Not hope, exactly.

Something sturdier than hope.

Certainty.

The certainty that he had not fallen off the edge of the world, that he was still inside the net of someone’s attention, that his absence would register somewhere, be noticed, be answered.

That is what I was to Emmitt Wilkes on the worst night of his life: I was the certainty that someone would come.

And I want you to understand that this certainty is not a small thing, is in fact very close to the largest thing there is, because the opposite of it — the belief that you could vanish and no one would notice, that you are outside everyone’s net, that your box could sit full forever and no one would ever come — the opposite of it is the loneliness that actually kills people, that empties out a soul faster than any illness.