This is a work of creative fiction.

They read off the names of the dead, and I thought you would be one, but only for one second. The look in her eyes at she stood at the pulpit made me hold my breath, and I felt like she was looking right at me. It was as though she was saving your name for last, as though she looked at me and knew, “Oh, this is going to hurt.”

I waited, and in that one second, I thought faster than I had ever thought before.

I’ve never been so scared before. Not even when my sister spent those nights in the hospital because her fever just wouldn’t break. I knew God was healing her, but I just didn’t know about you.

What will I do? I can barely handle it when I don’t see you for a month, let alone never again. Who else am I going to tell when something great happens? I can’t picture a world where I never hear the pride bubble up in your Adam’s apple when I tell you my best news.

Except I can. It’s a world that’s a little less bright. I wouldn’t say it’s dark. That’s the thing about life. Mine will go on even if yours is over. It’s like when a supermarket leaves all its lights on after hours. It looks just a little emptier but not hollow. I think I’d prefer it if was hollow. You would deserve that kind of devastation.

Why weren’t we better friends? Why aren’t we better friends? I have to correct myself. I can’t think about you like you’re dead.

But why aren’t we better friends? Maybe we’re not friends at all. Friends know each other’s birthdays and go bowling on those days even though you’re probably too old to still go bowling on your birthday. We never did anything like that. I’d be lucky if I could guess a digit in your birthday, and you don’t look like a bowler. I probably wouldn’t love you so blindly if you were. Are.

Are?

There are so many things I still have to tell you. I have to tell you why I left home last summer without telling you where I went. I have to tell you about the chicken-leg-shaped bookmark I bought two weeks ago. I have to tell you that I love you.

Did you ever think that maybe if we’d grown up in the same place, things would have been different for us? I’ve always wondered. If you’re dead now, I’ll never get to ask. Of course, if you’re alive, I won’t say a word about it, either. I could. My mouth and my tongue work just fine. I just won’t. Because it’s wrong.

God, please don’t. Don’t be dead. If you’re dead, there’s nobody left around here who can handle me in more than tiny doses. I’m bossy. I’m loud. I don’t stop talking. But you’re all of those things, too, and you’ve never left me. You’ve never let me down even when it could have been easy. You’ve never left me before, so don’t do it now. Don’t be dead.

She still hasn’t read your name.

Remember that time when I was still too young, and that jackass pianist dumped me for being green? I went into the bathroom and turned on all the faucets so nobody would hear me crying over a boy. It was a trick I learned from a silly paperback I bought from the fourth-grade book fair. I think I fooled almost everyone. I wouldn’t come out of the bathroom until I knew you were there and the red in my eyes became a little pinker. I didn’t think you’d know what was wrong.

But there’s no fooling you. You gave me a once-over, smirked like you do, and then started talking about something else. It was all I needed. You’re good at that.

You are.

If you’re dead, I’m going to kill you.

I won’t go to your funeral if you died today. I wouldn’t deserve to. Nobody would recognize me. It would look strange. Nobody understood what you meant to me except for you, and I couldn’t exactly talk to you. Funerals are for people who knew your birthday.

I won’t tell my mother if you died today. She’ll make me go to your funeral, and I wouldn’t belong there. It wouldn’t be fair. You would understand.

“Why are we all standing here?” I heard your voice from behind me. “Did something happen?”

I whirled around and flung my arms around your neck for the first time. You were really there. You exhaled with shock, but I didn’t mind. You were really there, and you were really warm flesh and working lungs and a voice I was terrified I’d only be able to remember.

She read the last casualty. Your hand was in mine, but I don’t think you noticed.

The woman next to me screamed out a loud, “NO!” but it sounded hushed as I stared up at you. Alive. Not mine, never mine, but alive.

I felt a bit selfish knowing that I was so relieved and she so distraught, but only for one second.