Waiting For Superman

Excerpt

"He's dead," I mumbled, moving to the refrigerator, the silver phone tucked between my shoulder and my ear. I lifted up the new bottle of mayonnaise, sliding it behind the old one. I grabbed the milk, sliding it all the way to the right-hand side, moving the chocolate milk beside it.

"Cassie, calm down," I could tell by Mia's voice that she was the only one in the house that was awake at this hour, and she had intended on keeping it that way. I, however, couldn't care less who I woke up.

This wasn't the same as all of our other late night emergency phone sessions. This wasn't like last week, when I found out one of the boys a year older than us was moving. No, this wasn't something silly like that. We had thought that was a big deal, since we had been crushing on Matthew Peters since forever, but this was nowhere near the same magnitude. We could find Matthew Peters later on in life, accidentally running into him at a supermarket only to realize he moved back to town the previous fall, or we could call him up, listen to his voice, even if it was faded and choppy from the poor phone service. We had no way to communicate with Ryan Jacobson, though. We couldn't call up heaven, asking to talk to the cute boy from my math class. It wasn't going to work like that, and it was the worst feeling I had ever felt.

The worst part for everyone-or, at least, for me-was knowing that no matter how much we wanted one, or didn't want one, there was never going to be a goodbye involved in the end of our friendship.

"Cass, are you okay?"

"No," I mumbled, pressing my back against the wall beside the refrigerator. The doors closed slowly, each bumping against the drawers I had opened. They bounced back, opening once more, and repeating the motion. My body slid lifelessly toward the ground, as I wrapped my arms around my knees. I sniffled, looking up toward the ceiling. I wondered if he could hear me, see me, feel my love.

"I'm on my way," I heard Mia say, "Just hang on."

"Mia, I can't," I breathed, a tear falling down my cheek, "I loved him."