June 18
Dear Stevie,
I don’t know if this journal is going to make me feel any better, but I have to talk to someone and the only person I can talk to is you, even if you can’t hear me. I just got back from the hospital. It’s been six days since the accident and they still have you in an induced coma. I met your parents. It was weird. It IS weird. That they know I even exist at all. But even more that they don’t know that you’re everything to me. Your mom seems really nice. I see why it’d be hard to think about letting her go. Despite everything, I can tell she really loves you.
Sometimes when they both leave, I sneak into your room for a couple of minutes to hold your hand. I know you’d probably give me shit for being too risky, but you don’t know what it’s like to be here with you… without you.
I so wish it was me in that bed, because it should be. This is all my fault. You didn’t want to do it. You told me you didn’t want to do it. I am so fucking sorry. I’m sorry, Stevie. Please wake up.
I love you,
Nora
I flip to the next page.
June 23
Dear Stevie,
It’s been eleven days. I overheard the doctor today and she said they’re waiting for you to wake up now. I really need…
I stop reading and fan through the pages, each one dated a day after the last. A handwritten letter for every single day of the summer up until that afternoon I went to meet her in the woods, when she told me about each item in the box. She must have put this in there before she gave it back to me after our campfire.
I flip back to the beginning and read the entire thing, page by page, the words blurring as I constantly have to dry my eyes. Each letter helps me understand exactly what it all felt like for her, especially with everything she was going through at home. Each one breaks my heart a little more.
After the final letter, I turn the page to find a quote that she cut out and taped into the middle of the lined paper.
If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.
—Haruki Murakami
I take a deep breath so I don’treallycry, so my parents don’t hear me, and I hug the notebook against my chest.
I try not to think about the look on Nora’s face when her mom walked in, the way her hand clenched onto my arm, because she was completely terrified. I try not to think about the way her mom grabbed her around the jaw and threw her like a rag doll into the dresser.
I try not to think about how at some point tonight or maybe in the morning, she’s going to wake up, and I won’t be there next to her anymore. She’ll be all alone.
We shouldn’t have to live like this. I don’twantto live like this. And Nora… she can’t stay here at all. Not now. In a littleover a week Ryan’s parents will be back and he’ll be gone and she’ll have absolutely nowhere to live. And what am I going to do now that I know the truth about my mom? Now that I know she doesn’t love me as much as I thought she always did. As unconditionally. Am I just supposed to go to Bower and pretend it’s what I want because it’s really what she wants? Should I sacrifice my dreams and my happiness to fix something I didn’t even break?
That’s no way to live my life, and I want tolive.
I want to live my life with Nora.
My eyes fall onto the rest of our things on my bed. The stack of Polaroids taken in the woods. My acceptance letter from UCLA. The California travel guide…
I sit bolt upright and gasp in a breath as an idea forms.
Acrazyidea.
It percolates in my brain for a few minutes as I sit there, connecting all the dots.
Huh.
A month ago I thought it would be so far out of the realm of possibility, but now… maybe not so much.
There aren’t many certainties in my life right now.
But Nora? I am certain about Nora. I will always be certain about Nora.
