With my mind in another world, I reached Anna’s house within five minutes. I twirled up the dirt path, and danced up the steps. My heart fluttering with joy, I reached out and pressed the ancient doorbell. “Ding, dong!” No answer. I pressed it again. ‘Ding, dong!” No answer. I knocked on the hard, cherry wood door. It opened with a creak. I peeked inside. “Hello?” No answer. Where could she be? I mean I know this is sort of a surprise visit, but in all fairness, I did email her before I left. Maybe I should call her. As I reach into my purse for my phone, my mind takes me back 2 years to when Anna got her first cell phone. It was February 5th, and she was turning eleven. It was February 5th, and the phone by my bed was ringing like crazy. I rolled over and covered my ears with my pillow. “Stop ringing!” I moaned. And the phone stopped ringing. But the noise wasn’t over. A second later, a voice filled my head. “I’m eleven, I’m eleven!” It was Anna’s voice. “Pick up, pick up, pick up!” I lazily grabbed the phone. “I’ll be right there,” I said, using the best morning voice I had. “Hurry up, hurry up!” And then silence filled my room again.

Twenty long minutes later, I found myself standing at Anna’s front door. I didn’t have to knock. She just opened the door with a big grin on her face. I made something of an attempt to grin back. It didn’t work. Her smile instantly faded. “Are you ok?” she asked. I nodded. “I’m just a little tired. You know, since it’s 6:30am and all.” “Sorry” she said, smiling.

Anna grabbed my hand and pulled me into the house. “Come on! You have got to see what my dad gave me!” “At 6:30 in the morning?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Well…you know…I sort of…you know…umm…” Woke them up? I finished for her, grinning. “Yea. That’s it. I woke them up!”

She pulled me into her room, grabbed her purse, reached inside, and took out a pink cell phone. “Wow.” I said. “I know. Isn’t it beautiful?” Anna sighed, and stroked her brand new phone as if it was a newborn baby. Then she walked over to her bedside drawer, opened it up, and pulled out an array of cell phone decorations. “I want you to help me decorate my cell phone.” “Really?” I said acting surprised. “I would be honored!”

We sat on the floor, and began separating the charms into two piles: Pink, and not pink. Obviously, the not pink ones were the reject pile because they didn’t go with the pink feel of the cell phone. And the pink were the ones that belonged on the phone. In the pink pile, everything was pink. There were pink hearts, pink diamonds, pink bunnies, pink dogs, pink starts, pink suns, and pink moons. Anna and I stuck all of them on. We didn’t leave any out. When we were done, we stood from afar, and watched the cell phone glitter and shine with pride. I looked over at Anna. She had the biggest smile on her face. She met my gaze. “It’s perfect.”

A scream shattered that memory into pieces, and brought me back to reality. I pushed the door open, and ran inside. “Anna?” I yelled. No answer. As I began to climb the set of spiral stairs, I heard a gun shot. “Anna?” I yelled even louder. Another scream. The sound of metal hitting the floor. By this point, I had reached the top of the stairs. I paused. Not sure which direction to go. Left, right, right, left, left, right… “Anna?” The sound of running water filled my ears. I turned my body to the left and began sprinting down the hall. As I neared the bathroom, my feet soon became soaked with something wet. I looked down. Blood. I slowly opened the door. I froze. There, in the bathtub, was Anna. She was naked; cuts everywhere on her body, her eyes half closed, floating in a sea of red. “Oh god…Anna…” I murmured.

With shaking hands, I reached into the left pocket of her favorite beige colored pants, which had been carefully folded and placed on the toilet seat, and took out her pink cell phone, remembering once again, how we had both decorated it together. I quickly dialed 911. When the EMT’s arrived, I stood helplessly as they carefully lifted Anna out of the bathtub and onto a stretcher. I tugged on one of the EMT’s arms. He turned to look at me. Choking back tears I asked him if she was going to be ok. I told him about the cell phone. I told him how much I cared, how much I loved her, how much I needed her to stay alive. At one point I thought he was getting annoyed with me because I couldn’t stop talking about Anna. But when I studied his face, I could see that he was still staring at me with his dark green eyes and listening intently. When I finally was able to stop talking, I sunk to the floor and broke down into tears. The EMT pulled me up and wrapped me in a hug. “Everything’s going to be ok.” He said. At that particular moment in time, I believed him.

Once at the hospital, I watched as they passed her off to another set of doctors who in turn, wheeled Anna to a special room. I watched as they hooked her up to all these machines. I watched as minute after minute, doctors and nurses kept entering and exiting, occasionally writing down notes on thick pads of paper. I remember trying to see what one of the nurses was writing, but when she saw me, she clutched the paper to her chest and hurriedly walked out of the room. Exhausted, I sat down in one of the white plastic chairs, the closest one to the bed. I looked at her. Her sweet face was covered in tubes and IV lines. Her eyes were closed, and you could see her chest slowly rising and falling to the beat of the heart rate monitor. Seeing all this, caused tears begin to fall down my face. They fell down my face until my eyes closed and I could no longer feel them.

“Kate.” A voice said. “Kate. Wake up.” I sleepily opened my eyes. When the blurriness cleared, I realized I was staring into Anna’s smiling face, her light blue eyes sparkling. My heart leapt with joy. She was alive. The love of my life was alive. Without hesitation, I leaned down and kissed her. When I pulled away, I was grinning like an idiot. She took my hand. “Kate.” She said. “Yea?” I responded. “I love you. You’re my best friend. When I get out of this crazy place, let’s get married. Let’s live together. Let’s grow old together.” I stared at her in bewilderment. “Then why did you do it? Why did you try and kill yourself?” I could already feel the tears coming again. She is silent, and focuses her attention on the ground. I gently lift her face up, so our eyes meet. “Tell me.” I whisper softly. She takes a deep breath. “I loved you so much it hurt. I knew I could never tell you because…because the way you acted around me, it didn’t seem like you’d ever love me back.” Now she was the one in tears. I kissed her cheek, and wiped the tears away. “Anna, you know you can tell me anything. And I’m telling you with 100% certainty that if you had told me the way you felt, I would have told you the exact same thing. Because you, my dear, are my soul mate.” She smiled. “Really?” I nodded and smiled back, then turned to press the nurses button. I had almost forgotten to let them know that Anna was awake. The button now pressed successfully, I was now able to focus completely on Anna. I wanted to tell her so many things. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her. I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. I wanted to marry her. I wanted everything she had described to me. But when I turned around, my heart sank. Anna’s eyes were closed, and her chest no longer rose up and down. I collapsed on her bed, tears streaming down my face. The EMT with the dark green eyes lied. Everything was not going to be ok.