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I told him, "I think I'll write a book."

He said, "Do it right, November. Write a best-seller and send me a copy with your autograph on the inside cover."

"I can do better than that," I promised, our fingers intertwined for the last time, "I'll write the best damn book you've ever read. It'll tell the story of lost love and lost innocence, of found friends and staying out too late on a cold night, and the story of endings without closure. It'll be about boys and girls and break-ups and hook-ups and how everything happens in the backseat of cars."

"They'll interview you on television because everyone wants to know who inspired the story," he continued, "And you'll smirk like you always do because you know the answer but no one else has a clue."

I laughed, "Everyone will cry when they read my book, because it's the saddest story that's ever been told. Everyone will cry but you and I won't."

"We can't cry. It's your book, and I can't cry for you. You can't cry for yourself either, it's bad taste and tears don't look good on you, November."

"But everyone else will cry."

"Yes, they will. They'll cry and realize that they need to be happy where they are with whoever they're there with, and learn to live and let each other alone. We'll all be happy and you can bring all the soldiers home."

"Including you?"

"I'll be on the first flight to wherever I can find you."

"I think my book will tell the meaning of life."

"It will," he said, "It'll show the meaning of life and how everyone has to find their own way to interpret it."

"Because the only real meaning to life is to live as much as you can until you're done."

"You'll be famous, November," he mused.

"My book will outsell the Bible in 21 days."

He laughed, "They'll make a movie about it and I'll be played by an up-and-coming young actor who wants to share this message with the illiterate."

"And you'll have millions of fans, Grey. They'll all learn to read to know more about you."

"But they'll be disappointed when they get to the part about the month of October."

"Like anyone could be disappointed in you."

"Oh, November," he said, "Be sure to add something about missing someone so much that you look like you haven't slept in weeks. And rumours that come true later because someone always thinks they have something to prove. And talk about getting busted on hotel balconies, and how sometimes you're trying to get caught."

"I'll talk about how five years is a long time to a teenager but nothing to a grandparent."

"Tell everyone about rough hands and the sound that belts make when they hit the side of a car."

"My book will be banned because it's too honest and far too scandalous," I told him.

"That'll just make it more popular, and in five years it'll be on required reading lists. But the students will actually like it, and they'll always remember the story of the kids just like them that had nothing figured out and too much free time to make good decisions."

His eyes were serious as they met mine that last time and he leaned down to leave his last traces on my forehead, "But, November? How will it end?"

I looked at the sky and the convoy behind us, ready to make the space between us grow from inches to miles.

"It doesn't," I answered slowly, "Nothing ends. It just changes. You'll see, Grey. Nothing ever ends. Everything just changes."

"Well, November," he said with an air of finality, "Send me a copy to wherever you can find me. I swear that the moment you write it I'll take the first flight home to get an autograph from the author of the best damn book that I've ever read."

He left me moments later, and I never saw him again. It was strange to give him up. Over time, I forgot most of our idle conversations, the ones where we planned our futures together and in the same small town we'd always lived in. But the saddest story I'd ever write lingered in the back of my mind, always close enough to be felt on the tips of my fingers as they tapped out useless letter after unsent letter on the keyboard.

It was November, the month I was named after, when the story finally came pouring out. I wrote the book in twenty-seven hours. I rewrote and revised for countless hours, until I was sick of looking at the pages and reminiscing about the week we only smoked Marlboros, or the month we only ate winter clementines until our mouths were too sore to meet. I was tired of describing the feeling of licking popsicle trails from each other and the tastes they made when they mixed with our skin.  I had pages of theories about god and the universe, traced out in letter like the stars type-written across the sky. I had chapters and chapters devoted to families and friends and why we needed them in the first place.

It was a book about love, I guess, but most books are. It was a murder mystery; a whodunit with an awful ending where the narrator strongly implied that the bad guys won. It was a fantasy romance too. It was a fantasy romance with magic and people who were meant to be and I think there was even a part where some princes turned into swans and a girl's fingers bled as she knitted them sweaters of nettles. It was a realistic fiction novel where kids got drunk at parties and did some crazy shit and never got caught. It was one of those tear-jerkers about a guy with cancer and probably a ship that hit an iceberg while everyone onboard remembered their lovers through an Alzheimer's haze. It was a book that became a best-seller in three days.

And so everyone learned our story, the saddest one that's ever been told.  It was a true story. It was written about memories and all the truth and lies that hold people together. It was written for a boy and a girl who never really had a chance to be together but never felt the need to stay apart. It was written about a girl who doesn't exist anymore, for a boy who died a long time ago.

It was a hit with the critics. It was an automatic best-seller without a single error. It was a book that hurt to read, with characters so relevant it was considered an instant classic. It was a book that made people think. It was a book that made people realize they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and move on with their lives, or made people happy to be where they were with whoever they were there with.

It was a true story in a southern town, with country music playing in the background of the pages. It was an advice book, stored in the self-help section beside the diet plans, and it was a poem. It was a true story. It was our story.

The last page was blank, a kind of end-your-own-adventure. There was no satisfying way to tie up all the loose ends. That was the point of the story, I think, if it had a point other than bleeding out my memories.

Books always have a conclusion. It's one of the first things you'll learn in any English class, identifying the conclusion from the exposition. The loose ends are neatly tied up and presented in their plot-twist bow, holding the characters and their situations together as pretty as possible.

But we don't have an ending, and life's loose ends go on for miles. It was the greatest story I have ever written; it was the story that wrote me.

Grey would have loved it, read every page until it was dog-eared and the spine was falling off. He would have quoted it and probably got a tattoo from it, something permanent to remind us that nothing lasts forever. Grey would have smiled and laughed, but Grey wouldn't have cried, not even at the end, when the hero died.

The old boys cried at that part. They said I nailed it. They said there were no other words that could capture the moment as well as those did. They said that it was beautiful and haunting and tragic and it made them rethink their lives- it really did.

They quoted the book at a hero's funeral. I wouldn't know; I didn't go. I holed myself up in my room with clementines and popsicles  and a whole carton of Marlboros. I didn't come out until they were gone and the boys were gone and it felt like my life was gone, gone-gone.

The book was selling beyond belief. The book made me famous. I would make him famous.

But he stole my words. The day he left, he stole my words. I searched for days, rifling through my folders and even unlocking the fire-proof safe where I had stored a few extra just in case I was ever at a complete loss. But even the words I had locked away for safe-keeping had vanished, and all the stories I wrote had reverted to blank paper and empty word documents.

I tried to make him proud, but my words were six-feet-under. They died a hero's death in a faraway land, protecting people they would never meet. They were sandy, stolen, aching words. They were gone six days before they brought the soldiers home.

I never found the words. I gave it all up to search for them. I gave it all up to search for him. But the world was G-grey and I never found them. The world had lost its shine.

The last thing I ever read said,

"The book's fame never faded, but the girl behind it did."