Whenever Aidy talked about Marley in public, she’d say, “On July 11, I lost my best friend.” That word always struck me—lost—like Marley was nothing more than a misplaced sock or a wallet buried in the bottom of a giant purse. It bothered me, not because it wasn’t true, but because it was. When Marley died, she didn’t leave. She was right there, but not in the way we’d been used to seeing. If only everyone else would have looked a little harder, they’d know she hadn’t gone anywhere. But they left her lying dead on the floor of her parents’ bedroom. They buried her and painted pictures of her and carried wallet-sized photos in their pockets to prove to people that they knew true grief. They lost sight of her and all she was. It was I who had to pick Marley up and place her on my shoulders, carrying what no one else could.

After Marley died, I was the only one who found her.

So when Nick muttered, “Did you hear what I said?” as if he was afraid to say Marley is everywhere again now that it was quieter, my heart tried to reassure my pulse that it wasn’t possible. Nick was like everyone else. He’d lost her too.

I sat shoulder to shoulder with him—this boy whose name I used to scribble on every spare piece of paper I could find—trying to decide which version of Olivia best suited a situation so complicated. I could put on an easy mask and make him feel strange and small for saying something as absurd as Marley is everywhere. Or maybe I’d get up and walk away, offended by his very presence.

In trying to decide, my free hand found a stick lying on the ground. I needed something to hold. Nick’s skin touching mine burned so bright that it stunned me. For the first time in the five years since she died, what Marley wanted from me wasn’t clear.

Nick coughed, clearing his throat to make himself braver, and said, “Earlier, in the tent, did you hear me?”

My ears grew hot. It wasn’t right. Marley had let me go five years without him. I’d lived through 1,825 days of Nick shipped off to his alternative school and me stuck pretending for people who didn’t understand. A full 43,800 hours of her guiding me through every step of my life as her proxy. I wrote her name in the dirt with my stick and jabbed the pointed end into the ground after drawing the last letter; a period for a girl who never dealt in sort-ofs or maybes.

M-A-R-L-E-Y.

“Why now?” I asked aloud. To him or to her, I didn’t know, but I could guess the answer anyway. Because it’s been five years.

As if that was really any answer at all.