"Sixteen!" I screamed, making sure she could hear me from wherever she hid. "Ready or not, here I come," I added as I dashed out of the pink room where we usually counted, in search of Aneesha. A part of me still wondered why she switched our counting time from seven to sixteen.

Aneesha had become my best friend ever since we moved to England. She and her mother lived next door, and I was more than grateful to have a girl like me who helped me through the changes of our big move.

Whenever we played hide and seek, we always counted to seven. Seven, because it was both our favorite numbers. But for some reason, she had changed the rule yesterday and asked that we increase the count time. I didn't think anything of it at the time, because she had said it would give us more time to find interesting hiding spots as we already knew each other's major hiding areas.

But now, as I stood in front of Aneesha's lifeless body sprawled out on the floor, and read the letter she had left me about deciding to poison herself and choosing to do it during one of what she considered to be the best times of her life on earth because it was when she felt the most at peace, I instantly felt regret.

I should've come looking for her at the count of seven. I should've never counted to sixteen.