Sing Me To Sleep Part 48

Please, will you be my friend?

Will you be the boy who rescues me?

Will you be the boy who makes me sing?

Will you make me true to who I am?

If you're leaving, take me with you,

Here's my hand.

If you're leaving, take me with you,

Here's my hand.

I finish the song. The applause is reverent. Everyone is still crying. I move through the crowd to Scott. The people stopping me and hugging me were Derek's real world. The people he let in. The ones who really knew him. His old girlfriend from the AYS. Meg and his doctors. Blake. The Amabile directors. All the guys. This giant wonderful family he grew up with.

I'm a fantasy. A myth. A digital recording-deleted with ease. I'm something else. Somewhere else. I don't belong here.

But I am here. I would have cared for him and loved him for the rest of my life. I held his hand while he went beyond. The pain I feel is every bit as real as that pretty pet.i.te girl I unwittingly stole him from. I loved him. I still love him. I'm clogged with the ache of it. I can't bear to look back.

When I look forward, there's Scott, and he catches my arm, supporting me like I'll faint.

I lean on him. "How'd you get here?"

"Your mom."

I see her now-standing in the back. "Will you ride home with me? I'm not sure I can drive."

He nods. "You bet." He takes the keys and guides me out of there.

All the way home, I sit slumped in my seat with my head down.

Scott doesn't speak. I'm grateful for the s.p.a.ce.

We get to the house. I still sit there like a zombie. He comes around and opens my door. A gust of clear, crisp air sends a s.h.i.+ver to my core. Scott takes my hand and helps me to my feet.

We've been here before. His warm arms go around me-feels like home.

I drop my head onto his shoulder.

The tears come. Slow and hot. Each one agony to produce.

Scott caresses my back and says, "I'm sorry, Bethie. I'm so, so sorry."

It doesn't make any sense. What does he have to be sorry for? All he ever did was love me. It makes sense in my heart, though. His soothing hand and comforting voice-his shoulder mutes my sobs, opens my heart, and wrings it out.

I can't control the cascade his tenderness forces from me.

Mom arrives. "Beth, don't-"

Scott stops her. He knows I need this. He knows I'll need his shoulder again and again and again. After all I've done to him, he's willing to give it to me.

Mom leaves us out there.

I raise my face. The front of Scott's jacket is soaking. "I did this to him, too. In Lausanne. And he held me-just like this."

"I don't mind being second, Bethie. As long as I'm last."

"You're not second, Scottie." I kiss him then. The touch of his lips makes me cry even more.

He kisses me back-tender, so soft, like I'm fragile as Derek's dead pink rose taped to the wall next to my bed.

I trace his lips with my fingertips, marveling that he's here, a whole solid person, with his arms around me. This boy I grew up with, who knew me before any of this. Who loved me as I was-and as I am. He should hate me, but I can tell by the grief in his eyes that he still loves me-will always love me.

And I can love him now.

I learned how from Derek.

I clutch at Scott. He draws me closer, holds me tighter and tighter, his familiar scent surrounding me, calming me. I am home.

"Don't let go." I press my lips on his to seal my plea. "Please, Scottie, don't ever let go."

author's note.

Sing Me to Sleep has given me the chance to remember Matt Quaife and share his spirit. Derek isn't Matt. To try to re-create Matt in fiction would have been presumptuous and impossible. Matt's life and death are sacred and private. But Matt inspired this story, and it is in honor of his memory that I share it with you.

Matt grew up singing in London, Ontario, home of Canada's world-renowned Amabile family of choirs (www.amabile.com). I remember him burping the alphabet in one festival when he was a member of the Boys' Concert Choir. Later, he became a fixture of Amabile's famous Young Men's Choir.

Matt didn't talk often about his cystic fibrosis. He was too full of life for that. He didn't complain about therapy, medicine, and regular trips to the hospital. Matt pa.s.sed away November 25, 2007. He was just eighteen.

Thirty thousand people around the world live with cystic fibrosis. To learn more about their struggle and the remarkable research that has a cure in its sights, go to www.cff.org or www.cysticfibrosis.ca.

Thank you.

Joyce, dear friend, for smiling on my efforts, sharing your son's journey, and helping me get the medical stuff right.

Amabile Choirs of London, Ontario, Canada, for all those years of music and letting me use your name and fame for the sake of my story.

Rachel, for mining your memories and giving them to me.

Allie and Jared-your love was a catalyst. You will live happily ever after.

Heather, for sharing your heartbreak one afternoon in the Cougar Eat and setting me up with your cousin.

Mike and Tina and your beautiful family, for James.

Joelle, Connie, Rachel, Jenni, and Kristin for brilliant and timely first-draft critiques when I was freaking out. You saved me months of revisions.

Lexa, for insisting Beth needed a boy back home, asking for lyrics, and all the other excellent work you and everyone at Razorbill do on my behalf.

Allen, for your love and support. I couldn't pursue this dream without you.

And my boys for your patience. The time-traveling s.p.a.ce pirates will make it into print some day.

photo appendix.

IN MEMORY of MATT.

Matt, left, in his Amabile tuxedo.

Amabile combined choirs.

Amabile boys. Matt is in the front, far left.

Amabile boys, goofing off.

Matt in his hockey jersey. At their Christmas concert, Amabile had this framed and presented it to Matt's parents.

end.