The night before my best friend, 16, vanished, she handed me $5 and said, “I owe you money. Take this bill!” It felt random, but I put it in my jar without looking twice.
Three weeks later, I suddenly remembered and opened the jar. I looked closely at the bill and froze: there was a message written in tiny blue ink along the edge.
“Locker 312. Don’t trust him.”
My heart started pounding so hard I thought I might pass out. Locker 312 was hers.
The next morning, I went to school early. My hands shook as I stood in front of her locker, hoping no one would notice. It had already been cleared out by the school—at least that’s what they’d told everyone. But I remembered something most people didn’t: she used to tape things behind the metal panel at the bottom.
I knelt down and pressed along the edge. One corner lifted.
Inside was a folded envelope with my name on it.
The letter explained everything. She’d been scared for weeks—scared of someone older who had been following her, messaging her, threatening her if she told anyone. She wrote that if anything happened to her, I needed to give the letter to the police.
At the bottom was a name.
I went straight to the station.
What happened after moved fast—questions, interviews, a search warrant. The name led them to a man who’d been watching her for months. Security footage, deleted messages, hidden accounts—it all unraveled.
She wasn’t gone by choice.
Two days later, they found her.
Shaken. Terrified. But alive.
She told me later she didn’t know how else to warn me without tipping him off. The five-dollar bill was the only thing she could pass without raising suspicion.
I still have it.
Not because she owed me money.
But because that crumpled five-dollar bill saved her life.
