, nodding as she smiled and wound back up. "You're a wonderful boy."
Jonah just shrugged.
Abi was the first one to stand up. She walked over to Jonah and sat down beside him. Putting her arm around his shoulder, she said, "I'll be your best friend."
Abi was the kindest person I've ever known. Even for a kid she was big hearted.
Jonah broke eye contact with the empty patch of carpet. He seemed to see us for the first time.
Austin got up next. "My dog has smelly breath anyways," he said. "I'll be your best friend, too."
"Me, too," Xenna said, sliding closer.
"Yeah. I'll be your best friend, too," Maggie said.
"Oh." Ivan looked around the group and shrugged. "I guess me too."
We all stared back at him. Ivan was kinda weird. He shrugged again before moving closer to Jonah.
As I'm writing this, I've just realized something. I was the last one then, too. It's funny in a sad sort of way.
I slid over and said, "I'll be your best friend, Jonah."
That one moment bonded us all together for the rest of our lives, and it all started with my sister Abi.
Jonah looked around the circle. The circle that had originally surrounded that empty patch of carpet now surrounded him.
A couple weeks later, after Thanksgiving break, was when it happened.
It was a Saturday, and Jonah, Abi, and I were playing in Jonah's backyard. Jonah's mom and Jonah's house were scary, but his backyard was awesome. No one ever mowed or trimmed back there so everything was overgrown and wild.
To kids our age that were raised in the suburbs, it was like being in a lost jungle. We spent our time there searching for exotic species of worms, cataloging new species of rare, endangered birds, and discovering new worlds hidden behind every bush.
All of that changed when we found the coin.
Earlier that morning, the three of us watched a TV show on the Discovery Channel about gold prospecting. This was very exciting, because it gave us a formula for treasure.
Get some mesh, some water, and you could find gold.
When the show ended, Abi, Jonah, and I all looked at each other with wonder.
"Ask her," Abi said.
I nodded and walked into the kitchen.
Mom was leaning against the counter talking on the phone with Ms. Travers. Mom called her Meredith, but Abi and I weren't supposed to call grown-ups by their first names.
"Razor blades?" My mom asked Ms. Travers. She held up her finger for me to wait, so I stood there, trying to stand still as all that gold in the ground called up to me. My mom listened to Ms. Travers for a few seconds.
"She always seemed so nice though," Mom said. "And her wife was so adorable. Do they know why?"
As my mom listened to Ms. Travers' reply, I started running in place. I don't know why. It just seemed like I had to move or else I would go crazy with excitement.
"I did what anyone else would do? That's all she was saying when they found her? That's absolutely bizarre. I wonder what that-Meredith, can you hold on a moment? I'll be right back." Mom held the phone to her shoulder and looked down at me. "Yes?"
"We were watching a show on gold," I said. The words spilled out of my mouth too fast. "Can we use the strainer to get some gold?"
My mom stared at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"It's for gooooo-oooold!" I said, hopping up and down.
"No, sir," she said. "Go ask your father if he has any sort of mesh."
My dad gave us an old screen from a window to use, and we headed over to Jonah's. That was where we found the coin.
Actually, we didn't find it. Abi did. She was the one prospecting for Mayan gold while Jonah and I were hiding in a tree as lookouts for any bandits that might want to steal our treasure.
Abi called us over when she found the bumpy, black disc. She examined it for a second and tossed it away. She thought it was a rock.
I picked it up and rubbed it against my shorts. A big chunk of mud broke off when I did. Under that chunk, you could just make out the profile of a face. It was only a silver dollar, but Jonah and I crowed over it like it was the last piece of gold on the planet.
Abi kept asking if she could see it, but we wouldn't let her. I don't know why we wouldn't let her, but we wouldn't. She finally got fed up.
"I'm going home, and I'm going to tell mom," Abi said.
"Baby," I said back.
"I'm gonna tell her that, too."
"Go on then tattle-tale."
Abi put her hands on her hips. "You're gonna be in so much trouble when you get home."
She turned around and stomped off. I remember looking over at Jonah and laughing.
"We're rich," I said.
Jonah nodded.
"WE'RE RICH!" I yelled at my sister's back. I saw her shoulders start to shake as she left the backyard.
That memory is the last living memory of Abi that I have.
Me screaming that Jonah and I were rich as she walked out of his backyard, crying.
I never saw her alive again.
When I finally went home, that silver dollar warm in my pocket, my mom asked me where Abi was.
I can still remember the way my stomach rolled over and my arms went numb. I told my mom that Abi had left Jonah's an hour or two earlier. I can still remember the look on my mom's face.
Her eyes got huge and she went pale. She was quiet for a few seconds, then she started screaming and I started crying. She was screaming for my father and breathing too fast.
My father came into the kitchen and started yelling, because he didn't know what was going on.
I don't really remember much of the following days.
All I remember is someone telling me that Abi had been taken, because children don't just disappear like that. No one saw anything so that had to be it.
Other than that though, it was all a hazy parade of relatives, police officers, and family friends. All of them looking down at me. All of them with the same look in their eyes. The look said, "You did this. You caused our Abi to disappear, to be taken from us. It's all. Your. Fault."
I don't know how many times I prayed for God to take me instead. Everyone hated me, and loved Abi.
Take me, God. Please take me.
When I'm drunk and the pills are rolling heavy, I ask God why he took her, and not me.
He doesn't bother to answer now, and he never answered then.
When I went back to school, everyone stayed away from me.
Everyone except the kids that were in that original circle. They rallied around me and told me that they were my friends. Xenna in particular. She told me that she would be my new sister if I'd let her.
That made me sick to my stomach. I'd already lost one sister, and now Xenna wanted to fill her place and make me whole again.
The next day, my second day back to school, one month after my sister disappeared, everything changed again.
I found the note inside my desk. The letters were in the correct order, but each letter was written upside-down and backwards.
I LEFT YOU A PRESENT IN MY DESK.
I'LL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND.
The present was pencil box found in Xenna's desk. These are the things it contained:
One severed, rotting dog's tail. Written on the white fur, in red Sharpie were the names Maggie, Ivan, Austin, Jonah, and Christopher. The letters of each name were written upside-down and backwards, but in the correct order.
Human hair. A single hair from Xenna's head. We all knew it was hers. She was the only one in the class with red, curly hair.
A human finger. It was my sister's middle finger. It still had on the sparkly, red plastic ring Xenna had given her for her birthday.
Abi's finger wasn't rotting. It was fresh.
That meant that my sister was alive which I thought was amazing. At the time, I couldn't understand why my parents were crying about a sign of life from my sister. I thought it was great.
She's alive, I wanted to shout at them. She's alive. Abi's alive. My sister. Is. ALIVE!
Abi was alive alright, but that was the problem.
Before her finger was severed, someone placed it into a mechanical pencil sharpener and ground her finger down to the bone.
