His face looks like it did years ago. Even though it is all mangled and virtually unrecognizable to everyone else, I still see the Sean that I had always loved. And those eyelids that are shut so tightly. The very same eyelids I loved to kiss. And to think, they'll be closed from now to eternity.

Naive Sean. The kid who never got the punchline in all the jokes I would tell him when we were alone. And it was so funny. The way he'd ask so many questions about the Sunday comic strips. I had to explain every little thing to him. I loved him so much. But like I've always heard, to love someone you have to let them go.

I guess maybe I was to blame. Maybe I had a small hand in it. But you might not call it blame. Just an accident. I mean what happened that night.

I remember how we piled into her car. That old clunker Angela bought with the money she had saved from her baby-sitting job. I suppose that maybe it was a little absurd. She really hated kids. Baby-sitting wasn't the job that I had pictured for her. Maybe that's why she stuck with the job. Nobody really thought she would have stayed with it that long.

We were all going to the local Pizza Hut to hang with a bunch of friends. I wish that Sean and I were still together because when I see him and that girl together,I just feel like the world suddenly tilts up. I don't get how he would ever just go and tell me that he had never had real feelings for me. He looked so sincere when he said those dreaded words that night in my car. I looked at him and thought how corny and rehearsed he sounded looking out at me with those eyes that were so soft. But I promised myself that I was going to put the past behind me.

So the scene is all of the gang flying down the highway. The windows are down and the air is crisp. I think ahead at the fact that Sean was going to be there. The thought that I really thought that he loved me made my stomach turn. Lies all lies. Wait . This is the guy that I love. Loved.

"Earth to Cassi, come in Cassi," Sheri broke into my thoughts.

"Huh?"

"We've been talking to you and you've just been sitting there. Not moving. Not saying a word."

"I'm sorry. I guess I was thinking."

"'Bout what"

" Just things that have been going on around me. You know that girl that has been snuggling up to Sean lately?"

"Vanessa Anderson?"

"Yeah, that's her. Do you think she's right for him?"

" Oh Cassi! Don't start that again. We went over this a million times before. Get over him. He never treated you like he even cared. So shut up, will you?"

Those angry words shut me up for awhile. Mainly because I couldn't believe they were coming from my best friends mouth. She really believed that they belonged together. That girl, Vanessa, didn't deserve a great guy like Sean. He was too good for her. She took his feelings for me away.

At the time I never realized how jealous I was. I read that you never do. But when we got to Pizza Hut Angela and I decided we would let everyone else go on so we could cruise around town. We chatted as she drove and we realized how far away we had become. There were things that hadn't been said. That we really didn't want said. I could tell by the way she was driving, she was keeping something from me . At that moment I couldn't decide if it was intentional or not.

"Cassi. Can I ask you something?", Angela said with a hint of insecurity in her voice.

"Yeah." I said a little too quickly.

"Sean was seeing Vanessa when he was still with you. One day I went over to his house for our Science Fair project and I found her there. They were in his living room just going at it. Real hot and heavy. I walked through the door. Nobody had answered when I knocked but there were lights on throughout the whole house. So imagine my surprise when I saw the two ofly, so many times. I hate him. I hate her. It feels like the whole world has turned against me. Even my best friend.

"I want to go home."

" I didn't want to upset you but I felt you should know."

She turned around and slowly drove me home. There was a lot of traffic or we have gotten home by now. She kept talking . Mostly nervous chatter. I didn't talk back. I really didn't want to talk so I just didn't. But I think she figured things out and shut her mouth up. I was pretty glad because I was prepared to slap her across her face. But I resisted the urge. But soon we pulled up to my house. I eagerly got out of the car. I waved my good-bye and ran up the walk to my house.

Once inside the warmth of my bedroom I called Sheri.

" Yeah, she told me that he had been cheating on me but I guess she had the right. I mean I do feel a little better."

"I hope you do. But you remember what we discussed this morning?"

"No."

"About taking a trip to both their houses with a gun or something. Give 'em a little gift. From the two of us." She sounded as if she really meant what she was saying. I had agreed earlier, yes, but I was never serious. What did she think. That I would really murder my old boyfriend. Of course she must be joking . Please say she was.

