Instead I leave. Because he wouldn’t like the rest: I never really had any faith. I wanted it. I thought Declan could give it to me. I’d wanted to be more like him. And yet…that never happened.

He stopped going to church.

He lost his faith.

Something made him lose his faith.

Something, or someone.

I hold my chest as I walk through the empty hallway, the figures in the stations of the cross staring down at me. I feel like my heart might beat out of my chest.

I find Kane inside the sanctuary, sitting in a pew in the back, looking up at the altar. I nudge him over and sit beside him. “Did you learn anything?”

“Father Brady says he hadn’t seen him since Christmas,” I whisper, as if the statues surrounding us are listening. “He didn’t go to church before his death. For, like, six weeks.”

Kane looks down at his lap, and it almost looks like he’s praying. “Strange.”

“I don’t think he’d ever be so busy as to miss church. But I found out why he felt guilty,” I say. “His dad. He felt responsible for his death.”

Kane nods, unsurprised.

“You knew that?”

“Yeah. His dad was coming home from work, but Declan called to tell him he needed to get picked up from his friend’s. His dad reached for the phone while he was driving and lost control of the car.”

He never told me that. As close as we were, Declan never told me that. And it wasn’t anything he couldn’t tell me. I thought I was the closest person to him. It was hard to imagine any two people being closer than him and me.

Until now.

“Oh. He never told me.”

“Well, it’s not something you bring up in casual conversation.”

Casual conversation. Our conversations had long since stopped being casual. In fact, all we did was have deep, meaningful heart-to-hearts. We’d spent so many quiet nights together, telling each other our stories, that when the week before Christmas came around and we went out to Friday’s for dinner, we’d sat together staring at our phones, barely talking. I’d been quiet because I couldn’t think of anything to say, since there was nothing about me he didn’t know. I’d already poured my soul out to him, so there wasn’t a single side of me that he hadn’t seen. But Declan?

He’d had things to tell me. He just chose not to.

The thought makes my heart ache. I stand, without a word, and go outside. Kane follows a few minutes later, after I’ve already twisted the key in the ignition. “See,” he says, opening the door to the passenger side. “Told you that you’d take this too hard.”