I was just sitting in my little tree house, watching a flock of birds land in a nearby tree, each one of them chirping and singing their own lovely song. I had been sitting up there for so long, it felt like a million years to me. I didn’t mind, though. At least I was alone and no one could bother me. I was getting hungry and sleepy, so I thought about climbing down the tall red ladder and making my way back inside, but I decided against it and continued to watch the birds hop around the branches of that tall tree. The sun was shining bright, almost blinding me, but it was starting to go down. The sky was a mixture of fire and peaches. The smell of burnt popcorn filled the air and I took a deep breath, trying to hold it in for as long as possible.
As I stared off over the houses and cars, I saw hundreds of trees and the tall slide in the park and the hill. They called that specific hill Big Rock because there was a large rock coming from the bottom of it, all the way up to the top. The entire hill was basically a massive rock. The teenagers of the town would hang out at the top of Big Rock. Most of the time, they would either be smoking or drinking and sometimes both. That is what I call their “bad kid space”.
Even though the teenagers were never paying attention to anything around them, the scenery is absolutely beautiful at the top of Big Rock. I went up there a few months ago with my best friend, Caitlyn, and what I saw made me hold my breath for a split second. It overlooks the public swimming pool, the park, my tree house, and pretty much half of the town. At night, it’s a gorgeous view. The streetlights and the lights in the park make it seem so plain and simple, but something about that makes me so happy to live in a small town.
          I had been sitting in the tree house for over four hours. I needed time to myself to think about everything that was happening. I didn’t know where else to go, and I knew that no one would ever think about my tree house. No one knew that I still climbed up the red ladder and spent most of my evenings there. It was my private place. No one needed to know about it.
          There were so many memories there. I had been living in the house below since the day my mom brought me home from the hospital, and at the time, I was sixteen. That tree house was built as a birthday present when I turned five. It was every kid’s dream, but none of my friend’s parent’s could afford it. My parents worked at a hospital and earned a lot of money, and they would often spend that money on my older brother and me. I felt like a pretty princess up there.
          Anyway, I was in the tree house that day thinking about my best friend, Caitlyn. She had committed suicide the week before. I still hadn’t accepted the fact that I would never talk to her or even see her face again. I had grown up with that girl, and suddenly she was no longer there. She did it the exact same way my mom did when I was younger, which made it worse. No one knew how upset I was, and I really don’t think anyone noticed me, other than my boyfriend at the time.
          Even though no one bothered to check on me, I was extremely depressed. I wanted to be with her, wherever she was. I didn’t think I could survive the rest of my life without my best friend. I thought that it was the end of my world. So I cried, with a knife in my hand, right after writing a long note like Caitlyn had. I didn’t know what I was going to do with that knife or how long it would take for me to die or if anyone would try to stop me before it happened. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to wake up the next morning without my best friend. I couldn’t.
          The only notes I wrote were to my boyfriend, Jordan, and my big brother, Mason. They were the only two people I honestly cared about. My dad never paid attention to me, and my mom was dead. I knew they’d spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened if I didn’t explain it in a note.
I’m not exactly sure how Jordan knew where to find me, but he told me that he sensed something was wrong and the first place he thought to look was my tree house when he didn’t find me anywhere in my house. However he found out, he did, and he was at my house right as I was about to do it. I saw his shadow coming up the ladder and I quickly put the knife in my jacket pocket and tried to make it unnoticeable. I grabbed the nearest object, which was a half torn up stuffed bear that my mom had gotten me before she killed herself, and acted like I wasn’t just crying. When he finally got to the top of the ladder and crawled over to sit on his knees next to me, he saw the note and picked it up. I tried to grab it from him before he could read it, but he held me back with one hand and held it in the air with the other and read it all.
          By the time he was done reading it, I had given up on trying to stop him. I was just waiting for whatever was about to happen. I didn’t even realize that I had started crying again. I’m not even sure if I ever really stopped. Everything was silent for what felt like forever. I finally lifted my head and our eyes met. He had been staring at me with the saddest look in his eyes. I felt horrible. He didn’t say a word. He just sighed and pulled me into a hug.
          We sat there like that for a few seconds and then he did something that I will never forget. He lifted my chin up with his finger, forcing me to look into his baby blue eyes, and he kissed me for the first time. At that point, I could barely think. I didn’t know if I was crying. I didn’t know if the world was still moving. I didn’t know if I was even breathing. My thoughts drifted away and my brain turned into a cloud. I didn’t mean to ruin the special moment we had just created, but as soon as he pulled away, I blurted out the words, “I don’t want to live without Caitlyn. She was my best friend.”
          He kept his stare focused on my face, like he was trying to read my mind, and wiped my eyes with his thumbs. After a few more seconds of silence, he said the words that made my heart jump into my throat. “Have you ever thought about how much I care about you? I love you.”
          I shook my head because I knew I’d start crying again if I attempted to answer his question with words. I had thought about it. I did almost every day. I always wanted him to tell me or show me exactly how much he cared instead of me guessing. And in that moment, I had no idea what was happening. I wasn’t expecting any of it.
