Violet

Chapter 18: To the End

Three weeks after the incident, I began to notice something that I should have noticed much sooner. Rosemary had not been working for us for a while. I thought about her when I found the necklace again on the laundry room floor. I would return it now, but I was grounded.

Before my teacher left that day, she left me with Anne Frank's diary. I couldn't wait to read it. As much as I wanted to dive into Anne's secrets, that had to wait because the doorbell rang. I went to see who it was and saw my father answering the door. Abby walked inside, carrying a backpack. My father gave her a big hug that included picking her up and spinning. He hadn't done that to me in years. I found their relationship strange. I mean, it was almost as though he liked her more than me. As if she was his daughter and I wasn't. Abby saw me at the top of the stairs and ran up to hug me.

"I haven't seen you in ages!" she said, hugging me.

My dad went out the door, leaving me and Abby to each other. I smiled at her. "I know. What happened?"

She shrugged. "Beats me. Come on, let's go in your room and catch up."

***

"Spiders!" Abby said, grabbing the sheets. "No way. That is so gross."

"Yeah, I can't cough without expecting a baby spider to crawl out of my mouth."

"Cough," Abby demanded of me, putting her hand out.

I playfully pushed her onto my bed. "No!" I laughed. "You're so sick."

"Speaking of sick," she said. "Which one of your parent's keeps doing this to you?"

I looked at her, confused. I wasn't expecting it to be my parents at all. What reasons would they have to do it? "How could you say that?" I asked her.

Abby examined her painted pink nails and smiled. "You can't tell me it's not one of them." she faced me. "Who else would it be? A ghost? Booooo." She wiggled her fingers in my face.

I pushed them out of the way. "Stop. That's crazy talk."

"Whatever," Abby said. She leaned on my shoulder and started singing some song I had never heard before. Some song about Yellow Submarines and people living in it. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," I told her then laid down on the bed. She laid next to me. Her head rested against mine and both of us stared at the ceiling.

"What do you think happens when we die?" She asked.

I wasn't expecting that question. To be honest, it creeped me out. Did she think she'd die soon? Did she think I'd die? I turned my head to face her and we stared at each other for a minute. I was just thinking what made her want to ask that.

"I don't know, why?" I asked.

She sighed. "I mean, do people really just live to die? Wake up go to school, wake up go to work, wake up, bam you're dead. Is that how it is?"

"Of course not. There has to be more to it." I said.

"What do you think life's all about?" she asked.

I wasn't religious, but I had thought about life and death before and why we were put here. I shrugged. "Maybe it's just a test. Those who fail, fail. Those who succeed get a reward."

"Like Heaven and hell?" she asked.

"I guess," I said.

"I believe there's more to this world than we think." She sat up and smiled at me. "I bet we weren't even the first creation put on Earth."

I laughed.

"I'm serious!" she said. "Come on. Look around you. Look at the sun. The moon. You really think it's just us and a big universe with nothing more? No creatures other than humans that walked the Earth before us?" She raised her hands in the air. "I bet there were creatures sixty feet tall." She stood up on the bed and put her hands over me. "I'm going to eat you!"

She started tickling me and playfully biting my shoulder. I tried telling her to stop but she wouldn't. I hated being tickled. It was torture!

"Give me your heart!" she said. While she tickled me, I felt the pain in my stomach again. She was doing more than I could handle.

"My stomach! Ouch! Stop!" I yelled.

She stopped and apologized. We looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

"I missed you so much, Violet," she said, then hugged me. "Promise me no matter what happens, we'll be friends to the end."

I hugged her back. "I promise," I told her.

Little did I know I just made a promise that literally would mean till the end.