“Olivia, put the gun down!” I yell, with a gun up to my head.
“Don’t tell a soul about this, you hear me? You won’t tell anyone, or I’ll be after you just like I’m after Chloe. Go!” Olivia booms. I run down the school hallway, away from Chloe’s locker, away from Olivia. I run to the office.

“Mrs. Stone? I need to call my mother. Please?”

“Is everything alright, Amelia? You seem frightened,” Mrs. Stone replies. I consider telling her everything. But I just violently shake my head, and run for the phone. I explain to my mother how she needs to come pick me up. As I pase across the office I see my mother’s white Nissan pull into the school parking lot. I sprint outside and up to the car.
I knock on Chloe’s door, feeling a sense of apprehension in my stomach.
Knock. Knock.
Chloe answers the door, smiling faintly. I smile back, quietly. I walk into her house for the last time, wondering how I’m going to be able to keep myself together for the next few hours.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Chloe asks, trying to break the ice. I nod. As she pours me a glass of iced tea, I realize how beautiful she really is and how lucky I’ve been to have her as a friend for the past six years. She hands me a pink, plastic glass with a lemon slice on the rim, filled with iced tea. Together we sit at her table, drinking our iced tea.
“What happened?” I ask.
“About what?” she asks, confused.
“Between you and Olivia. Something went on between the two of you,” I reply.
“Its because of you, Amelia. You are what happened,” she says, with a hint of anger in her voice. “When you two got in that fight in sixth grade, you came to me, remember? She thinks that I have stolen you from her, which I didn’t, and now, six years later, she wants revenge. She’s become a bully to us, Amelia. She was your best friend in the sixth grade, and I’ve done nothing to her.”
“Chloe, I tried to stop her. But she pointed the gun to my head.”
“Amelia, don’t worry about it. Coldwater Falls was getting too easy for me anyway. Do you want to go outside?”Chloe asks.
“Okay.” Chloe has a pretty big pond in her backyard, with a pier and everything. We go over to the dock and sit down on the edge of the pier, our bare feet dangling in the cold, September water, watching the fish swim between our feet. We sit hand-in-hand, thinking about how tomorrow we will depart from each other.
We begin to talk about memories that we once shared and take time to celebrate our short, but memorable friendship. As our hours dilute into minutes, it begins to become harder for both of us not to cry our hearts out in each other’s arms.
The sun begins to set behind the trees, and we hug each other so hard we just about suffocate one another. I take my face out of Chloe’s shoulder, and I look into her deep, brown eyes. I see a sparkle, which grows into a glisten, which forms into a tear, trickling down her face.
“I asked for no tears,” she bawls, “but I didn’t realize how hard that could become.” She buries her face into my old, turquoise sweatshirt I always wear and begins to quietly sob. I feel small tears rolling down my face, eventually falling down onto Chloe.
As we walk inside, we both continue to cry. I pick up my belongings, and hug my best friend one last time.
“Thank you, Chloe, for being there for me, when nobody else was. You brought me up when I was feeling down, you brought me comfort when I fell hard. Our friendship was a small, but sure infinite, and I’m grateful for it. Sizes of infinities are infinite, Chloe, and the one we shared was short, and it was rough, but it was one of the best ones made yet,” I say.
“Thank you, Amelia, for just being yourself throughout everything. The past year has been so hard on you, and I know this isn’t making it any better, but you haven’t changed one bit when your entire life has. I know that your life has been as hard as it could possibly be at this stage in life, and it sure has been painful. But thats the thing about pain: It insists on being felt and it demands to win. But when you think about it, you can’t feel pain without feeling joy.”
“Goodbye, Chloe,” I wail. “I will miss you.”
“Amelia, I’ll miss you too. Stay strong for me. I know life has been pretty rough on you the past eight months, and this hasn’t made it any better. Make life the best you can make it, Amelia West.” Chloe has much more control over her tears than I do. I wave to her for the last time, and get on my bike. It is dark now, but I just keep riding.
As I ride, I cry so loud I am pretty sure that the neighbors I bike past can hear me. I acknowledge the reality that the next few days would be almost as hard as the past few months have been after my father’s passing. In less than one year, I have lost two people completely, three counting my mother who practically isn’t here anymore. I have absolutely nobody now.
I run up to my room, trying to be as quiet in my sobs as possible. I continue to cry a river, grabbing my PJs and crawling under my bedspread, my head underneath, pretending I don’t exist in this painful life I’ve been living. Pretending as if I can escape the realities I have to overcome. Pretending that being under my blankets would protect me from the pain and sorrow ahead of me.
I wake up to find myself looking at a digital clock reading 9:00 am. Already late for school, I want to stay home. But I have missed so much already this year, I have to go to school sometime or another. I get on the bike and ride.
Chloe doesn’t show up at school today.
Or the next day.
Or the next day.
I begin to realize that she is gone. Olivia won the battle that Chloe and I worked so hard to overcome. But we lost.
This annoys me. She must feel the same.I haven’t seen her in four days, and I begin to realize it is over. I do things around the house that I don’t typically do-but if it keeps my mind off Chloe, I will do whatever it takes to be happy again. I do the dishes, vacuum the living room, and clean the frosty windows. All the things needed to be done, but it just didn’t occupy my thoughts well enough for the real Amelia West to come back even a little bit. Except there is no Amelia West. There is only a person who calls herself Amelia West, but she’s not who she says she is. The real Amelia West died with my father, and now is in heaven with him. I can’t hide from the flashback of the event with Olivia, the gun, and Chloe’s locker. It keeps replaying over and over again in my mind as if it is a YouTube clip on replay for eternity.
