The morning Olivia left felt wrong from the second I opened my eyes.
It wasn't the kind of morning where you stretch and breathe in sunlight.
It was the kind where your chest feels squeezed before you even move.
I got dressed too quickly, my hands shaking as I brushed my hair. My reflection looked… distant. Like a version of me who hadn't slept, who didn't know how to say goodbye.
Maybe I didn't.
I walked to Olivia's house slower than usual, dragging my feet even when I didn't mean to. Her street was too quiet, the sky too pale, the air too cold. Everything looked washed out.
Her house was full of boxes.
Boxes taped shut.
Boxes labeled in thick black marker.
Boxes that looked like endings.
Olivia stood outside with her parents, her backpack slung over one shoulder. She wore her usual clothes — dark jeans, a loose sweater, bracelets tapping lightly as she fidgeted. But she wasn't Olivia the way I knew her.
She seemed smaller.
Softer.
Already halfway gone.
When she saw me, her face crumpled in relief and sadness at the same time.
"You came," she whispered.
"Of course I came," I said, my voice barely working.
We stepped aside, away from her parents, into a patch of sunlight on the driveway. It made her hair look almost silver at the edges.
"We don't have long," she said quietly.
"Don't say that."
"It's true, Kate."
My throat tightened. I wanted to say I wasn't ready. That I couldn't do this. That she had become part of the shape of my days, and I didn't know how to go back to being alone.
But all the words got stuck.
She pulled something out of her pocket — a small folded piece of paper, soft around the edges like she'd been holding it too tightly.
"This is for you," she said. "But don't open it until after the car leaves."
I took it with trembling fingers. "What is it?"
"Just… something I needed to say. Something I couldn't say out loud without ruining everything."
"Everything is already ruined," I whispered, voice breaking.
She didn't deny it.
Instead she stepped forward and hugged me.
Really hugged me.
Her arms wrapped tight around my shoulders, her head pressing into my neck. She smelled like pine and old books and cool air — everything that was familiar, everything that meant her. I held her like the world was ending, and maybe it was.
For me, in a way, it was.
Her breath shook against my shoulder.
"I wish I didn't have to go," she whispered.
"I wish you didn't either," I whispered back.
We didn't let go for a long time.
We didn't speak.
We didn't breathe right.
Just held on.
Until her mom called gently, "Olivia… it's time."
Olivia pulled back, eyes glassy and unbearable.
"This isn't the end," she said.
But the way her voice cracked told me she wasn't sure.
She stepped into the car.
Her parents started the engine.
The trunk was full.
The windows reflected the sky.
I stood there, frozen, clutching the folded note in my hand so hard the paper wrinkled.
Olivia looked at me through the window, her face pressed close to the glass. She mouthed:
Thank you.
Then the car started rolling backward.
Then turning.
Then moving down the street.
And I stayed there, in the middle of the driveway, watching her go until the car became smaller, and smaller, and finally disappeared around the corner.
My chest felt empty in a way I couldn't describe.
Like something had been scooped out.
When I finally opened the note — hands shaking, eyes watery — there was only one sentence inside.
Written in her messy handwriting:
"You were the one good thing."
I pressed the paper to my heart and closed my eyes.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt truly, painfully alone.