the eleventh hour

The first week of December, I noticed something had changed in Scotty. He was around me more; it almost felt like he was trying to fix our friendship. And that’s what mattered to me the most, our friendship. Deep down, I’ll always love him, but even if he wasn't my boyfriend, I wanted him as my best friend. Scotty was the only real friend I had before Austin. But now I didn’t have Austin, so I had to make sure I didn’t lose Scotty, too.

He called me almost every night to make sure I was doing okay. It felt like how it was when we were dating. But I knew there was something off about it because one week, he would be nice and sweet, and then the next, he would shut down again. I didn’t understand why. I tried, but I just couldn’t. This week, he was shut down again.

I was glad he was talking to me again, but something in my gut was telling me that something wasn’t right. I didn’t know what it was.

I was in my room, studying for a math test. Scotty’s been helping me with math; it was nice. I missed him as my tutor. I was actually understanding the material in class for once.

I hear a knock on my door, making me look over my shoulder to see my mother standing there.

“Hey,” I smile at her as she walks in.

“What are you doing?” She asks as she sits down at the foot of my bed.

“Studying for math,” I tell her as I turn back in my desk chair.

“Has Scotty been helping you?” She questions me.

I nod, “Yeah, he’s a good tutor,” I smile to myself as I think about him.

She doesn’t say anything, but I just ignore it and focus on what I was doing before she speaks up again.

“I wanted to talk to you about Scotty,” She voices.

I frown before looking back at her. I studied her facial expression; she was upset. It was obvious that she was. It made me scared.

“Is he okay?” I ask, worriedly.

She sighs, “He was diagnosed with depression. Lauren said that he’s been taking some new medication,” She explains to me.

I feel a sick feeling in my stomach, like the feeling you get when you know something bad is about to happen to you. That was the feeling I was getting right now.

“Is he gonna be okay?” I reply, trying everything in my power not to cry.

“He’s had depression before, the summer before sophomore year. He went on medication, and after a year, he was back to normal,” She tells me the truth.

I think about that summer, that entire year. All this time, I let myself believe that I was the reason he was acting that way. But I wasn’t; it was he. And I didn’t see it, I was so selfish that I didn’t see that he was struggling. I made it all about myself. Because I was a terrible friend and a terrible person, he needed me, but I wasn’t there. I left him all alone, I found new friends, and I just let him go.

“Gracie,” Mom whispers as tears run down my face.

I look at her and shake my head, “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask her, my voice breaking a little.

“He told his mom that he didn’t want you to know,” She answered me.

“But I’m his best friend,” I remind her.

It almost felt like I was lying. Was I his best friend? If I were, why wouldn’t he tell me what he was going through?

“I wasn’t gonna tell you that he fell back into it, but I wanted you to know that his mood changes are because of the meds, not because of you, angel,” She explains as she gets up.

I let out and sob as she crouches down next to my desk chair. She places her hands on my knees and looks at me with a pained look.

“He’s gonna be okay. He’ll get through it, he’s a strong boy, he will make sure to fight through it for you,” She whispers to me.

I nod as I look down at my lap. My mom places a kiss on my head as I close my eyes.

She sits there and holds me in her arms for a while until I finally collect myself.

That night, I lay in bed and thought about every moment that summer when Scotty was losing himself. It started midway through July.

I ran across the green yard, my towel thrown over my shoulder, in my swimsuit and flip-flops. I run up to his back door and knock on it, waiting for him to answer. Whenever one of us wanted to go to the lake and swim, we would run to each other’s house in our swimsuits, ready to go. The other person had to come no matter what; it was an unspoken rule.

Lauren opens the door, and I smile at her. She looked tired; her hair was in a messy bun, about to fall out. Lauren’s always been a neat person; I’d never seen her look so tired and messy.

“Is Scotty home?” I ask her, eagerly.

“He’s in his room, hon. But I’m not sure if he wants to go anywhere today,” She tells me.

