Her words “I’m sorry” rang in my ears and my head throbbed and pounded in unison with the heavy footfall of EMT’s running through our house. The light blue walls swayed as my vision blurred. I turned to grab hold of the doorframe as more of them rushed past me. Many of them glanced at me, doubtless waiting for me to give some kind of backstory or reason for this.

“We’re going to the hospital” one says, “Yeah, we’ve done all we can for now” and they leave in a herd. They don’t motion for me to join them; no one asks if I need a ride. They just leave and I don’t get up, not for what seems like years, I don’t even move. Instead I sit there and I think. I think about dancing to spice girls and eating chocolate chip cookies and not caring about the calories or how many boys looked at me that day. I think about every single time I’d told her I hated her I also remember us being happy and laughing, and her being my best friend. I remember mom and dad smiling at us from behind our relic of a camera and everyone being so happy; or maybe they weren’t because just yesterday I’d thought everything was great, I’d looked her right in the eye and seen nothing.

As I got up I looked around the room, I finally realized I had walked into our old bedroom. The room we had shared until it was no longer cool to have sleepovers with your sister. Nothing had changed about the room, the narrow pink beds sat in their respective corners and the desks and dolls were lined up in an assembly line. Obviously something my mother had felt the need to do one lonely afternoon while everyone else was at school or work. I looked at each doll and tried to remember their names, but I couldn’t. Next I tried to remember the last time I had even been home long enough to have a real conversation with Morgan. It had probably been months since I’d even hugged her.

“MORGAN” he called “Is Claire home?” he had no idea what he’d just walked into. I didn’t answer at first; I figured I could give him a couple of seconds more of normalcy. Finally I got up and ran down to the kitchen where I found my father calmly sitting down and starting on dinner. I watched him pull meat out of the fridge and cut up tomatoes, I watched him with envy that I can’t even begin to explain. Just when I was about to speak up he turned around to the sound of his cell phone ringing. It took me a second but I realized who must have been calling and I was no longer envious. I could hear the nurse explaining Morgan suicide.