Have you ever had a secret that keeps you chained to a place? Like, you had a chance to have your dream life but then you couldn’t all because of one stupid mistake. I was the one who stayed behind and on that night we had promised to never see each other again. It’s been ten years since our hands touched and we shook them in agreement. It’s been ten years since I had to scrub blood and dirt from my hands that felt like it’d never come off. So tell me why when I walk into the town’s only grocery store today I see her face?

At first, I thought it was my mind playing a cruel trick. The anniversary of the life-changing event was lurking about and whenever that time came around…I got different. It was like the guilt transformed my brain into my own personal torture chamber. But it’s never her face that I see. No, it’s always that same bloody face that pleaded to be spared…Crystal. That was her name.

She was going to be a doctor. Everyone in town loved her and…it shouldn’t have happened. I almost fall in the store but steady myself using one of the shelves. I take a deep breath. It’s okay, I think. No one has ever suspected us. And why would they? I was Lisa Walker, once salutatorian then valedictorian after Crystal’s unfortunate demise. I was going places and one day I was going to leave this town. But it never happened. All because of Harriet.

Harriet was considered trouble because her daddy was trouble. She was the one parents warned their children not to talk to or befriend. We used to be best friends and everyone said I was a great influence on her. No one expected Harriet to even graduate. The elders of our town had labeled her as a future teen mother as soon as she hit puberty. Under my influence, however, she didn’t just graduate, no, she ended up succeeding in life. Who would think that two success stories would ruin it all just before graduation? No one. And that’s how it needs to stay. That’s why I stayed.

Every now and then I go and check that spot. The spot where we buried her. I apologize to her till I’m sobbing and beg for her forgiveness. I don’t think I’ll ever receive it because I’m cursed to relive her distorted face every single anniversary of her death. I go back to focusing on my grocery shopping, deciding to dismiss the idea of Harriet being back in town. She wouldn’t break our agreement especially when she had it all now.

Every now and then I look her up and see photos she’s posted of her lavish vacations with whatever beau she was wooing that month. Her text along with her photos was always inspirational but they all read like self-brags to me. I was happy for her of course. After all, I was the one who sacrificed everything so she could have the life she dreamed of. But did she have to be so showy about it?

I’m walking down the bread aisle looking for the usual brand I buy when I see I wasn’t mistaken earlier at all. There, comparing two loaves of bread in her hands is Harriet. I become frozen with fear and betrayal.

Everything felt like it was crashing down around me.

“Harriet?” I say my voice oddly raspy.

She looks up, turning her head. Her eyes light up when she sees me.

“Hey, Lisa!” She greets, her tone warm like she’s greeting an old friend.

We were old friends but what we did and promised had erased that all. I walked closer to her seeing all the differences in her actual appearance compared to the ones she posted online. There’s only one consistency between the two personas she presents which is her near-perfect makeup that looks tattooed to her face. But her eyes didn’t look as bright and big as they did online. She had laugh lines and moles that you would never see in her vacation photos in Italy.

“Why are you here?” I ask, my tone accusatory.

She looks around, a bit nervous.

“I have some business here,” she says, her voice loud.

I look around wondering what the theatrics were for. But then she places both loaves of bread in her hands back on the shelf. She turns, moving towards me. And then does something unexpected.

She hugs me. I don’t react to the hug becoming a stiff board. She whispers something in my ear that almost makes me faint.

“Did you hear there’s been a break on Crystal’s disappearance?”