"I-I-I don't even know what happened!" I told the officers as I tried (and failed) to stop stuttering. "All I know is that one minute he's standing there talking about his favorite Merlot, the next he's on the floor in a pool of blood."

Richard and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. Our mothers were best friends, which automatically meant that we would become best friends. We went through all of our years of schooling together, from preschool to college. He even convinced me to join his fraternity, which I thought would never cease to be the biggest mistake I ever made. Boy, was I wrong. We were both lucky enough to get into Harvard Law, which was nothing short of a miracle. When it came to the bar exam, I passed with flying colors. Richard....well it took him a few tries. I've always had it easier than him with that sort of thing. I was smarter in school, I'm more popular with girls, I'm better looking, and I'm much better at my job that he is; and honestly, that's just the way I like it. It's not anything against Richard, like I said before he really was my best friend, but I just like to be the best. Having that power over others, being the person that they strive to be to no avail, is intoxicating. I guess some people might say that this compulsion of mine is "unhealthy" but hey, I'm not a psychiatrist so I really don't see anything wrong with it.

A couple weeks before Richard's.....let's call it an incident, we had been shooting some pool at his house. I use the term "house" loosely because Richard's home is more like a castle than anything else. Despite his sub par work ethic, Richard still rakes in a good amount of money and he's always been a fan of the melodramatic. His house nauseates me sometimes, but at least it's somewhere I can get away from the family. We were bullshitting about work when all of a sudden he drops a bomb on me.
"So....I'm seeing someone."
"Ha! Is it Valerie from the Pleazure Zone? You finally got her to go out with you? Man, I've told you a million times she's just a golddi-"
"No, David." he says, cutting me off. "It's someone from work. Mary. She's pretty and smart and she actually likes me! We've been dating for a week now and I think it's getting pretty serious."
"Yeah, okay buddy. Whatever you say." I mutter while rolling my eyes. I had heard Richard say things were "getting serious" with his favorite stripper Valerie before so I was sure this was going to be over in another week, tops. And then I met Mary.

She wasn't pretty, she was beautiful. I mean not my type, but I could see why Richard would be into her. In fact, they were so into each other that it was almost disturbing. We were at lunch downtown, but you would've thought we were eating a romantic meal for three under the Eiffel Tower by the way they were acting. It was all "Richard said the funniest thing" and "You'll never guess what Mary did!" Throughout the entire excruciating two hour lunch that's all they talked about: each other. I went home that night after work with a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I poured myself a drink while I tried to figure out what it was. It was almost as if I was jealous, but of what? I wasn't jealous of him, Mary is far too homely for my taste, and I certainly wasn't jealous of her. So then what was it? I drank and drank and drank while I tried hopelessly to untangle the mess of thoughts quickly taking up more and more room in my head. The sun was just beginning to creep through the slots of the closed blinds in my living room when I finally figured it out: they're happy. I have always had everything I wanted in life except that one thing, that one thing that seems so simple yet so elusive. Why, after achieving absolutely f***-all in life, should Richard get the one thing I can't have? Why should he have anything that I don't?! An anger grew inside of me that even surprised myself and I could hear that voice again, that voice that says "You have to be the best."

The idiot cops mistake my guilty stammering for overflowing emotions about Richard's death. Though, I guess it's not really their fault. There really is no way to trace it back to me. The rat poison came from his own house. No one expected his "shocked and horrified" friend to slip poison into the wine of the man that he's known since birth, so they blamed his butler, Mr. White. I swear to god it looked like a game of f***ing Clue and the jury just went right along with it. Don't get me wrong, I do feel bad that it had to end this way. Like I said before, he really was my best friend.