Christy Renault was supposed to be the one walking across that glittery gym floor, satin dress glowing under the disco lights, tiara tilted just slightly on her curls, smiling that signature half-smile she only saved for the people she actually liked. She was supposed to be next to me laughing, dancing, whispering secrets behind cupped hands like we always did.

Instead, I was staring at her empty locker the day before prom. The pink streamers we’d taped up the week before were still fluttering like ghosts.

No one could explain what happened. One day she was there alive, bright, radiant as ever and the next, she was gone. “An accident,” they said. Some people whispered darker things, because this was Shadyside and dark things always found a way to crawl to the surface. But all I knew was that Christy was gone. And no one seemed to feel the weight of it like I did.

Because no one knew.

Not like I did.

She wasn’t just my best friend.

I was in love with her.

It started slow one of those feelings you mistake for admiration or envy at first. She was so easy to love from afar: the way she spoke with conviction, how she stood up for the underdog even if it made her unpopular, how she touched your arm when she laughed and didn’t realize it lingered too long. Everyone wanted Christy’s attention, but I already had it. She’d chosen me a long time ago, before lip gloss and high heels and prom court mattered.

And somewhere between late night phone calls and shared milkshakes at Melvin’s, it changed. Or maybe I changed. I started memorizing the way her perfume lingered on my sweater after she borrowed it. I started paying attention to the curve of her smile when she caught me looking. I started thinking about what it might feel like to hold her hand and not have to hide it.

But I never told her. I always meant to maybe after prom. Maybe once it didn’t feel so terrifying.

Now, that moment would never come.

The night of prom, I wore the dress we picked out together. I curled my hair the way she showed me. I didn’t go with a date. I didn’t dance. I just sat in the bleachers, watching our classmates spin in a world she should’ve been part of.

I kept thinking about the last conversation we had two days before she died. We were lying on my bedroom floor, flipping through magazines, and she suddenly said, “If I could go with anyone to prom, it’d be you.”

She said it like a joke. I laughed because I was scared. But maybe she meant it. Maybe she knew.

Now, I sit at her grave more than I care to admit, whispering the words I should’ve said when she was still here.

“I loved you.”

I say it into the wind and hope somewhere, somehow, Christy hears it.

And maybe just maybe she loved me too.