RIP Granddad. Two years ago today. It's getting easier.
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i'm miles from where you are
Her breathing is so labored. She can barely spit out the words as she rasps them to me.
"Did I tell you," she croaks. "About Todd Lyons?" The heavy dosages of pain medication are sending her eyes in every direction on some sort of crazy trip.
"Yes, Massie."
"What about…" her voice trails off for a minute and she stares out the window of her big, beautiful suite as though trying to remember where she is. "What about Kemp Hurley? Did I tell you about him?"
"Yes, Massie."
She spends a pregnant pause panting, her lungs racing. "Derrick Harrington?"
"Yes, Massie." My voice breaks on her name. This is too painful.
"Then I've told them all."
"You have?"
"I've told all my stories."
No.
"No."
"Yes."
I take her hand. Her tiny, bone-thin hand. I can see every blue vein underneath her creamy white skin.
"Chris."
"Yes?"
"I'm only sixteen."
"I know."
"I'm sixteen years old and I'll never get married."
I can't do this.
"I'll never have kids."
I grip the side of the bed. I don't want to hear this.
"I'll never grow up."
"Stop," I whisper, not loud enough for her to hear.
"Chris, I'm sixteen years old and I've never been kissed. I've never even had a real boyfriend."
No wonder she'd wanted me to write for her. She needed to keep track of the only romantic moments she'd ever had.
I knew what I had to do.
Taking her face in my hands and slowly guiding her mouth towards mine, I give Massie Block the first and last kiss of her life. We pull slightly apart after a minute, our foreheads touching, her breaths quick and light, mine deep and slow.
"Thank you," she murmurs, loud enough for only my ears to hear.
I crawl into the bed with her like I'd done so many times in the past two weeks and let her take my hand and lay her head on my shoulder. We stay that way until her mother tells me that it's time to leave.
4:36 AM. My phone is ringing. It's Massie's name on the caller ID.
"Christopher?"
It's Kendra.
"Yes?"
"Massie left us this morning."
I want to go, too.
"I…"
"I know." Kendra's voice is holding back a flood.
"Do you want me to come up?"
"No. I just want to know what Massie said you had for us."
The stories. I want to keep them. I want to take her laptop from the hospital and keep them to myself forever.
"On her laptop," I begin to explain. "There's a folder on her desktop. It's filled with stories. Stories about her and her love life. She wanted you and Mr. Block to know."
"Oh."
If we pause for too long, I know that Kendra might let the flood loose. And I can't let that happen.
"Did she say anything before she went?"
"About you?"
"Yes."
"She said…she said she remembered one last story. But she said you already knew it."
That was all I wanted to hear.
Nearly all of the boys she'd told me about came to her funeral. Even Josh from Texas. Even Nathan the freshman, the last boy she'd been interested in.
None of them would ever know how much they meant to her.
Only I got to carry that burden.
I still see her all the time. In my head. In my dreams.
We'll usually be walking along—she's in front of me, I'm following close behind. She won't look at me, but I can tell just by looking at the back of her that she's strong. Fit. Whole. Her skin glows, her hair shines, her ribs don't stick out in unhealthy ways.
And in the end, she'll whip around and tackle me in a bear hug I can feel even while asleep. My chest will tighten under her grip and I can feel the contours of her body under my arms. She'll look up at me and laugh, a laugh that lights up her whole face, my whole dream.
It's in that moment, right before I wake up, that I know she's okay.
