Uncertain by Avery Kirk

the better way to phrase it is that he rescued the centipede from me . Because when I screamed and was about to step on it, he came over, scooped it up, then walked it to behind the garage and let it go. Then he came back to tell me all kinds of facts about centipedes and why I shouldn’t be afraid. I wasn’t sure about him at that time because he talked a little differently than most people I knew—but I realized quickly that didn’t matter. It didn’t influence his heart. Dave had a pure heart. I’ll miss him every single day.” I finished quickly.
    Mrs. Phillips broke down and Mr. Phillips just sat staring into space. As I walked back to my pew, Mrs. Phillips grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
                 
    After the service, we walked out of the church.
    “Mel, let’s try this again with your dress,” Kevin told me.
    “No, it’s fine. I don’t care about it.”
    “You have to care because it’s starting to look—well—terrible. It’s clinging to you like pants,” he said. “Come in here.” He held the men’s bathroom door open for me.
    “Why?” I asked, puzzled.             
    “So it looks more even. You can take the whole thing off and I’ll wet it – unless you’re cold?”
    “I’m on fire.”
    “Ok, let’s give it a shot.”
    I went into the bathroom, nearly bumping into an older man, who gave me a disapproving look. 
    “Go in the stall and hand me your dress.”
    I did as I was told, flopping my dress over the top of the powder blue stall and standing there in my underthings with my arms crossed, feeling ridiculous.
    I heard the water turn on. “Oh, hey,” Kevin said over the running water. “I don’t think I told you. That hotel—when we left early—I looked up the local news online for a couple of days to check and see if I was nuts. Turned out that hotel had a carbon monoxide leak. Something about the pool heater malfunctioning.”
    “Seriously?” I asked, staring at part of the stall door where the powder blue paint was chipped off.
    “Yeah, seriously. Crazy, right?”
    “For sure. It was good that we got out when we did.” I heard the water turn off.
    “Bunch of people had to go to the hospital,” he told me.
    I heard water squishing, and then the dress slopped over the top of my stall, flinging water on my face.
    I pulled it down and stepped into it, pulling up the zipper. It was a little too wet. I had to wring out the hem into the toilet.
    I stepped out of the stall.
    “How’s it look?” I asked, raising my arms up so he could get a good look.
    “Perfect. Can’t even tell. It just looks blacker.”
    “OK. Good.”
    We walked out of the bathroom. “Hey,” he said, standing there. “I know you don’t want to even think about it now.” He scratched over his ear and I noticed that he’d gotten his hair cut recently. “But I told my mom what happened in California. I didn’t think you’d mind. But now I wanted to let you know—should I have asked you first?”
    “It’s fine. No, it’s fine. It’s not a secret exactly, right? It’s just that it sounds so bizarre, that I wasn’t in a rush to let anyone know.”
    “I know. Maybe we just keep it quiet until we know more. She won’t say anything. You can trust her. It’s a hard story to tell. It seems perfectly impossible once you say it out loud.”
    “It does,” I agreed.
    Without meaning to, I was sure, Kevin had compounded my sadness by reminding me of California and making me wonder what Vita was thinking.
    Most of the people were still filing out of the church. Some were gathering in the over-lit lobby area. I spotted Vita talking to my grampa. She glanced at us with a raised eyebrow, no doubt at the fact that we’d just walked out of the men’s room together.
    “Please go tell her what we were doing,” I rushed to tell Kevin and I rolled my eyes.
    “I will. She’ll love it.” He walked over to where she stood.
    Just as I was making my way to my grampa, I saw