You could hear a few cars, mostly trucks go by the old route 6, every now and then you could hear the group college kids drive by with their music too loud and their alcohol stench to go with it. It had become sort of a reassuring feeling, knowing that there isn't a huge city for another hour or so and that my town and the town over were all an everyone-knows-everyone environment.
My friend’s voice sounded like a piercing song ringing in my ears, it drove away the attention of the hot, not so good smelling gas station. He doesn’t like these places as much as I do. Now that I think about it, he doesn’t really like anything as much as I do, he did always do the talking when necessary, so I didn't complain. A few feet from us there was a mother of three, she had twins that were crying and a little girl, who couldn't be more than nine, throwing a fit about some doll every girl in her class had except her and that just couldn't be. The mother was next to pay and was looking aimlessly for her wallet while the young teenager at the register rolled his eyes annoyingly.
“I should help her, don’t you think?” I asked innocently as I looked over at my friend
The lady in front of me gave me a odd look. She still had on the visitors pass, so I knew she had just come from seeing someone in jail in the next town over.
“No.” He said firmly “You cannot help everyone that looks like they need it, you have to let them surpass their own troubles” And with his sharp look the conversation was over.
I knew not to let it get to me, he was always harsher than everyone else on me. I keep telling myself “He just wants you to be better”  But thats more about convincing myself that than anything.
I look at him again hoping he’s not still mad at me. He wasn’t just mad, he looked furious. I’ve never seen him like this.
“Are you okay?” I asked curiously and got no answer
“Calm down, I wont help everyone that looks like they need it, I’m sorry” I spoke this time in a lower voice, hoping he would respond.
“DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” He roared at me like I was his prey.
The words felt like a burst of wind on my face and almost knocked me down. Except that wasn’t just a feeling, I woke up to what looked like a whole different world. My head felt woozy and my eyes were failing me. I touched my forehead and felt the blood coming down and hit my cheek. I struggled to stand up and check on everyone else. The lady who was in front of me laid on the floor lifeless. I looked up and saw the register that was too busy rolling his eyes was now across the counter too dead to do it again. The mother wasn’t stressing about her wallet anymore, she wasn’t stressing about anything anymore. The twins cries had come to an end and the little girl’s winning had been replaced with the cries for her last breath. In shock I looked around for my friend for help could failed to find him. I tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come out. This is what the paramedics later called being in shock, I don't remember them getting to gas station but they also said that the past couple of hours would be hazy to me.
A woman, pretty young to be working out on the field, asked me a couple questions about the sequence of events, asked if anyone was suspicious or missing after the incident. I told her that I couldn’t find my friend, then she asked me to describe him so I did and that was the end of my contribution to them. 
The paramedic had told me to go to the hospital tomorrow to have them change the bandage they had put on my forehead but when I finally got home it had gotten all gooey and bloody so I bared the pain and changed it myself. I figured I wasn't going to have an easy night of dreaming ahead of me so I got my computer and did some research. I found an article about a young new detective named Robbert Sanchez that had solved a hard case last month. I thought maybe I could go talk to him, see if they could help me find my friend, the station wasn't far from my house so it was worth a shot.
Since traffic was heavy I used my time wisely and thought about what I was going to actually tell the detective Sanchez. “My friend was there before the incident, he wasn’t there after. It’s been 3 days and I still haven't heard from him” is all I had when i got to the station. After explaining the story to the detective and his team he told he he’d look into it and call me in a few days.
That following Monday I got a call explaining that they had found a boy’s phone at the crime sense, they had found a video of the incident but it would take a few days to get a clear picture. For some strange reason part of me was relieved when I heard those news, the feeling felt like something I would express around my friend.
Sanchez asked me to come in to the station to talk. When I got there he sat me down in what looked like an interrogation room, the cold silver painted walls and the empty desk in the middle of the room decorated with an old laptop and accompanied by a chair that looked like it could break at any given moment. I had no reason to worry, so I didn’t. I looked back on the details right before the incident like he asked me to and remembered that my friend had gotten oddly mad at me for something so little. Oh no, I was to afraid to admit it,  He gets furious then disappears from the scene, it fits perfectly. My body gets tense and I guess Sanchez noticed because he shoots me a worried look and asks what I'm thinking about.
“My friend,” I pause for a second to gather my thoughts “He’s got mad at me, like really mad and now he’s missing and he hasn't called me or anything and he never does that and I was getting worried because I do everything with him and I was worried that he—” I’m interrupted.
“Stop babbling.” Sanchez voice is sharp, determined. It shut me up “We were able to get a clear image of the killer.”
“Then what are we doing here talking? Are you crazy? We should be out there arresting him”
“We already did.” He looked at me with a face a mother would use when getting lied to by her kids, a mix of shock and a little bit of an are-you-kidding me feeling.
He turned around the computer screen he had been eye balling since we sat down. It looks like a surveillance video in a cop car, you couldn't hear the conversations but you could see someone, a cop, walking out of an apartment building with someone in handcuffs following him. His face was down but his stance contradicted him by being tall almost proud looking. Once they got in the car you could hear the argument they were having.
“Stop resisting, this isn’t helping your case” cop number one hissed at the cuffed man
“I already told you!” It was my friend, I’d recognize his strong voice anywhere, “He’ll be here in thirty-four minutes, you can force him to go with you then, or you could ask him nicely and he’ll go willingly. Your choice.” He responded mockingly
Sanchez paused the video, looked at me, waited for me to give him some sort of reaction, when he didn’t get one he looked at the video one more time then looked back at me almost as if he was waiting for me to get some bad joke he told and fake laugh.
“We left, called you exactly thirty-two minutes after and asked you to come in” he said as he let out a sigh as if he was holding something in.
“Do you recognize the man in this video?”
“That’s my friend, I’d recognize his voice anywhere”
“No, not his voice, the man himself.”
I looked at the screen which was filthy with hand prints and focused on the victims face, my lungs closed and my brain fell into a state of confusion which happens to be very popular these past few days.
“How is that possible?” I hunt for an answer on his face but get none except the one I was dreading to hear.
“The man in the video is you, you were the one telling us when you get back home and when we should have called a man that was right in front of us. I’m sorry to be the one who has to tell you this, but, You and that friend of yours … are the same person”
My jaw was stuck and my heart skipped a few beats. I didn’t want to believe him but before I could scream out words to ask him more two officers burst through the doors and grabbed my arms and lifted me out of my chair and into a van. I later learned that it was the station’s prisoner’s transportation van.
I was finally able to breath when we drove onto route 6 and passed by the hot, not so good smelling gas station, past the overcrowded car of hungover college students and entered the doors of the jail in the town next over to mine. I looked as the doors closed behind us and knew that it was my last taste of freedom.
“At least we’re in here together.” I chuckled quietly to myself, I’d recognize that voice anywhere.