If there was a promise you were allowed to break, it wasn’t that one, and now I’m forced to approach your casket in one hour to say goodbye to you. I’ll never die,” you said as you hugged me. I saw our endgame-to find our way back to each other when the time was right, no matter what-disappear, and I made you promise to always take care of yourself and never die. But on the day we were walking to the post office with Wade to ship your boxes to California, you walked backward into the street and almost got hit by a car. Some of those promises took bad turns but weren’t broken, like how I said I’d never hate you even though you gave me enough reasons to, or how you never stopped being my friend even when your boyfriend asked you to. We made promises to each other on the day I broke up with you so you could do your thing out there in Santa Monica without me holding you back. And if bringing up the past annoys you now-as I know it did when you left New York for California-know that I’m sorry, but please don’t be mad at me for reliving all of it. I just want you to remember things the way I do. You knew enough meaningless trivia to fill notebooks, but you occasionally slipped on the bigger things, like my birthday this year (May 17th, not the 18th), and you never kept your night classes straight even though I got you a cool planner with zombies on the cover (which you-know-who probably forced you to throw out). I doubt it’ll even surprise you since we always joked about how your brain worked in funny ways. Trust me when I say I’m not talking down to you as I recall this memory, and many others, in great detail. I’ll break down the details of this promise again. It hurts even more because this isn’t the first promise you’ve broken. And you should know I’m really pissed because you swore you would never die and yet here we are. You’re still alive in alternate universes, Theo, but I live in the real world, where this morning you’re having an open-casket funeral. Shout-outs to Daniel Ehrenhaft, who discovered me, and Meredith Barnes, who helps everyone find me. Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.įor those with history stuck in their heads and hearts. History is all you left me / Adam Silvera.ġ. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Published in the United States by Soho Teen

Resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events,

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

History was all you left me