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“Well,” she says, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Sasha’s room. You were her best friend, so if there’s anything of hers you’d like to keep, I want you to take it.”
Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “That’s … really nice of you,” I say as I think it over. But I don’t have to think it over. I look over at the sweet furry Labrador cuddled at my feet. Sunny. I want Sasha’s dog. A little flutter starts in my stomach. Sunny is the only living part of Sasha that Mrs. Cade has left.
Mrs. Cade’s hand is extra warm when it covers mine and squeezes. “Anything you’d like, okay? Clothes, trinkets. You can take her TV if you want. I know she’d want you to have it all. It’d make her happy.”
“I don’t think her TV would fit in my room,” I say with a laugh. “But maybe I’ll just go and look around?”
“Of course. Take what you want. You can always come back for more.” The woman is selfless, healing in the only way she knows how. She would want to help Elijah. I just know she would.
In Sasha’s room, I struggle with the feeling that I might look over and find Sasha sitting at her vanity, doing her eye makeup. Or emerging from the closet in a dress entirely too short. I go to the closet first, opening the door and stepping inside, letting the scent of Sasha fill my lungs. I take two Zombie Radio shirts, then a PCHS shirt from last year when we drew all over it in permanent marker. Sasha used it as a sleep shirt, and it’ll be my sleep shirt now. Tucking the clothes under my arm, I venture back out into her room and sit at her vanity. Sunny sidles up next to me, resting his chin on my leg.
My eyes have dark circles that makeup can’t hide. My hair is a darker brown than it was this summer, and it’s almost long enough to make a tiny ponytail at the base of my neck. Not that I would do that, because it’d look hella tacky. Tacky enough to make Sasha roll over laughing.
Pictures of us are everywhere, ascending in age from eight to seventeen. I have copies of them all at home, so I leave them where they are.
On Sasha’s computer desk, I take a tiny glass elephant that we got at the county fair a few years ago. Mine is in my room, sitting on the windowsill. Sasha’s will go next to it.
I turn around, holding tightly to Sasha’s shirts as I survey the room. I don’t really want her things. I want her here. I walk to the door and then turn around, taking one last look at her room.
Then I rush back inside and take her pillow. It’s memory foam, encased in her favorite Egyptian cotton pillowcase, and it smells just like her strawberry shampoo. I grin as I clutch it to my chest. Mrs. Cade said anything I want, after all. I choose this.
A soft thump hits my foot as I step into the hallway. I look down and find a silver flash drive that has fallen out of the pillowcase. My blood runs cold as I bend to pick it up.
A hidden flash drive can only mean one thing. But how could she have known I’d find it here?
My heart thudding, I return to her room and turn on her laptop. It powers up quickly, showing Sasha’s wallpaper photo of a famous library with three floors of books connected by a tall, rolling ladder. Sunny is watching me curiously.
I try to swallow but my throat is too dry. The flash drive slips into the USB port and my hands shake as I wait for it to load. Only one file appears. A video named MAYBE_DELETE.
My pulse thunders in my ears. My finger hovers over the mouse pad. Should I click or not? My eyes blur and then I see the tiny little camera lens on the laptop. This is the same camera she used to record so many of the videos she’s sent us. She sat here, at this laptop, and planned her entire last wish without me even knowing.
Whatever this file is, she thought about deleting it.
But she didn’t.
I bite my lip and double-click.
Sasha’s face appears on her own computer. She looks more vibrant than in the last few videos. This one must have been recorded a long time ago. “Hey guys,” she says, a flirty grin on her face.
Chills prickle down my arms as I sit in the same spot she was when she recorded this. Sunny hops up next to me on the bed, ears perked at the sound of his human’s voice. He looks around the room and then flops down. “So … you’ve probably figured this out by now. I mean, right? Look at you two.” She leans forward and wiggles her eyebrows.
No, I haven’t figured it out, I think.
“Maybe I’ve read too many love stories and it’s turned me into a hopeless romantic, but I just have a feeling about you two. Rocki, you’re adorbs and loyal and a little bit stuck in your shell, but I think Elijah can break you out of it. Elijah — not to be gross because you’re my brother — but you are totally gorgeous, judging by the pictures I forced you to send me.”
Sasha rolls her eyes and looks directly at me. “Can you believe his Instagram account isn’t filled with selfies? He’s hella retro, but I like it. I think there’s nothing more worthy of a fairy-tale ending than the dying girl’s brother and best friend falling for each other.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I guess I should have known she’d be onto us. The girl picks up on everything, even in the afterlife. Why didn’t she send us this video, then?
Sasha tilts her head. “So if you’re hearing this and you’re like, ew, gross, then okay.” She holds up her hands. “Maybe I’m wrong. Totally NBD. But I just have a feeling, and I wanted to let you know it’s okay. Don’t feel bad for finding happiness outside of my death, okay?”
She waits a beat. “As for my parents … don’t tell them. Not yet, okay? They’ll be upset that I planned this huge adventure for you and left them out of it, and I still feel a little bad about that, but they never wanted me to find my brother in the first place. They need to be eased into this.”
A shadow moves into the room and I nearly launch out of my seat. My hand slaps the space bar on Sasha’s laptop and her video pauses. Sunny saunters by, not realizing he nearly caused me to jump out of my own skin. What if he had been Mrs. Cade? “Shit.” I breathe, willing my heart to slow down. I need to pay better attention.
I play the rest of the video. Sasha gnaws on her bottom lip. “I just — I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this video for a few days. I think you two will make a great couple, and I just have this gut feeling that maybe it’ll work out for you. I’m still working out how you should tell my parents. I feel like asking you to lie to them about who Elijah is forever is kind of epically wrong, but” — she shrugs — “I’ll make a new video as soon as I figure out what you should do. That is, you know, if you two start liking each other. Totally not a big deal if you don’t.”
She winks and the video ends.
