The night before my best friend disappeared, she pressed a crumpled $5 bill into my palm and said with a grin, “I owe you money. Take this bill!” I laughed, thinking it was just another one of her random quirks — she was always doing small, unexpected things that made ordinary moments feel special. I tucked the bill into my savings jar and thought nothing of it. I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d ever see her.
Three weeks later, I was cleaning my room when I spotted the jar glinting in the sunlight. Out of boredom, I decided to count the bills. When I unfolded that same $5, something strange caught my eye — a faint bluish scribble near the edge. I held it closer to the light, squinting, and my stomach twisted. In tiny, careful handwriting were the words: “No matter what happens, you will stay in my heart.”
For a moment, I couldn’t move. The message felt like a ghost reaching out. My hands shook as I reread the line, trying to make sense of it. What did she mean? Why hadn’t she said anything that night? The next day, she was gone — vanished without a trace.
I took the bill to the police, clinging to the hope that it meant something — a clue, a direction, anything. They took it, examined it, and handed it back with a sympathetic look. “It’s touching,” they said, “but not evidence.”
Days blurred into months, and months into years. The flyers faded, the phone stopped ringing, and the world moved on. But that little blue message never stopped echoing in my mind. It became a wound that never healed — a mix of love, mystery, and unanswered questions.
Ten years have passed, and I still keep that $5 bill in a small box by my bed. The ink has faded slightly, but the words are still there — delicate, defiant, and full of meaning. Sometimes I imagine her handwriting, her voice, her laugh. And I wonder if she knew.
Maybe that was her goodbye — not in words spoken aloud, but in ink pressed into paper, meant for me to find when it was already too late. Maybe it was her way of saying that no matter where she went, or what happened to her, our bond would never disappear. Because love, once written in memory, doesn’t fade — it lingers, quietly, like a message on an old, worn $5 bill.
