I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t sleep.

And sometimes when I cannot sleep my mind drifts to my childhood. And somewhere along the way memories of Nikki get tangled in the carefree floating of my reminiscence. It weighs me down. Heavy. A heart still, after all of these years, soggy and bloated with unresolved tears.

After Nikki’s death, our school was a hazy daze. I had mentioned before that she was Junior Class Treasurer. I was Junior Class Secretary. Or perhaps it was flipped. We ran in the election together and it was all a blur. Honestly, all I can remember were joyful meetings of four young girls. Lots of giggles. And perhaps someone was supposed to write something down. Probably me. But I always preferred to giggle. Nikki made it impossible to not be happy in a room filled with her laughter.

As I lay in my bed and thought of Nikki, I could not help but think of her killer. What had become of him?

It had been over twenty years since he had shot and murdered my friend. I had always been scared to look him up. Know his fate. Fear of the consuming and hopeless anger I would feel if I learned that he had been released from prison.

Fear of the known.

But the other night I decided to finally google his name.

And I found him. At one o’clock in the morning. My soul cold in my warm bed. The house dark. My spirit on fire. I found him.

On an inmate pen-pal website.

I found him.

His picture. His sentence. His plea for a girl to write him.

His eyes stared from my computer screen into my own. My stomach collided with my heart in a sickening thud. Tears streamed down my face until his profile was a swollen blur of words I could no longer see, but could repeat to you verbatim.

I tried not to dwell on the tidbits of himself that he had shared. His birthday the same as one of my loved ones. His eyes hazel. His hair black. His entire profile full of friendly banter and devoid of one word of remorse. I tried to concentrate on the fact that he was serving life. Behind bars. With no chance of parole.

And I tried to make my heart feel happy with that news.

But not an ounce of that feeling could be derived from my bones.

You see, all I could feel was a sick rage that he dared to address the world with his tidings of loneliness. His woe of sadness. His boredom. His need.

He left my friend to die while he washed his hands of gun powder. He left her to die while he changed his shoes. He left her to die in his apartment when he went to call the police from a pay phone instead of using his own home phone. Her father sat waiting for his daughter in that very same restaurant while their food grew cold.

He left her to die.

And she did.

And he dares to complain of loneliness as he breathes air that should be in my friend’s unharmed lungs. And he dares to brag of a vast education after he stripped a straight A student of her own. And he dares to speak of his body when her body lies in the ground.

And I cannot sleep.

And I cannot sleep.

And I cannot sleep.

He dares.