“Oh,” I try my best to hide the disappointment in my voice.

She had to have noticed that I was upset, or else she wouldn’t have said, “You can go ask him, though.” She smiles at me.

I smile, “Okay,” I say before she moves out of the way.

I walk inside and run up to Scotty’s room. The door was closed, so I knocked before opening it. I saw him lying in his bed, facing the window that faced my bedroom window.

“Scotty?” I call as I walk closer to the bed.

He looks over his shoulder, and I notice his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in months; his hair was messy, and he looked like he had a terrible summer cold.

“Are you okay?”I ask him.

“Yeah,” He replies before looking back at the window.

I frown as I stare at his back. He was acting so differently, it felt like I didn’t know him.

“Do you have a summer cold?” I question him.

I hear him let out a heavy sigh, “I just wanna be alone, Gracie,” He tells me.

I sigh before I turn around and walk out of the room. I walked out of the house and went to the lake by myself. I sat at the edge of the dock and just stared at the water. Trying to figure out what I did to make him upset.

----------------

He called me late at night, and it was almost 2 am when the phone rang. I answered it immediately before I heard his voice.

“Did I wake you up?” His deep voice filled my ears.

“No,” I tell him.

I was reading, so I wasn’t tired one bit. I’m glad I didn't go to bed, because now I'm talking to him. He hasn’t talked to me in a week, but I wasn’t upset; I knew he was dealing with the medication. So I didn’t blame him.

“Can you meet me at the secret base?” He asks, his voice low.

I look out my window at his bedroom window and see his light on. The curtains were still closed.

“Yeah,” I answered him.

“Okay, see you soon,” He whispers before ending the call.

I wondered why he wanted to meet so late, but I didn’t try to question it. Maybe he would tell me what he’s going through.

I got out of bed and didn’t bother changing out of my pajamas. I slowly walked out of my room, using my phone light as a flashlight. I made my way downstairs and snuck through the kitchen to get to the back door. The second I closed the door behind me. I ran down the back steps to the tree house. He was already there, waiting for me on the edge of the entrance. I smile as I climb up the ladder.

“Hi,” I say as I sit next to him.

“Here,” He says as he takes off his zip-up hoodie.

I try to fight my smile as he hands me the hoodie. I put it on and feel warmth fill me.

It goes quiet for a second, and we both just sit there, looking at the night sky. I looked for my dad and Austin in the stars.

“Gracie?” Scotty speaks up.

I look at him and see him looking at me, “Yeah?” I answer.

He studies my face, making me feel a little anxious. I wondered what he wanted to say.

“We met in the right place with the same feeling, but maybe… just maybe not at the right time,” He explained to me, but I didn’t understand why he was saying that now.

“What are you talking about?” I look at him, trying to understand him better.

I watch him reach for something beside him; he sticks his hand out to me, and I look down to see a white envelope with my name in his handwriting on it.

“What’s this?” I frown as I take it from him.

“Promise me you won’t open it till tomorrow night at this exact time,” He orders me.

I looked at him. I was anxious. “What’s going on, Scotty?” I ask him.

“Just promise me that you won’t open it, Gracie,” He repeats himself.

I sigh and nod. He smiles as he places his cold hand on the side of my face. I looked into his blue eyes, trying to understand him. His eyes were filled with tears, and I didn’t know why.

“Scotty?” I whisper.

“You will own every piece of my heart, Gracie. It is forever yours. I don’t want it back,” He tells me as the tears escape his eyes.

“I don’t understand,” I mutter.

“You will,” He says before he leans in and places his lips against mine.

I close my eyes and kiss him back; he kisses me deeply. He kisses me like he is trying to take in every moment of the kiss. He’s never kissed me like this. It made me feel strange because I didn’t know if I was supposed to be happy or upset. I tried to feel what he was feeling through the kiss, but I couldn’t.

