WISHFUL THINKING,
by Barb Goffman
When I was a kid, I loved Sean like a brother, but sometimes I wished my best friend would disappear. Like the night of my twelfth birthday, when he made a crude joke—right in front of my parents—while everyone sang “Happy birthday, Travis” and I blew out the candles on my cake. The next afternoon I found myself wishing it once again.
We’d been having fun for the last hour—he, Jinx, Eleanor, and I, our usual squad—hanging out at the graveyard a half mile from my house, taking selfies with the cool new phone my parents had given me for my birthday. It was warm for our northwestern Virginia town in late October. So, earlier that Saturday afternoon we’d gone prowling the neighborhood, looking for something—anything—to do. As often happened, we’d ended up a
