University Days: Season Four (Alternate Ending)

Entirely Gone

I didn't realize it was gone until I reached for it on the walk back. There was only once charm on the chain, and it was the blue half.

In a panic, I grabbed the part of the chain from the back of my neck to see if it'd gotten spun around and left in the back. The rest of it was empty.

My stomach twisted in knots immediately.

"You okay?" Calvin asked, glancing over at me as I frantically felt through the chain of my necklace for the other charm, then as I looked down my shirt.

"I don't know where Emily's charm is!" I realized, feeling through the rest of my clothes to check if it had fallen.

That was Emily's charm, and she loved it. I'd lost something she loved.

Calvin tried to calm me down. "Okay, okay. Did you check the pocket of your work apron?"

I yanked it out from my bag with shaky hands, feeling through the pocket. I threw it on the floor, then checked the rest of my bag desperately.

"Let's go back to see if it's on the floor or something," Calvin pointed behind us.

"The shop was just locked up!" I reminded his with frustration, beginning to hyperventilate.

"We can retrace your steps around the outside of the shop, and if it's not there or at your dorm, you can go in super early tomorrow to see if it fell," he tried to be reassuring, but my mind was already bouncing to every bad possibility.

I might've flushed it in the toilet, lost it leaning over the sink drain, dropped it in a blender, kicked it into a gutter.

It was a tiny charm, how could I find it in this intensely large world?

Calvin and I searched the area, and looked around all the way back to the dorm. We checked every bush, looked over grass patches, but it was nowhere to be found.

My last piece of Emily was missing, my twin's half was officially entirely gone now.

* * *
Four years ago

"Are you feeling nostalgic or did you just finally crack?" A seventeen year old Sarah questioned teasingly as she followed her sister into a jewelry store designed for pre-teens.

"Both," Emily joked, rolling her eyes. She stopped at the rotating rack filled with the jewelry sold in pairs. These were typically dedicated for friendships.

"It's like you lose a little more of your sanity by the day. I'm just concerned," Sarah sighed dramatically, glancing at the jewelry selection.

"What if I wore the cat bracelet and you wore the dog one? I mean, they are pink and blue," the pink-ombré haired teenager lifted the lilac-shaded card that dangled both animal-shaped charms from the cheap, thick silvery chains.

Sarah scrunched her nose at the idea. She hoped her sister was kidding, but could tell she was genuinely interested in finding a best friend jewelry set for some reason. They had a set of those as kids, but it only resulted in a full-blown meltdown and angry lecture from their mother when she'd lost hers during a soccer game in the grassy field somewhere.

"Okay, maybe the animal shapes are a bit much," Emily thought for a second, putting it back.

"Why do we need a best friend set anyway?" Sarah asked with a laugh.

"We're going to college next fall, and you're still my BFF. We might not get into the same schools and end up in different places, so just in case, I wanna have us have a cute sister connection thing," Emily announced rather proudly.

"You're so cheesy," Sarah laughed, purposely avoiding the topic of college as a whole. Going in general was scary, but especially without Emily seemed absolutely impossible.

"Hopefully," Emily smiled, then looked up at the necklaces. "Hey, these are cute and simple!"

Sarah watched her pick up the attached pink and blue magnetic half-heart necklaces. They were pretty simple, and the charm link allowed for the cheap chains to be easily swapped out for better ones.

"Not too dorky," Sarah agreed with a laugh.

"No, duh," she replied, "We're wearing these in our senior pictures, so obviously we can't go with anything embarrassing."

And so Emily bought those necklaces.