I’m not sure if I should even be here. I didn’t know her as well as any of you. I just have to get this off my chest.

I just wanted her to like me—I knew she found it hard to trust people, and I wanted to be someone she could depend on. Maybe that’s not really true. Too saintly of me. She was the sort of enigma that prompts much self-primping if you can fool yourself into thinking you understand it. I just wanted her to like me for the sake of it. So when she seemed to respond to my offer to come over and help out with her photography—when an actual reaction graced our long silences on the phone—I cut classes right away and drove right over, giddy the whole time and smiling and feeling oh-so pleased with myself.

I’m a fool to have felt like I was special to her. I didn’t know a thing. I’ve known her all these years, and all she had was herself. You think that’s not true, that she had you all to depend on. But I didn’t know any of you existed. Obviously she spent a lot of time on the computer, but she never talked about you. She was always alone and she had learned to survive that way, to take care of herself, because she didn’t think anyone else could. I can’t say why I kept trying to talk to her, spend time with her. It wasn’t torture, per se, but it did feel pointless, like she’d never open up to me. And all this time I thought I was holding some sort of dark weight just by being around her, and I couldn’t imagine letting go. But you all, people she’s never even met, you held her trust!

Forgive me for still being so baffled. Not that I’m saying I’m any better than you all. Quite the contrary. Do I wish I had been what you were to her? Well. Only in that that would make me feel a lot more comfortable being here right now, in this room full of strangers. But realistically, I know I have no right even wishing for something like that. It’s just implausible. We were from different worlds, Anna and I.

Anyway, so she agreed for me to pick her up and we’d do a photoshoot together. I thought things were going well… she was very quiet around her house. I thought her mother must have been asleep or something—no, I know, please. Let me continue. Look, she didn’t explain about her mother. She never explained anything, but that was just as well. I felt much more empowered making those assumptions myself, as if I knew her. Do you understand? So I have this very big clear image in my head of her mom being asleep that day.

Yes, I am aware I have never even seen her mother. Funny you should mention. You all haven’t seen her at all. Yeah, yeah, I know—pictures. So let me ask you, how do you imagine yourselves friends with her? How can you picture yourselves being there for her—no, I know, but physically!—when you don’t have any real idea of what she even looked like? How can you say for sure that she meant anything more to you than a pile of pixels? Don’t tell me you’ve thought about hugging her, holding her, the girl you’ve never seen—and now can’t see, unless they find the body.

Don’t look at me like that. I’m just telling it how it is. So yes, I thought her mother was asleep that day. I’m sorry.  I’ll calm down. I don’t mean to offend anyone. I don’t. I think there’s been enough pain already.

I’m not just saying that. I know none of you think I’ve suffered. None of you think I have any right even mourning here with you. I didn’t know her, didn’t know her past, didn’t know what she wanted for her future. But we never talked about those things—I know that was my fault. For me, everything was about the present, was about coping with her current behavior. And what I’m trying to say is maybe that was purposeful. Do you understand? For example, she found she was low on supplies and we went shopping and I bought her everything she said she liked. Just like that! I was so selfish.

We brought all her photography gear up to the abandoned theatre, and even then, I was catering to her every need. But not to her real needs, of course… did I know it then? Did I know that I was pursuing a perfectly calibrated amount of involvement in her life, just enough to fool myself into thinking I was being helpful, just enough to call myself a martyr and think “that’s that?” Was all my frustration with her guilt towards myself?

Sorry. I know none of you care. This meeting is about Anna, not me. And I do want to talk about her, I do... it’s just hard to let myself.

I let her photograph me in some… dangerous positions—there’s one picture with me hanging out the third story window… oh, you’ve all seen it? …and all the other ones? Oh. Sorry, I… I forgot she shared everything with you guys. It’s just that—please understand… well. She really showed you all those…? I’m in a roomful of strangers who’ve seen me naked. That’s grand.

