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that night, but I wanted one last night with Kellynch, a chance to say a proper goodbye to a home I loved.
    * * * * *
    I wandered the house, fixing it into my memory once again. When I left eight years before, at least I knew I could come home anytime. Now there was no way to know when Dad would have Kellynch back again.
    Thoughts of Eric flooded my mind. Kellynch was full of memories of him. Memories of who we were together. Of who we wanted to be. Now Eric was nothing more than a voice on the radio. In the past eight years, I’d alternated between pretending he didn’t exist, and devouring every piece of news I could find. It was a fine line of crazy to walk but sometimes I just couldn’t help myself.
    When I heard his first song on the radio a few years back, I’d felt a mixed bag of emotions. He’d finally done what he’d always dreamed of. He’d made it. I was so proud and yet so sad. Two albums later and I still felt a surge of pride when I listened to his music, as if I could somehow claim a tiny bit of his success as my own.
    Sometimes though, listening to him would just remind me of my own mistakes, my weakness, my fear.
    There was no way Eric would want to return to my house. My memories of him at Kellynch were both painful and achingly sweet. For him, they were probably just painful.
    From the first day I met him, there was hardly a day we didn’t spend together at my house, at first with Charlie, and then later by ourselves. Dad and Beth treated Eric like dirt, but Kellynch was so big that it was easy enough for us to avoid them. We’d do homework in my bedroom, jam on the instruments in the music room, watch a movie on the big screen in the theatre room.
    Every space of the house conjured up a memory of him. Dad’s room, where Eric counted all the mirrors one time and we laughed to find there were twenty-four. The time Beth caught us drawing moustaches on her Dior Homme posters. Or the time we had a fight with all of Mari’s stuffed animals while she was away at boarding school.
    I also remembered awkward dinners in the dining room. Only Aunt Rose would acknowledge Eric’s existence aside from me, and even then, she was at most coldly polite to him. More fondly, I remembered many hot afternoons Eric and I spent swimming in the pool or doing our homework in the warm California sunshine.
    I wandered through the house, the memories settling over my skin like dust. When I entered the kitchen, hoping a glass of water would take this itchy, dry feeling away, I was overwhelmed by one of the best memories of all.
    * * * * *
    It was about halfway through our junior year—we’d been friends for more than a year. By then, Eric had traded his fedoras for skinny ties, and I had come to grips with the fact that I would never be curvy or taller than five foot four. After an afternoon spent doing homework, Charlie had gone home and Eric and I went to the kitchen in search of food. The house was empty—Dad and Beth had gone out to dinner without inviting us. Sandra, our cook, offered to make whatever we wanted but Eric wouldn’t have it.
    “I’ll make something.” He started opening and closing cupboard doors, searching for who-knows-what.
    “Since when can you cook?” I asked, leaning on the cold countertop.
    He pouted. “For your information, I can cook lots of things. Like soup. Kraft dinner. Pancakes.”
    “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you’re such a Jamie Oliver.”
    Eric had his head in the fridge. “I believe that’s more than you can make,” he called out.
    I couldn’t argue with that. The most I could make was toast and cereal.
    “Aha!” Eric started to pull different things from the fridge and lay them on the countertop.
    In minutes, he was busy chopping tomatoes, red and green peppers and jalapenos, while Sandra showed me how to brown ground beef and sauté chopped onions. Eric sang some old Sinatra songs while the kitchen filled with the greasy smell of hamburger, like an old diner. When