When Your Heart Stops Beating

My first thought is that she pronounced his last name wrong.
My second is that she’s lying.
                                                                  ~
When you think of a person, a tiny file of memory opens in your brain, containing everything you know about them. All the good memories you’ve made, stupid jokes that have been laughed at, every tear that you may have shed thinking about him or her, it’s all in there. Over time, that folder gets bigger and bigger, but a few papers and video clips inside have bright post-it flags on them. Those are the ones that really stand out. Maybe they are nice times, maybe not, but you remember them more than the others for one reason or another.

One such flagged memory, deciding that this is the right time, plays itself through my head. It is from last year, standing in homeroom, the two of us staring at a white sheet of paper pinned to the wall by the door. It is the list of students who ordered a yearbook. I was complaining that my last name was spelled wrong. ‘People always spell my name wrong.’ He said. ‘And they pronounce it wrong too. It’s with a v, not an f.’ I laughed at that. I could relate.
                                                                  ~
She pronounced his name wrong. That bothers me more than the notice she is reading. It should be the other way around, but because she is lying, she has to be lying, it doesn’t matter. I decide that I will tell him that later when I see him after science.

That’s another post-it memory. He has science at the same time as I do, in the room right across the hallway. I see him almost every time I leave the room. But not after Learning Center on day two. That’s in the science room also. And now I’m going into another folder of thought.

I think someone behind me is crying. She must have believed the notice that the teacher read. I am glad that I’m not fooled that easily. Maybe I should tell her not to cry because she’ll see him after school. I wonder if they are reading this same notice in his homeroom too. He must think that it’s ridiculous. He has a good sense of humor. That’s not a flagged memory, but it’s in there. A small post-it attached to the back of another, more important paper.

The bell rings. I restack my books and slide the pile off the table and into my arms. There are six feet between where I started and where I am going. Apparently, it takes only six feet to realize that something is terribly wrong.
                                                                  ~
Another paper got added to the folder. I think my mind isn’t yet sure if this memory should have a post-it flag, or if it should be just another sheet of paper. Four letter word. It can’t be that hard, right? There’s a mind folder of vocabulary with hundreds of four-letter words in it that don’t have post-it flags. Why should this one be any different? In fact, this word is in that file right now, no flag.
                                                                  ~
I think someone just asked me if I am alright. I think I am crying. I think I am not alright after all.

I try to say to her that I am fine. She is my good friend. I don’t want her to worry. I try to say to her that I am fine, but my throat closes up and a tear threatens to slide out from its hiding place behind my glasses, so I cannot. I nod instead.

I wonder if she can tell that I am not fine. Probably she can, if not from the way I gave her a choked out, incoherent mutter instead of an answer, then from the way my teary eyes refuse to meet her concerned ones.
                                                                  ~
Other students shuffle into the room, some red eyed like me, some silent, some not having traveled those most important six feet. I pity them the most, because when the understanding comes, it comes with no forgiveness, and no sympathy.
                                                                  ~
It has been some time now since the notice, since the mispronounced last name, since my six feet and the cold realization of understanding. Maybe I have gotten over it. I have stood in the cold rain, staring at the backs of mourners, and contemplating the undersides of the umbrellas they use to shield themselves from the tears of heaven.

Even now, it all still seems a bit surreal. Even after I watched my friends carefully drop dirt into a hole in the ground that seems too impossibly small to hold that exuberant personality, even after I stood on the side without the heart to pick up the spade myself.

My friend comes over to my house. ‘Listen to this song.’ She tells me. ‘Someone told me it was his favorite song.’ I wonder why suddenly now everyone knows so much about him. Wasn’t he just a student that half these people hadn’t said two words to just a few days before? But I will not say this to her, because she is one of the ones who never spoke to him. Instead, I let her play the song.

I’ll be there when your heart stops beating,
I’ll be there when your last breath’s taken away,
In the dark when there’s no one listening,
In the times when we both get carried away.

I let her play the song, and I wonder what he was thinking.