The word hung on my tongue, burning my senses. “Dead?” still I couldn’t pass the word, and it came out jumbled. “Mom, what do you mean?” she stroked my shoulder, tears clouding her eyes. She spoke, her tone loud but calm “Ben, Cassie is dead.” I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. Cassie, my Cassie couldn’t be dead. Just this morning she was perfectly fine. We have been best friends since kindergarten when she shared her juice box with me. Now, our senior year, she … dies. No it can’t be true. “I don’t believe you.” At this point mom started to bawl. “Sweetie, her car was hit by semi. She’s gone.”
Let me take you back twelve hours. At nine thirty this morning, I was standing at my locker talking to my friend Greg. Suddenly, Cassie came running around the corner, down the long hallway, and to my locker. “Ben, I got in.” she screamed, and threw her arms around my neck, her girly shriek filling my ears. I spoke, a little confused. “In where Cassie?” she pulled out a manila envelope. “Princeton!” Again she jumped into my arms. “Let’s go out to dinner. To celebrate. I’ll pick you up at eight.” She kissed my forehead and ran back to her class. Greg stared at me, in awe at how fast that had just happened. He chuckled. “That has to be a record.” I pulled my journal out and smacked him on the arm with it. “What?” he laughed, chasing me down the hall.
That Wednesday, I stood over my girlfriend’s body, as she lay in a casket. Her light ginger hair was piled around her head, and she looked so different without her gray hoody and blue jeans. She wore a yellow top and a black skirt covered in daisies, and looked nothing like the girl I love. After the funeral, I went up to Cassie’s mom, and her six year old brother. I hugged her mom, then turned to her little brother, Scott and lifted him to my shoulders. “Anytime you need someone to hang with, you call me alright?”I put him next to his mom and walked back to the grave site and dropped something, and as I walked away, the diamond engagement ring glistened in the sun.