          “If I lost you, I’m pretty sure I would disappear, because you make me. You’re the reason I live, Lacy. You’re the only one I want to live for.” He pulled me into his arms again and held me as if that was the last minute we’d ever spend together. It was like he was afraid someone was about to take me away and he’d never get to see me again. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I just stayed quiet and let him hold me. The tears kept pouring down my cheeks, but I didn’t care anymore.
I guess he felt the knife in my pocket because he took it out and threw it away from us. “You were really thinking of this, weren’t you?”
I moved a few inches away from him and grabbed the teddy bear again and placed it in my lap. “Of course I was. I just lost my best friend. What else am I supposed to do?”
  “Lacy, stop talking like that. You’re just thinking about your past again. You’ll be okay. I promise.”
          I felt his hand touch my cheek, but I swatted it away from my face quickly. “No, Jordan,” I managed to choke out through the lump in my throat. “I won’t.” The tears got stronger and there was a burning sensation on my cheeks from them.
I suddenly wanted to tell him everything. I glanced at him and he was looking at his hands in his lap. “Jordan, I love you, okay? I really do. I do more than anything. But this pain, and Caitlyn’s death, and the thought of being without my best friend forever… I can’t do this. Nothing’s okay. Nothing has been okay since the day I lost my mom. Nothing will ever be okay again. My mom is dead, my best friend is dead, and I can’t live the rest of my life without them. I need Caitlyn. I promised her that I would always be there for her, and I’m breaking it by being here. What if she needs me there just like I need her here?”
          “Lacy, I’m sorry, but you have to break it. Some promises can’t be kept. Life happens. Death happens. You know she’d want you to break this promise and stay alive. You were and will always be a great friend to her. She would want you to find happiness. If you can’t live for yourself, live for her. Live for me. Live for your brother. Please just live. I need you to live.”
I sighed and looked at him with tears still streaming down my face. “I love you, Jordan.”
“I love you, too.”
“But I can’t just live.”
“What do you mean? Yes, you can. Why can’t you?”
I scooted closer to him and took one of his hands in mine. “Because I don’t know how to. I’m not good at living in a world without Caitlyn. She made life fun, and now it’s all dead.”
Jordan squeezed my hand and pulled me closer to wrap his arm around my shoulders. “I know. Everything seems less beautiful and less happy and less fun. But we have each other. We can help each other through this.”
“Do you think life will ever be as beautiful and as happy and as fun as Caitlyn made it seem?”
“Lacy, I know it will. We will make life great.”
I smiled and put my head against his chest, breathing in his cologne. I wasn’t sure if he was just saying that to make me feel better or if he really believed that we could make life as great as it used to be, but I believed him. We were going to make everything okay again.
But sometimes things don’t work out the way you plan them to. We dated for five more years after that night. We had twin sons, Kayden and Jayden. We got engaged a little over three months after they were born and had a beautiful wedding and spent two weeks in Venice together. We were married for a year and seven months before we found out that Jordan had cancer and only had a few more months to live.
I thought that I had already experienced the worst thing life could ever throw at me, which was losing my best friend and having to grow up without her. I was wrong. I hadn’t even experienced half of it. The next four months would be the worst four months of my entire life. In those four months, Jordan and I cried together, laughed together, loved each other more than we ever had before, and the entire time, we never knew which morning would be the last one we would wake up next to each other.
Two weeks before he died, he surprised me on one of the worst days I had ever had at work. He walked into my office with the biggest smile on his face and said, “Hello, my darling. Are you ready for a lunch date?”
My heart jumped out of my chest when I heard his voice. I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. It was the first time I had smiled in days. I stood up out of my chair and kissed him. “Of course I am.”
We went to a hot dog place downtown called Pete’s Hot Dogs. It was our favorite place in town, and it was where he took me for our first date. We ordered the same thing we had ordered a million times before. Both of us had three hot dogs with ketchup and chili sauce and a large vanilla milkshake with extra whipped cream. We told each other about how our day was going and laughed at each other’s silly jokes and had one of the best times we had ever had together. I fell in love with him all over again that day.
And then, two weeks down the road, it happened. The love of my life was back in the hospital, except this time he wouldn’t get to leave that hospital. Our luck had run out. I wouldn’t ever wake up to his face again and tell him that I loved him like I had done every morning since we moved in together.
“Lacy, I love you. I love you so much. Make sure the boys know how much they meant to me. You three are the reason I stayed strong through all this. Now I just need you to stay strong for them, okay? Never give up, Lacy. I love you. Everything is going to be just fine. Trust me.”
“I love you, too, Jordan.”
A few seconds later, it happened. His hand that was squeezing mine back suddenly got weak. That long, heart-piercing sound rang through my ears. My heart dropped. Tears spilled out of my eyes. The love of my life, my best friend, my husband, the only man I had ever loved, he was dead. He was dead and there was absolutely nothing I could do to make him come back.
“Goodbye, Jordan. I will always love you.”