Yes, I am the one in the picture with all the leather. The knife in that one was originally going to be a gun. I remember I actually looked all over for my dad’s pistol when she said she wanted a gun in the next few pictures. God, looking back, I can’t believe I did that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like she was forcing me to do all this weird stuff—the photography was fun and all. But it was all for her, really. I thought maybe if I was sweet and enthusiastic, I would have some sort of impact on her. I don’t know what I was hoping for exactly. But she never thanked me, not even once. She never says—she… never said things like, “good morning,” or, “how are you?” or what have you. If we even talked, I was always the one who initiated any conversation, and we always talked about whatever she was thinking about.

That proves it. That proves I wasn’t in love with her. I always started our conversations, because, I don’t know, I just like to hear myself talk? See, if I loved her, I would have been so worried, so anxious of what she thought of me, I would not have been able to do that. I would have hated the possibility that she found me nagging or annoying or what I was: shallow, mundane —compared to her, I mean. It would’ve made me sick, driven me crazy. But it didn’t, see? I didn’t love her.

Anyway, later that night, back at my house, I kind of snapped. We were out on my patio at in the dark. She looked… incredible. Her weight all on one leg, a thin arm resting on the fence, her gray eyes fixed on something far-off, skin pale as the paint on the deck… I remember she leaned over to light up a cigarette, and her hair fell over the curve of her back just so, with those choppy bangs of hers covering half her face. And she didn’t say a word to me, she just stood there being completely fucking perfect and beautiful and smoking that damn cigarette. I snuffed out the end of it with my fingers, I was so angry. I just wanted her to look at me, and she told me, "leave me the fuck alone." So I picked her up and threw her in my pool.

Have I mentioned that Anna has always been very small? She’s tiny. Four foot ten, maximum. I could pick her up very easily. And she has the smallest hands. She looks—she looked—she’s always looked so harmless.

After I'd done it, I realized I’d acted irrationally. I don’t know what happened. All the blood had rushed to my head and I could not think. I just could not, I could not stop crying. I cried and cried and helped her out of the pool and I told her I was sorry and I told her she looked beautiful. It was almost surreal—she looked furious, dripping, still holding that damn cigarette.

We changed out of our wet clothes in complete silence. I don’t know how I survived those few minutes, actually. I swear, there was not a single coherent thought going through my head. I was walking her back inside and I felt like my legs were all full of something cottony and I was afraid I would collapse right next to her. When I was pulling out a drawer to pick out a clean shirt, the wood sliding against wood felt like thunder rolling up my arm. I was unfolding a towel for her, and I distinctly remember being unable to feel its texture, like my hands had gone numb. It felt catastrophic.

After she’d dried off, she went straight to her computer, like usual, like nothing had happened. If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t even have known she was angry—and maybe she wasn’t? How could I know? She didn’t talk to me, just to that damn computer. She always spent far too much time on the computer. So I shut it off on her—I wasn’t trying to provoke her or anything; I just knew she’d be up all night if I didn’t. And she was so angry… I couldn’t have been more shocked. She stormed off and started putting on her coat and I was, I was petrified! I managed to say I would give her a ride back, but she just gave me this look and told me not to bother, she would hitchhike, and then she was gone so suddenly.

Somehow, that incident sticks with me as her last goodbye—more so than the last time I saw her. That was at school. I saw her lying down on the floor in the hallway, one hand propping up her chin, the other holding the pencil poised but thoughtful so that the eraser-end was pressed to her lip. She was so small, and her sketchbook so big… and there she was, lying on her stomach, staring off at something, kicking her legs like a child. And it was so natural. So painfully ordinary. It could have been any other day. I should have said something. But what could I say? There was nothing to say. I didn’t know anything. How could I have known that would be the last time I would see her? I don’t think she even noticed me as I went by her—she had picked up her sketchbook and was holding it out in front of her with both hands. How could I have known those tiny hands could do so much harm?

For weeks after she was gone I couldn’t walk through that hallway. It was her hallway. Half the time I avoided that building entirely. And just yesterday, when I heard there would be this meeting, I didn’t think I would come. But today I walked through that hallway for the first time and I lay down on that spot where she’d been and I just lay there and I didn’t think anything. And at some point while I was lying there, I decided that if I could go back, I would pick that night, that night at my house after the photoshoot. Because then, there was so much to say, so many pointless things I’ll never have a chance to tell her.