it's the Vonnegut that gets to you, probably

it's the Vonnegut that gets to you, probably. it's stupid, but you're sitting in that whitewhite sterile room and all you can think about is the copy of Cat's Cradle that's sitting on the bedside table beside him. and you remember getting drunk on the football field and listening to him read, of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are 'it might have been'. it might have been. it might have been. it might have—

what?

you always knew he was sick. he hid it in all the ways a best friend tries and fails at, and you saw through every one of his disguises. and now he's there, and you're here, and all you can do is think about Vonnegut and wonder about all the things that might have been if only you'd had the courage to say something.

he's watching you. i didn't expect you to come, he says, and his voice is hollow.

why wouldn't i?

because i never told you.

you want to shake your head and laugh at him, but laughter sounds so out of place in these long narrow hallways. you hate hospitals. they're full of death and illness and other things that can't be good for the soul. so instead of laughing you just sigh and droop a bit.

you didn't have to.

have to what?

tell me. i already knew.

you sit on the side of the bed and look at your hands, and you hate that feeling of helplessness. and then you feel silly because how dare you be feeling helpless when he's the one who's dying, when he's the one who needs your support? let me see your hands, you ask, and he gives you his right. i want to see your butterfly.

he laughs at you. his laughter is not nearly as out-of-place as yours would have been.

you pull the bandage off of your hand and interlace your fingers with his, and his laughter stops as he looks at what you've done. half a butterfly on each hand, matching wings for each of you. god grant me the courage—

why?

someone once told me a story about butterflies. about how there's a myth, somewhere, that says that butterflies are the souls of dead loved ones. the celtic people of the middle ages know that they were ethereal—and they ate them to give them a home. you pause, looking down at your joined hands, at the butterfly wings that connect you.

you fool, he says, but he's smiling. you'll have to live with that forever.

a thousand words could not tell him how much you want that to be the case. i know, you say, and blink back tears. i'm counting on it.

he dies—

and you carry your butterfly as if it were a part of him. in some ways, it is.

you're too far north for the Edward's hairstreak, but one morning it's perched on the ledge outside your bedroom window. beautiful. pale brown, blue and orange and white, and it's not flying, just sitting there on your windowsill like it's waiting for you.

it doesn't move when you pick it up.

butterfly soul, you think. you lift it, slip it inside your mouth, and swallow.