Once we pulled away, he placed his head against mine and sighed, “I hope you get everything you’ve ever wanted in life, Gracie,” he whispered.

But didn’t he know that he was everything that I wanted in life?

I kept my promise and didn’t open the envelope he gave me last night. I just had it sitting on my desk, taunting me. I tried to read, to distract myself, but it didn’t work. I tried to sleep, but it didn't work. It was only 9 pm, and I never slept this early during the weekend. So I decided I would clean up my room a little. It was pouring rain outside, and it was December, so it wasn’t really cold where it would snow yet, though. I organized my entire closet by color and organized my drawers. I fixed up my bookshelf and made sure all my books were put in the right spots.

I started to clean out my nightstand drawer, which was a junk drawer at this point. I dumped everything out onto my floor and started looking through it when I saw the sketchbook I'd gotten Scotty last Christmas. He must have left here when we were together.

I smiled and grabbed it. I looked through all the drawings and realized that every single drawing was a sketch of me. There was one from the day he told me he liked me. I was reading and tanning by the lake, and he was sketching. There was another one of me sitting at my desk, writing. Some were drawings when he didn’t have his sketchbook or a camera. Like on our first date at the Chinese restaurant, he had drawn me sitting at the table, looking down at my plate.

He drew me from memory.

The one that caught my eye was the one of him and me. It was from prom that I remembered this photo. It was the one his mom took of us in my bedroom when he was putting on my corsage. He must have seen the picture, I was looking at him and smiling while he put it around my wrist.

This was the only picture he painted; all the others were black and white. I smile as I look down at the picture. And that's when I realized that I had to tell him. He needed to know that I loved him. That I still love him.

I got up, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from my desk. I set the envelope he gave me aside and began writing on the piece of paper. I wrote him a love letter, confessing everything that I had bottled up for the past 7 years of my life.

Once I finished, I put it into an envelope and wrote his name on it. I smiled before I got up and made my way downstairs. I didn’t bother putting on a jacket. I wasn’t gonna wait any longer. I put my shoes on and ran out the front door. I ran through the rain until I got to his front porch. I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell just as I heard the sound of sirens. I didn’t realize how close they were until I saw flashing lights from behind me.

I frowned and turned around to see an ambulance parked in the driveway. I watch the paramedics pull out a stretcher before they come up the front porch.

“Gracie?” I hear Lauren, Scotty's mom.

I look back at the door and see her looking at me, tears running down her face. She didn’t seem hurt; she was fine. So why were they here?

The paramedics pushed me aside, and they disappeared inside the house along with Lauren. I couldn’t make sense of a single thing that was happening. It made no sense to me.

I wasn’t sure whether to go inside the house, but they didn’t take long to come back outside.

The second they stepped outside with the stretcher, all my questions were answered. I saw him lying on the stretcher, his eyes closed. He had white foam at the corner of his mouth, and he looked pale. I’d never seen him look like that; he looked like a different person. It felt as if he were a complete stranger.

“Scotty,” I whisper, hoping he’d open his eyes and look at me.

I watched them take him into the ambulance, and I felt everything falling apart inside me. I watch Lauren run out of the house, sobbing. She gets inside the ambulance with her son, and I feel my legs give up, and I fall to my knees. I watch them drive away, and I cover my mouth with the palm of my hand as I sob.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

It was real.

He was gone.

My Scotty was gone.

I would never hear his voice, his laugh, the sound of my name in his mouth. I would never feel the pressure of his kiss, the texture of his hands, the softness of his hair, or the warmth of his body. I would never feel, hear, or even see him ever again.

Later that night, my mother told me that he overdosed. Lauren found him on the bathroom floor when I found the sketchbook in my room. She called the ambulance when I decided to tell him I loved him. The ambulance came when I rang the doorbell.

And just like that, I didn’t get my “happily ever after”, and without him, I never will. Scott Miller would never hear me tell him, "I love you."