By  Steve Huff

(Continued)

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"Where are you?"

That short message from a friend of Anna Svidersky's named Mason was to be the first of many. Words posted on a website don't seem like they could carry the same anxious tone as a worried voice leaving a message on a machine or voicemail, yet Mason's comment on Anna's MySpace.com profile at 11:06 p.m. on April 20^th did somehow resonate with fear, and worry.

Another friend of Anna Svidersky's commented about an hour later, and her simple posting of a nickname many seemed to have for the eclectic teen spoke volumes. Anna's friend Melissa wrote, "anna banana."

After that, the messages came all night. "Katie" posted at 1:07 a.m. on the 21^st of April, expressing regrets for the times she didn't get to hang out with Anna. A young woman with the screen name, "They call me Melis" begged for "it" to not be true. People came and went well on into the morning, a kind of cyber-wake.

Reading comments left on the weblog or personal profile of someone who is deceased often feels strange, but Anna's youth, exotic beauty, and the obvious deep and abiding affection so many had for her drove home just how devastating and personal such a crime really is. So many people who cared about Anna Svidersky were left with the tattered ends of a relationship. Secrets untold, conversations placed on hold, never to be completed. At 3:21 a.m. on April 21^st, D.J. posted to Anna, "Secret meeting.... be there.... thanks for the memories. D.J. PS. I love New York too."

At 1:36 in the afternoon on the 21^st, a friend named Shona posted, "May angels lead you in. I'll forever miss you."

Most affecting and difficult to read were the words of Anna's best friend, Christina. Any doubt that Christina was Anna's closest friend from a websurfer who didn't know any of the people connected to either young woman's profile was erased by the commentary others left for Christina on her own page. One person, using the profile heading, "love or something like it," made it clear: "She was a beautiful person, and no one knew her like you did"

In her weblog, Christina wrote of the last time she spoke to her best friend, "April 20.... I go home, fall asleep, and wake up to her phone call at four. We discuss prom, and boys. She tells me she'll see me later. She won't."

Perhaps most poignant of all was Christina's online photo album. There could be found pages of photos of her and Anna and their friends. One photo of Anna in particular seemed to capture how Christina saw her, or wanted to see her: the petite 17-year-old was standing on the beach, dressed in jeans with a white belt, a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. Perfectly framed in the center of the photograph, Anna Svidersky was smiling as the wind whipped her dark hair across her forehead. Behind her was the Pacific and above, white clouds against a steely sky. Anna's arms were raised in a lopsided "V," and she looked as if the wind might pick her up in the next moment, and she would soar out over the ocean.

Under the photo Christina wrote, "I want you back so fucking bad."

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