"When do you want to go and visit?" I said. I was joking but judging by the silence on her end she thought I meant it. I hesitated before I said another word because she might jump to the conclusion that I wanted to go over to whoever's house. So I shut my mouth up.

" When you put it that way, I'll be over in about 10 minutes. Se ya!"

I began to say something but before I could, I heard the click of her phone as she hung up. Did she just say she was on her way over. What did she think we were going to do when she got here? Go out and murder an ex boyfriend? Well after the length of time she had suggested, I heard her car pull up the driveway. My heart began to race. She knocked on the door and I reluctantly answered the door.

There Sheri stood. She smiled up at me through her long jet black hair. As soon as she walked through the door I knew that she knew that I was thought she was a raving lunatic. But I never said a word to her.

"Come on let's go. I've got everything we're going to need. Hey, Cassi! Why aren't you dressed? I thought I told you that I was coming over? Well, I guess you look okay considering what we're leaving to do. Right?"

Something strange was going on. Her voice was little too a cheerful for the words she was saying. This night seemed like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I mean everything was just so screwed up. My best friend and I were discussing killing my former boyfriend and she was happy about it? What was wrong with things lately?

"Right," I mumbled.

This all brings us up to the present. We called him on the payphone in front of McDonalds and he told us just what we needed to know. That he was with Vanessa. Alone. So we made the short drive to his home. We parked somewhat down the road from his house. As we crept through the darkness, I kept going over what I was doing in my mind. But none of my thoughts convinced me that what I was doing was wrong or seemed to let a thought of caution ever cross my mind.

We came to his front stoop and she pulled out the weapon I was to use. It was one of those electric knives that you flick a switch and it's on. I know this sounds stupid but when I took it from her I swear I felt real power. Like I couldn't wait to start it up and use it right away.

"Don't do anything until I give you the go ahead. Okay?" she whispered to me.

"I want to do Sean!"

"Okay and I'll take Vanessa," she said. She looked disappointed about the fact that I wanted to kill Sean but I was the one he did wrong not, her.

When he opened the door he looked so surprised to see us I almost peed my pants. He looked so funny I almost lost my cool, but a quick jab to my side straightened me up. I could hear Vanessa in the background asking who it was at the door. Sheri said that we just stopped so could use the bathroom and the gullible brute believed every word she said. I took this as my cue to attack.

I pulled the knife out from a inside pocket in my coat. The nearly foot long blade gleamed in the overhead light from his front entrance way. I could see his eyes glaze over with fear as he heard the knife blade begin to rotate. I lunged all my weight at him and brought the knife down by his face. It peeled off a few layers of the straggly skin on his nose and the blood began to spurt from the gash that had taken his nose away. His hands reached uselessly to where his nose had been. As he crumpled to his knees I sliced off more and more of his skin. It reminded me of peeling potatoes and this was something I never really enjoyed before but since this new twist was added I liked it! His blood has accumulated in strange puddles on the fleshy beige carpet. Then I peeled off the skin on his face so well that bits and specks of skull and brain tissue were showing. Strange enough my stomach didn't feel at all uneasy from what I had done. Impulsively I reach down and touched the goo that was his brain. I jerked my hand back and I almost fell and hit my head on a pair of his moms white pumps that were now died plumb from her sons fresh blood. His brain felt so different from the cows brain we had dissected earlier in science class, but more like wet macaroni. I dropped the knife to the floor, stepped over Sean's still quivering body and made my way to the guest room where I assumed Sheri was taking care of Vanessa.

The two of them were immersed in an intense argument when I slipped my blood soaked body into the room. It seemed the two of them had been so wrapped up their discussion that they hadn't even heard the slightest gurgle escape from Sean's throat. Great, then the sight of me will terrify Vanessa. When she saw me her attention was off of Sheri. Sheri picked up the only weapon she could grab. A sharpened #2 pencil. With two precise strokes, she successfully plucked out Vanessa's baby blue contacted eyes. They fell to the floor and the girl began shrieking hysterically for her eyes. It was a truly memorable sound.

I broke out in uncontrollable laughter. The last thing I remembered was Sheri slapping me and my stopping my hysterics on our way to the car. On our way I noticed that while I was playing "shaving" I had cut off the index finger of my right hand. I had been having so much fun I hadn't even noticed that I was missing a finger.

Now what was I going to tell my parents when I got home?