Ally

Ally. That was her name. Ally. She didn’t deserve to die. She was passionate, bubbly, and full of life. Everyone liked her. And yet, there she was. Lying in the closed coffin. They wouldn’t open it, said it was pretty gruesome. Everyone liked her. And as we all sat in the church we all had the same question in our minds, who did it? Who would take such a great person away from the world?
She was going to go to college. She had a free ride. Scholarships to cover everything. She was smart, funny, outgoing, nice, caring, loving, friendly, talented, everything. And now, now she’s nothing. Nothing but dead. Murdered.
It wasn’t random. Whoever killed her knew who they were killing. They knew exactly what they were taking away from the world. The killed her slowly, made her suffer.
None of the speakers at the funeral made it through what they wanted to say. Everyone in that room was crying. It’s funny, I didn’t even know she knew that many people. It was as if everyone who had ever passed her on the street came. It’s funny how one life can bring an entire town together.
The police never found out who did it. The killer covered their tracks to well. And after that, people started to leave town. I don’t blame them. But I couldn’t leave. Not without Ally. For years we’d sat under that cherry blossom tree in her back yard, talking about our plans, what we were gonna do when we grew up, the places we would see. But most importantly we’d talk about leaving the town, getting out.
That was all she ever wanted to do. She wanted to do something, she was going to change the world. We all knew she would too. I guess now we’ll never know what she could have been capable of.
I still remember the first time I met her, second grade. We sat next to each other, she always had peanut butter and jelly, and I had tuna. We used to trade. Sometimes her mom would pack her a pudding cup or a cupcake, and she always shared. I think she was the first kid to really understand the whole sharing concept.
I remember the sleepovers. Staying up until three in the morning making fun of bad movies. And the phone calls. Her parents were always fighting, but they refused to get divorced. She would call me in tears, I used to calm her down. We were best friends I guess you could say.
I remember the all night study secessions. She would try to help me study before tests. She’d help me with my homework. I don’t think I would have kept the grades I did without her. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the rest of my life, let alone college. Ally was everything to me then.
It’s funny, it all seems so surreal now. I wonder how it was even possible for someone to be a perfect, yet imperfect like she was. All the memories seem like a faded dream. And somehow I still don’t understand that she’s gone. Somewhere, back there when we were young, I fell in love with her. She never knew.
She always told me when she liked someone. We were real close. And now I look around, everything’s different. I keep thinking that one day her name will pop up in the media somewhere, like she was never murdered. But that’s the thing about dying, you don’t get to come back. That’s it your done. That’s the end. Just like that.
I never got to say good bye. Not to her face. I said it to her coffin, and then again to her grave. I told the grave I loved her, but what does it matter? She never knew.
Her death was sudden, random. In a way. To her killer it was anything but random. She was on her way home. She always took the bus because she didn’t want to pay for gas. She was coming from the preschool she was always volunteering at. She got to her house and tried the knob, it was locked, like always. She pulled out her key to open the door, and as soon as she turned the key the door was opened by a man inside. The man then grabbed her and pulled her inside. He dragged her to the only room in the house with no windows. Then he handcuffed one of her hands to the leg of a couch. He duck taped her mouth. Then he raped her. After he was done enjoying himself he took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her multiple times.
That’s the story the police give anyways. I’m sure she tried to fight back, but she wasn’t the biggest person ever. The guy must have been stalking her for a while. He didn’t take anything from the house, and there was no forced entry. The guy just wanted to kill her. I can’t imagine why.
Each of her parents blame the other, they haven’t spoken since.
I haven’t been the same either. I guess you could say I’ve moved on. But every now and then I’m reminded of her. At one point I convinced myself that we’d just grown apart, and that one day I’d read about all the great things she had done in the newspaper. But the truth is she was murdered. Shamelessly murdered.
After her death the whole town seemed to mourn. It brought us closer, which is good I guess. It’s just sad Ally couldn’t see it. She always wanted this kind of unity. Sometimes I talk to her. People think I’m crazy. I don’t do it too much anymore. I’m trying to move on, really I am.
But then I always think about the guy who did it. And what his life must be like. How does he live with the guilt? Does Ally’s ghost haunt him? And you think about heaven and hell. You know, the places you get preached about in Church? Is that man going to go to hell? Does hell even exist? Or when he dies does his soul go to the same place as Ally’s? Surely it can’t. Hell has to exist. Because otherwise what’s the point of doing good? Why don’t we all just kill each other if we’re going to the same place the instant we die? It just wouldn’t be right. Not at all. So I hope, for Ally’s sake, that hell is real. So that her soul can be free of her tormentor, who ended her life so abruptly. It just wouldn’t be fair.
I wish I knew. Then I could move on.