Chocolate
Have you ever sat there… just sat there… staring at your life, and wondered —
What did I ever do to deserve this much pain?
Like maybe — if past lives were real — I must have been someone horrible. Evil, even. Maybe that’s the only explanation for why life keeps beating me down like this.
Well… here I am. Rock bottom.
Not for the first time. But this time feels like the end.
Why?
Because I’m sitting here — staring at the grave of my best friend.
Not just my best friend by school. Not just a classmate. But blood. My cousin. My person.
Miley.
And it’s been three days.
Three days since she stopped talking back to me. I tried everything — flowers, chocolate, even her stupid favorite iced coffee that she forced me to like.
Nothing.
But I guess it makes sense now.
Dead people don’t talk.
I don’t even remember the last time I ate something. Not properly. My brain just… shuts off when life gets bad. It’s like my body’s way of coping. No food. No feelings.
Maybe the last thing I ate was at her funeral, when I passed out and someone probably shoved something down my throat to wake me up.
Other than that? Just chocolate.
The emergency chocolate in my drawer. The one Miley told me to keep.
“When you wanna hurt yourself, grab a chocolate bar instead. I swear it works. Trust me, Ellie.”
She said that.
She told me that.
But here I am. Sitting next to her grave. And she’s the one who swallowed a handful of pills.
It should’ve been me.
She was the strong one. The wise one. The one who believed in karma and angels and stupid healing stones.
Amethyst helps with nightmares, she said once. Put it under your pillow, Ellie. Watch the magic.
Magic.
Where’s the magic now, huh?
I couldn’t sit there anymore. So I walked to her house. Or what’s left of it.
The door was open. Her mom — my aunt — was screaming her lungs out. My own mom was there too, holding her up like she might shatter into pieces.
We didn’t speak. Just… nodded.
I went straight upstairs. To Miley’s room. It still smelled like her. Her music wasn’t playing. Her crystals were untouched.
Empty.
More empty than even her body had been at the funeral.
But then I remembered something.
“I always keep the quartz under the bookshelf. Feels like a guardian angel to me. And if I leave the house without it — I swear, Ellie — I feel like I can’t breathe.”
I crawled to the bookshelf.
Nothing.
Gone.
Miley would never leave that stone. Not in death. Not in life. No way she lost it.
Unless someone else took it.
Annie? No. Annie didn’t believe in this spiritual stuff.
Then who?
There was one last place to check — Miley’s secret box in her closet. Where she kept her spells, her notes, her everything.
The code? Easy.
Our birthdays combined.
Click.
Open.
No stone.
But… a letter.
Not some creepy spell. Not a goodbye note.
A letter.
“I finally got accepted into that goddamn university. I hope this changes everything. Maybe Dad will stop calling me a loser for once. Maybe Annie can move out with me. Maybe I can convince Ellie to come too. I want us all out of here. I want us to be free.”
My whole body went cold.
She didn’t want to die.
She was planning her future.
This wasn’t suicide.
This was murder.
The cops suspected it — at first. The neighbors told them about the drunk monster that was her father. But with all the pills, all the meds in her system — they called it an overdose. A suicide.
Case closed.
But this letter?
This was proof.
And I bet the university email was still on her laptop.
My heart was racing. My hands shaking.
I needed to show someone. Anyone.
And that’s when I heard it.
The door handle rattling.
That voice.
Him.
Miley’s dad.
Outside the door.
“Ellie,” he growled. “What the hell are you doing in there? Open. The. Door.”
