Her Name Was Michaela Fisher

There was a girl at my school who was a textbook example of everything good in the world. Her name was Michaela Fisher.

Everyone liked Michaela. She was tall and blonde and had the prettiest green eyes and the brightest smile, and never said a mean word to anyone in all the time I knew her. She won the spot of President of the Student Government unanimously every year but refused to take the spot "because the principle of the thing." She was always tanned and in perfect shape, but she didn't do any sports and wasn't on the cheer squad. When asked why, she would simply laugh and say "it wasn't her kind of thing." She never drank or used, but she wasn't about to preach at you if you chose to. She never missed a day of school, and every one of her report cards was a straight line of A's.

She didn't date, although she was never lacking of possible partners of both genders. When any of these people asked her out, she would smile that dazzling smile and apologize for the fact that she couldn't return their feelings, and somehow the rejection never hurt. It was as if the infatuation magically disappeared, and it was okay to be just friends.

Her parents were rich and had a huge house with a pool, but Michaela never let the ease of her life go to her head. She regularly did charity work, saying that it was only right for her to do so since she was so well off. She refused to let her parents buy her a car on her 16th birthday, and instead worked until she could pay for one herself. During our school's mock elections, she always got voted Most Likely to Succeed, and during her acceptance speeches she actually cried as she thanked everyone, as if such a small thing truly mattered to her.

Michaela threw a big party at the end of each school year, and it didn't matter who you were or what groups you belonged to—if you came to the door of that massive house during a party, you were greeted by the hostess herself, called by name as if you were her oldest friend and were subject to the dizzying experience of being smiled at by the most popular girl in school. If only for the length of the party, everyone from jocks to geeks to goths put aside their differences and just had fun together.

It was during senior year that Michaela suddenly began missing a day here and there, then a week, a month, and finally we all got the shocking news that she had dropped out of school. Little Miss Perfect herself, now 18, had gone up to the school office one day and simply signed herself out. Her parents refused to speak of it. We were left babbling and running around like decapitated chickens, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. All of it was so confused and muddled, as if we'd been violently yanked out of a wonderful dream. Why had she left? Was she okay? Was everything leading up to this sudden disappearance nothing more than a sham? A lie?

Rumors ran rampant for a while, then gradually died down to just a murmur here or there.  It became the topic of those bored, quiet times when there was nothing else to think about. Where was Michaela Fisher? Somewhere in Africa, working as a missionary. Married to a prince of a small European country. Working for the CIA. Eventually I found out the truth, but it wasn't something that needed to be told to the gossip-hungry masses.

I wasn't a close friend of Michaela's, but I'd always looked up to her. She was a hero to me, and anything I could share with her was coveted as sacred and special. She'd once mentioned wanting to attend the local college and work towards becoming a teacher—she would have been great at it—and that eventually became my goal as well. It was a struggle, keeping up with the pace of college classes. I'm nothing special when it comes to intelligence, but I do pride myself on my intuition. My gut feelings are almost always right.

A man transferred into one of my classes for the summer session. I didn't really pay attention to him at first, but the first time I heard him speak, an alarm went off in my head. I took to watching him, trying to figure out how I knew him. He was short for a guy, with choppy blond hair and perfectly tanned skin. Too pretty for my tastes, but not feminine by any stretch of the imagination. We were teamed up for a project soon after, and he came over to my table. He shook my hand and flashed a dazzlingly white smile. His eyes were green. "Hi, there. I'm Michael."