In the end the police accepted the fact that it was a suicide and let it go. Hazel's dads had to live with it, they'd said. Turns out they were the ones who'd begged for the investigation.

We're coming back from the funeral now. I didn't want to go, but Mom forced me. Now I'm kind of glad she made me. A final goodbye.

Almost the whole school was there. It was crazy, how they'd all known who she was enough to go to her funeral and cry when I'd only just found out about her, while she was in my life that whole time. It's not fair.

"You ready?"

"For what?"

"For an adventure."

For so long I'd wondered why Hazel had come to be so late in my life, and how I had never noticed her until the near end. Now I understand.

Before, it was just me, my family, and Jane. I didn't care about anyone else. I thought that everything that happened would somehow affect me, no matter who was involved at the moment.

Once Hazel came into my life, that changed.

I go to lunch with Jane after. She tries to cheer me up, but everyone knows that that doesn't work after coming from a funeral. We don't bring up Hazel's name, but it's all we're thinking about.

Jane doesn't know why I'd really brought her to lunch, but pretty soon Maria from her trigonometry class is at our table.

Jane's eyes go extremely wide and she turns accusingly to me, but soon conversation breaks out and we're all having a good time. Or, as much of a good time as you can have after someone you know passes away.

After a few minutes I excuse myself and leave from the table. As I look back, I see them laughing together, and I smile.

At least one of us is happy.

The walk home is long and tiring. I stare at all the houses I pass and wonder what wouldn't have happened if I'd lived in any of them instead of my actual house.

I'd never have seen Hazel climbing her roof.

We wouldn't have interacted as much as we did.

She might never have shown me her favorite place in the world.

We might never have kissed.

There's a sudden gust of wind and I pull my coat around me in an attempt to stay warm, but it doesn't work.

Nothing works.

Soon I make it back to my house, and the next thing I know I'm on my bed, my face buried in my pillow.

There was Hazel, sliding up her window so that the cold air blew into her face. Her eyes were shut and her hair blew with the breeze.

With a small amount of effort I turn my head toward the window, and for a second my heart lifts with the hope that she'll be there. But she isn't.

I get up and move towards the window. When I reach it I can almost see her, the way she'd been that first night.

It was almost graceful, almost a dance. Without a moment's hesitation she moved upwards, as if she'd done it a million times before, and I found I couldn't look away. Didn't want to. She was climbing towards the roof.

That almost grace is gone. The same for that almost dance. It hurts to look at where she'd once been, where she'll never be again.

I try to get a peep at the inside of her room, which I realize with a start I'd never even seen. The curtains are drawn though, and suddenly I'm laughing, because she would have punched me if she'd seen me at that moment.

She might have commented about what a stalker I was being.

She might have said that if I wanted to see her room, I'd have to come up with a much better pick up line than 'I like staring at you through my window'.

She might have said those things.

She won't now.

I'd never stopped to appreciate the sunsets in Oregon. Usually I was in a rush to get home or too invested in a conversation with Jane. Now, as I watched the sun go down with Hazel, I found that, like all the other times I'd looked at the sunset, I couldn't focus on it completely. I was too curious as to what Hazel was thinking.

This time I watch the sunset.

This time I don't look away or stop paying attention for a second.

Like Hazel had that night, like I'd never been able to before,

I pay my full attention to the sunset.

Hazel and I.