I'm sitting on the sidewalk, in my typical suburban neighborhood filled with mostly new couples in their early twenties, families with very small children, or elderly people basking in retirement. There's pretty much no middle or high school aged children, that is, but me.

And there used to be one other.

 A pale yellow house with a silver minivan in the driveway sits in between two houses with toys in the driveway. Unlike their neighbors, the resident of the yellow house had a nice, orderly lawn, a rainbow of flowers blooming in the mulch, welcoming the April sun on their petals. 

I stare longingly at the house, thinking about who belongs there. It's not a matter of curiosity, like I didn't know my own neighbors, it's more of a matter of me knowing who lives there.

Or, should I say, lived.

Clara. 

Clara's my girlfriend. Or, I guess now, ex-girlfriend. We didn't have a nasty breakup or anything, in fact, we were about to graduate from high school and go to college and I was pretty sure Clara was going to propose to me by the time we're supposed to graduate college. And if she didn't propose, I had a plan to do it myself.

Until our plans for a happy future got ripped away from us, one moment at a time.

Today marks two weeks since Clara died in a car accident. Her parents got off scot-free, which frankly, I was grateful for, but God, the grief...

Losing Clara was more than losing the girl I was romantically attracted to. Clara and I were best friends since middle school, until her parents ripped her away to go to a Catholic high school. Clara's parents are very religious, but I wouldn't call them homophobic in the slightest. Clara's parents loved me, and I think they still do, and all they wanted was what's best for their daughter. 

While it was no secret that they would rather have Clara date a boy rather than a girl, they were totally fine with me. 

It hurts when I open my phone and see that Clara's name pops up first when I open my recent text messages. Her last text to me was I love you, and in my typical 1AM, overtired state, I only had the functionality to text back a heart emoji and call it a night.

This was the night before the accident. 

I remember the day. 8 in the morning, sitting in my strictest teacher's class. Trigonometry. The frantic call I got from Clara's parents. I told the teacher, the teacher surprisingly agreed to call my parents, and it took twenty minutes for my parents to come and take me home. I tried to call Clara about eighty times, and when she didn't pick up, I knew it was true.

She was gone.

I started to cry looking at my last message to Clara. God, I miss that girl. Her blonde hair falling in neat waves alongside her cheekbones, her brown eyes that seemed to sparkle in the sunlight every time I looked at her...

I opened up my text messages, clicking on Clara's name. I know that was I'm doing is silly. But, in all seriousness, it might help.

"Ari?" I hear my mom call from the house across from Clara's. Our house. The deep blue of the exterior provides a nice contrast to the sunshiny-yellow of Clara's. I sigh and then Mom sits on the curb next to me. I cringe at the nickname, tears still forming. Mom doesn't know this, but the only person besides her who's ever called me Ari in my life is Clara. 

 "You've been out here a lot." Mom says. I sigh and allow her to sit down beside me. "You've just been out here...staring at Clara's place."

"Mom, I miss her. It's a natural reaction." I said.

"Staring at your dead girlfriend's house two weeks after she dies is a natural reaction?" Mom says playfully. I know she's trying to cheer me up, but it's honestly not working.

"Mom, can you please go back in and make me dinner or whatever you were doing before you came out here? I need some alone time, okay?" I say as politely as I can. Mom seems to take the hint and leaves me alone.

Waiting until the right time, I balance my phone on my legs and type out a message to Clara. Or, Clara's number.

I miss you and love you so much, and I hope you know that. <3, Ari.

~~~

I wake up the next morning to my cat sitting on my stomach, and mindlessly check my phone as soon as my body is awake enough to roll over to where my phone is plugged in on a wireless charger. And the notification that pops up first is the one that surprises me the most.

A message from Clara's number. No. This can't be happening. Either Clara's alive, which I know is false, she had a funeral, or the number got transferred quicker than I thought it would be.

I think you have the wrong number.

The panic hits me, and I realize that I must sound like some kind of crazy person sending that text. Who knows who's on the other line? Now, I have two choices. Either a "I'm sorry, you're right." or be brutally honest with the person who now has Clara's number. 

I decide to be brutally honest and hope it gets me somewhere.

Your number belongs to my girlfriend. She died two weeks ago. I decided to text her to cope a little.

I set my phone down and go eat some cereal. Just a simple bowl of Cheerios, my normal for a Saturday morning.

I'm perfectly content eating my cereal until my phone buzzes. Again, it's from whoever has Clara's number.

You're just what I need. I lost my mother a few weeks ago. You're not alone. I'm Victoria.

Is this some sort of trick? Fate? Who knows what just happened, but I just accidentally-on purpose reached out to a girl who's going through the same thing I'm going through. Maybe she's my age...

I'm Arizona.

~~~

It's a month after I met this Victoria girl, and it turns out we have more in common than I thought. For starters, we're both lesbian. We both are going through grief, her more than me. We're from different states, however. Across the country. She lives in Washington, D.C., while I live in Nevada. One of the only differences, while my parents are supportive, her father is the most homophobic piece of dirt I've ever heard of. 

And I FaceTimed her for the first time yesterday, and let me just say, Victoria is absolutely gorgeous. She has magenta hair, naturally blonde, usually pulled up into a sleek ponytail. And she has beautiful hazel eyes. From the moment she picked up the phone, I realized I was crushing on this girl. And it was a serious crush.

Maybe I was even more in love with her than I was with Clara when I first started crushing on her. And that's saying a lot, as the whole entire middle school knew I was crushing on that girl, and they didn't even have to ask me who my crush was. They just knew with one quick glance at me. 

I'm FaceTiming her again, as her parents are at some parent-teacher conference for her little sister. The first twenty or so minutes of the call are spent in comfortable silence, and then, I suddenly see a bit more of Victoria's personality.

She's loud, chaotic, and funny. She has a witty, logical sense of humor, and she makes a lot of nerdy jokes that wouldn't make sense to the average listener. She likes cartoons, books, movies, full on nerd of pretty much everything. 

And for the first time since the minute I met her, I hear her laugh.

And that, that moment was the most special, heartwarming moment of my entire life. Seeing Victoria, a girl going through so much at only 17, smile and laugh like there's no tomorrow, makes me feel so warm inside.

And then I hear these words.

"Will you date me?"