My dearest friend, 

 

The last time I saw you it was June of 1974. We had been out celebrating our high school graduation and had ended up on the cliffs of Crescent Lake. Ralph had driven us there, a few drinks had been drunk, and before we knew it you were gone. All I could find of you was the little golden locket you had worn since we were eleven. The one you begged your mother to get you. The one with your favorite picture of us shut away inside. I have kept that locket ever since. I have worn it around my neck as you should have worn it around yours. It was there as the police conducted their investigation, and when the case went cold after only four weeks of searching. I was wearing it when Ralph proposed, and I made sure it was seen in the wedding photos. I wear it now as I write this letter. It reminds me every day of my lost friend and the short time we spent together.  

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I remember when we met as kids, and how we were stuck together after that first shy hello. People used to joke about how similar we looked. They said we could be twins. We took their jokes to heart and saw each other as sisters instead of just friends.  

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We would do everything together. I remember the first movie we bought our own tickets for, Hello, Dolly! The ice cream parlor we used to frequent is still there, only now it is a chic coffee shop. They sell oddly named drinks with overpriced pastries, but my granddaughters love going there. Crescent Lake has been more or less forgotten. There was a campground that moved in, but the owners let the place get too run down to sell any spots. I believe the only people that really go there anymore are teenagers experiencing the thrills of young love. It is where you would sneak off to with Ralph, before the accident. I remember all the trouble I used to go through to convince your parents that you were staying at my house, or to keep them from investigating your room when I was over at yours. And how fretful you would get when Ralph would take a couple of hours too long to meet you. 

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Everyone used to talk about how perfect of a couple you were. Now they say those things about myself and Ralph, although they don’t know the difference. The life I have built with Ralph may have been born from a tragedy, but so are all good things.  

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I’ve thought about our reuniting more times than I care to admit. Every “Poor Rose, God rest her soul” I hear eats at me and leaves me feeling a guilt mistaken by others for grief. I never meant for it to be this way, my dear Alice. It was an accident, all of it. Ralph and I had never wanted you to find out about us. I knew it would have crushed you to hear of our betrayal. I didn’t want us to argue the way we did. I certainly didn’t mean for you to fall, or for us to be too stupidly intoxicated to not look for you for longer. It is a mistake that I regret with every passing day.

 

I never wanted to live this lie; you must understand that. I was in so much distress when I lost you that I let Ralph cover it all up. He thought your parents would miss you more than my parents would me. In the end, he was right. Everyone assumed I had died or ran away. My parents stopped looking after eight days. I guess that shows how much the really cared about me. Your parents would have never stopped looking. They never really did, but only because they believed our lie. How they fell for our ruse I’ll never understand. For them to mistake me for their daughter for 50 odd years without suspicion hurts me for you. I had twin girls and I was always able to tell them apart, even when others couldn’t. 

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People always did say we looked similar enough to be twins. But we weren’t twins. We weren’t even sisters. We were just friends from two completely different worlds.  

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How I used to long for our positions in the world to be swapped, and how I still do. You should have married Ralph and created the family you always wanted together. You should have made this town better with your library filled with the best books. You should have lived the picture-perfect life from the movies. I should have lain a skeleton, unknown, at the bottom of a lake. I deserve the unlucky fate I brought upon you, but instead I lived your life for you.  

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I will join you very soon, Alice. I stand now at the ledge above Crescent Lake as I sign this letter. The same ledge that took your life. Perhaps they will find this letter, but the locket I return to you.  

 

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All my love, 

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Rose