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Addy is—was—our best friend, and is still mine, though it sounds small and insignificant in comparison to what she really is to me. A lifeline. My north star in the dark sky. An oxygen tube feeding me air when I’m drowning. She’s more than a best friend because she’s my everything.
But Quinn and Addy were friends first. And Addy… she loved Quinn almost as much as I did.
Quinn and I were born less than a year apart, ten months to the day, and when he was held back in the first grade, we ended up in the same class together—Addy, too. He introduced us at lunch one day, and the rest was history. We were as close as close could be. For six whole years before the accident that took his life and almost took mine.
Now it’s just Addy and me, from four states away.
“I’m spending the summer with her, and then we’re off to college,” I tell Quinn. Or the spirit of Quinn. Or just a slab of concrete with his name on it. I don’t really know what I believe happens to us when we die, but I hope he is out there somewhere, listening. “College,” I say again with a layer of disbelief. I don’t know how the hell I pulled it off, but I did somehow. Fucking NYU at that. And if that isn’t proof that Quinn is around, pulling strings for me, I don’t know what is.
My heart batters against my ribcage, dragging its way into my throat. I press my fists to my eyes, fighting back the burning sting behind my eyelids. Fighting back against all the things I want to say. How much I wish he were here. How much the last five years have been hell without him. How lost I feel. How damaged I think I might be.
There are so many demons caged inside my cell of skin and bones, and I don’t know what to do with any of them.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to walk away from here, from Quinn. How to start over after the last five years, and the thirteen before that. I don’t know, but I know I have to try.
I crouch lower and rest my forehead against the chilled stone. “I love you, Quinn.” I release a shaky breath, and a wave of heartache tears through me, threatening to drown me in its undertow, forcing my tears to flow free. I don’t bother to wipe them away as they spill down my face.
Quinn will never know this, but he’s saved my life. Again and again, and again and again.He’s gotten me through the darkest of hours when I knew I had to keep fighting because he wasn’t here to anymore.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I have to get going now.” The words are barely formed, broken letters on a broken voice. “I think you know that I can’t come back, but I know you understand why.” My fingers twist at the thin pendant on my necklace, holding him close. “But I’ll keep you right here. With me, always.” I choke back another wave of sadness and force myself to stand, but gravity works overtime, dragging me back down, back toward Quinn. I force steady breaths in and out of my lungs, clenching my fists against the pain and squeezing at the necklace buried within my grasp.
I stole some of his ashes from the urn in my parents’ bedroom a few years ago before they buried it here, and just last week, I had them put inside this small, golden pendant hanging from a thin gold chain. I don’t feel an ounce of guilt about it; my parents are lucky I didn’t steal the whole damn urn and run away with it like I’d wanted to. Even if all I have left to my name now is eight-hundred bucks, my barely running car, and a single suitcase with all of my belongings in it, I’d do it again. Spend the threehundred dollars—hell, I’d spend every last penny I have—just to keep him with me like this.
I’ll keep you right here.I claw at my heart and the necklace beneath my fingers. And then finally, I stand and turn to leave. I walk slower on the way back to my car, each step growing heavier. Dragging me forward, or backward, I can’t tell anymore. But walking away from Quinn’s gravestone is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
When I fall into the front seat of my car, I release a weighted breath and vow that this is where my life begins. This is the moment I leave everything else behind. Because I have to.I have to.
My phone buzzes in my pocket with the thought. I reach down and pull it out, connecting the call and holding it up to my ear. “Addy?” I say quietly.
“Hey, girl,” she says in a sleepy tone. “Just wanted to make sure you’re up and on your way.” I can hear the smile in her voice.
“I’m up. I’m just…”
“Where are you?” she asks, but she’s only asking because she knows exactly where I am. “Quinn,” she adds softly, concern drifting across the line.
“Yeah,” my voice hitches on the word.
She’s quiet for a little while, before she says, “He’d be proud of you, you know.”
“I know,” I breathe, swallowing back another wave of tears.
“I hope you told him I miss him, too,” she says with a hint of humor, but I can hear the sadness in there, too.
“He knows.” My lips twist into something that resembles a smile, despite everything. That’s the magic of Addy.
“Okay, good,” she says. “Now get your ass to me so I can hug the shit out of you.”
That pulls a soft laugh out of me. “On it.”
“Drive safe, babe.”
“I will. See you soon.”
“See you soon!”
______
It’s 3:33 a.m. when I finally turn the engine over, and it feels like a good omen. A sign of better things to come. I don’t close my eyes or make a wish or anything like that, because if wishes came true, my life would look a hell of a lot different than it does right now. But it feels… good. Or right, somehow.