Even at the tender age of 8, I knew there was a difference between deep, dark secrets, and deep, dark secrets. What Blake, my best friend since we were in diapers, had told me was the second kind.


I had to tell. People would get hurt if I didn’t.


But was it worth breaking a promise to Blake? That was an answer that neither I nor nobody else knew. It all came down to what was more important to me; the unspoken seal two pinkies had made, or the lives of three innocent people, one of which was Blake herself.


Three days had passed since Blake had shared her inner thoughts with me under the assumption that my lips were sealed. Three days had passed since Blake had been at school. Three days had passed since anyone last saw Blake.


Something was wrong. I went to the one person I knew would have answers to my onslaught of questions.


“Mommy,” I asked, twirling my chestnut-colored hair around my finger as I gazed up at her with olive eyes behind the rims of glasses. “Where’s Blake? She hasn’t been at school in forever!” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Is she sick?” My mother’s jovial expression immediately changed to one of utter seriousness.


“Alicia, honey…” She started. I cocked my head to the side, eager to listen. My mom rubber her temples and then resumed where she’d left off. “Blake is… I guess you could say she’s sick. Mr. and Mrs. Darcy sent her away so she could get better.”


“When is she coming back?”


Mom sighed. “I don’t know, honey. I don’t know.”


My heart sank. What would I do without my partner in crime, my best friend for life? Eight more years passed, and my question remained unanswered. Until one day, all that changed right before my very eyes.

“”Class,” Mrs. Campbell said, her voice carrying throughout the class. We immediately quieted. “We have a new student today.” Her careworn hands gestured to the petite blonde standing next to her with her hands folded quietly in front of her.


In the background, I could hear her introducing herself, but it passed through me like a dream. But it didn’t matter; I already knew who she was. We’d spent more than enough early morning pantry raids together sop that I knew her down to the freckles on her arm.


Blake Darcy had appeared once more.


“Blake, why don’t you take the seat next to Alicia?” Mrs. Campbell said, pointing to me. “Alicia, raise your hand so she knows who you are-”


“Oh, that’s okay. I already know who she is,” Blake said, smiling at me. A shiver ran down my spine. The once warm smile of my best friend had turned ice cold.


“Have you met before?” Mrs. Campbell inquired, her eyebrows raised ever so slightly.


“Y-you could say that…” I said, avoiding the gaze of both the teacher and the familiar stranger. Blake sat down in the seat next to me, grinning like a Cheshire cat, and clutched her bag to her chest.


“Aren’t you going to set down your book bag, Blake?” Mrs. Campbell asked.


“No, I’d much rather like it here where I can keep an eye on it,” the blonde said sweetly, something hinting in her cat-like eyes.


“I don’t think you understand, Miss Darcy,” Mrs. Campbell said. “Please set it with the others along the wall-” She was cut off.


“No.” Blake’s entire personality had done a 180. Her reserved and polite air had turned into a defensive and almost obsessive one. Mrs. Campbell sensed the change, and it must’ve scared her as much as it scared me because she just left Blake alone.


For the rest of the period, Blake and I sat in utter silence, the tension growing by the minute. I couldn’t focus, not with Blake sitting literally six inches away from me. So many unanswered questions flitted through my mind like proverbial butterflies. So many memories we had shared together. So many years we had to make up.


That would’ve been the normal response for reunited friends, but instead, I was… wary. It was like I didn’t even know her anymore. Something in her had changed; her heart was a sphere of crystalline ice, beautiful as it was cold and unfeeling.


The ringing bell broke my train of thoughts, snapping me back to reality. I collected my unwritten notes and shoved them into my backpack, trying to hurry out of the room, but then, I heard it.


“Its nice seeing you again, best friend.”


Before I knew it, the world had faded to black.


“Alicia… Alicia…”


Someone was calling my name.


“Alicia… You need to wake up, Alicia…”


Was it all a dream? Had none of it really happened?


“I don’t know what happened, Nurse Williams. She just… fainted. Like she’d seen a ghost or something…”


I knew that voice. That sickening, sickening voice. My stomach sank, and I kept my eyes closed, feigning sleep as I listened to their conversation.


“Miss Darcy, was it?” Nurse Williams started. “I have to go check up on the other students, so could you stay with Alicia until I come back?”


“Of course,” Blake said. I could practically see her early whites shining as her eyes turned to slits.


“Anything for my best friend.”


Footsteps echoed out of the room and I was left alone with Blake. I could hear her get closer and closer until I could feel her long blonde hair tickling my cheek.


“I know you’re awake, Alicia.”


I froze, but my eyes stayed shut. Maybe if I stayed like this, she would just leave me alone.


“Is that how you treat your best friend, Alicia? Ignoring her when she’s talking to you?” Blake laughed bitterly. “Fine, be that way, but just so you know,” her voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “I want you dead.”


I heard footsteps leave the room, but I still couldn’t move. My entire body had gone cold and paralyzed with fear. Minutes felt like hours until I was able to open my eyes. Something in the corner caught my attention.


Blake’s bag.


She’d left it in the nurse’s office, despite her obsession over it. I didn’t have any time to lose. I jumped off the cot and riffled through the bag, searching for something, anything, that would’ve told me where Blake had been or more importantly, why she was back.


My hands enclosed around a thick envelope. Pulling it out, I saw that it was addressed to the principal of the school. I tore at the paper and read its content. I audibly gasped, my senses going numb.
Dear Principal Lawrence,


My patient, Blake Eileen Darcy, has peen psychologically checked and is fit to return to society. Enclosed is a list of her medical records for the past eight years along with progress reports.

Sincerely,

Lilith Wynfield, Psy. D.

McLean Hospital, Adolescent Psychology Ward


“So, you found it,” a voice said. The letter drifted from my hands to the floor as my head slowly turned to the doorway. My heart flew into my throat. Blake was standing in the doorway, her smile even wider now.


“You know, you sent me there, to that… that nut house.” She took a step towards me and I scrambled against the wall. “It’s your fault they poked me and prodded me like some kind of third-rate science project!” Blake had dropped the act, and now I could see she was livid. Her ice blue eyes seared into my soul and her voice lowered itself to that murderous whisper.


“You were my best friend, Alicia Marie Darnell. I trusted you, and you betrayed me.” Brandishing a scalpel from a dissection kit in front of me, she crouched down so we were eye-level. She ran her finger across the blade, a look of sick amusement on her doll-like face. Then she looked me in the eyes, her intentions shining as bright as the light reflected off of the blade. “You know what I do to back-stabbers, Alicia?”


Something in me snapped, and before I knew it, it was all over.

“I don’t know what happened, Officer. I’d literally just cleared her so she could return to her family!”


“Well, Dr. Wynfield, you obviously didn’t do a good job because now we have a murder case on our hands.”


“But I don’t’ know what went wrong!” Dr. Wynfield exclaimed, defeated. “Alicia was such a good girl… Such a good patient… How could she kill Blake, the one person she always talked about when she was at McLean?”