But grief needs somewhere to go.So I shut the door in their faces, never realizing Angie had already left them one final mission.
Before we moved to that town, Angie had been gentle in the sweetest ways. She left sticky notes on the refrigerator, sat on the bathroom counter while I got ready for work just to talk to me, and once cried over an injured bird until we spent half the night searching online for ways to help it.
She felt like my daughter and my best friend wrapped into one person.
Then my company transferred me, and in one summer, Angie lost everything familiar.
Loneliness has a way of pushing even good kids toward the first people willing to say, “Come with us.”
Her new friends weren’t bad kids. They were simply restless teenagers drawn toward abandoned buildings, late-night adventures, and the excitement of doing something reckless. A few times they got caught exploring old places, but nothing serious.
Still, after Angie died, I couldn’t stop wondering if one different friend might have changed everything.
Two days later, I buried my only child.
Throughout the funeral, I kept glancing toward the church doors, half expecting Angie to burst in late, laughing and apologizing.
Her friends didn’t come.