Monday something is different. I wake up from a deep, resting sleep feeling refreshed, and for once in quite a long time, almost happy. The welcoming sun glimmers through my window shades. To my surprise, the sweet smell of breakfast cooking fills my nostrils with joy. I haven’t smelled this soothing aroma for almost nine months. My fuzzy slippers feel cozier than ever on my feet. As I run down the stairs, I see my mother by the stove.
“Good morning!” my mother says enthusiastically, her face beaming with joy.
“Uh, hi mom,” I say, a bit confused. “What’s all of this?” she wraps her arm around my shoulder, and looks directly into my eyes.
“Amelia, I’m sorry I haven’t been a great mother. These past few months hit hard on both of us, and I guess I wasn’t prepared for it, even though I should have been. But I do have to say, I am so very proud of you for becoming responsible enough to care for yourself while I have been in the ‘newly widowed’ stage,” she replies. I smile at her. I hug her back.
“I love you, Mom,” I express. It’s been a while since I’ve told her that.
We sit together at the kitchen table, eating the slightly overdone waffles. I can taste that they have been burnt, but the idea that she made breakfast was enough to satisfy my hunger. We finish our breakfast quickly, and I go up to my bedroom to get ready for school. This morning has been the first time in a week I haven’t concentrated on Chloe. But today, I feel like something is going to change. I can sense it in my pit of my stomach.
My mother and I get into the white Nissan and drive away to school. As we drive, it begins to rain. We talk, and I tell her everything that has been happening the last few weeks. From the concert, to Chloe’s expulsion, now she knows everything. It feels nice to have a mother again. It has been a while since I really had one.
I get out of the car and step into the parking lot. This morning has been the first day I have been on time to school, and don’t feel the need to come home early from school. I somehow believe that today I will never want the day to end.
I walk to advisory, my head up, grinning. I sit down in advisory, in the front row. I just sit there, doing absolutely nothing, my gaze locked on the door, watching all of my fellow classmates walk into class. I sit up with the good posture I rarely use. Today is a good day. But as I stare through the doorway, waiting for the rest of my advisory to enter, I see someone I did not expect to see today. I stand up, without control, and walk out of the classroom. I see a short, curly haired brunette, her locks of hair bouncing while she walks. She turns around, her deep, brown eyes overflowing with joy. Her smile the most perfect smile in the universe. And it belongs to one girl I have known for just about six years-Chloe Williams. I sprint up to her, but as I run, my arms open wide ready to hug her, I feel absolutely nothing. I wrap my arms around what I think is to be my best friend, but nothing is there-nothing but the air I breathe. I walk back to class, feeling this sense of disappointment and embarrassment, and I sit in the middle row of desks, my eyes engaged on nothing. I sit there, thinking about the illusion I fell for, thinking about how I know that Chloe will not be back. The bell sounds, and I exit the classroom in the river of seniors making their way to first period.
I don’t do much in periods one, two, three, or four. But in lunch, I get a shock of excitement as a new chapter of my story opens.
I walk into Mr. Stone’s classroom, lunch bag in hand, and I sit, nowhere specifically, just in a seat. As I eat my salami sandwich, someone sits beside me. I turn my head to the desk to the left of me, and I feel this surge of excitement, fear, and confusion swim through my veins. I don’t particularly want to be seat next to Olivia Stonehouse, but what option do I have, I look into her eyes, they twinkle with happiness. I know why she is so happy, but I am still curious about why she sat next to me.
“Olivia?” I say between bites.
“Hi,” she says.
“What are you doing?” I ask
“I’m having lunch. What are you doing?” she replies while pulling out a container of what looks to be like leftovers.
“Why are you sitting with me and not the other girls?”
“Do you have a problem with this?” Olivia says, raising her voice.
“No,no not at all,” I reply, trying to calm her down.
“Good,” she says, back to the regular tone of voice she always talks in. “We should hang out sometime.”
I don’t respond to her statement, because to be honest, I don’t really want to be friends with the idiot who got my best friend expelled.
“Well, what do you say?” she asks.
“Uh, I would have to think about it. And I think you know why,” I say.
“Look, I know I got Chloe expelled, and I know that upset you. But quite frankly, you upset me in the sixth grade. We are equal now, don’t you see? I wanted her out of the picture because I missed you, Amelia. And I want to be friends again, just like six years ago. Are you in?” Olivia explains.
“I guess so,” I begin. “But if anything like this happens again, it’s over. Do you understand?” I respond, and she answers back with a nod. I stand up, and hug her.
“I’m so glad we are friends again,” I say.
“Me too,” Olivia agrees.
Although I have had a very hard past, this is light at the end of the tunnel. I will miss Chloe eternally, but just like my mom claim she has, I have to move on, accept the past, and be ready for the future. As Olivia and I walk outside of the school building and out into the world for break, I see several rays of sunshine seeping through the rainclouds, as if my father is smiling down on me. I look up into the heavens, and smile at my father, and smile at God. I was unsure whether God was really there, but now it is clear to me that he is. Olivia is a blessing, not a curse. This life I live may not be as bad as I thought it was.