My dead friend left me a note. I wish I never opened it.

okay I wasn't going to post this but I genuinely can't stop thinking about it and I need people to know.

I had a friend. A. We met in high school and stayed close for over 10 years, like actually close, not just "we still follow each other" close.

A died a few months ago. Car accident. Late at night, missed a curve, hit a wall. Gone instantly.

I was destroyed. Helped the family with the funeral and everything. Cried the whole time.

So about 49 days after A passed (there's a Buddhist mourning period, families do ceremonies through that stretch), A's mom calls me. Says she found something while cleaning out A's room. Hands me an envelope.

On the front, in A's handwriting: my name.

Sealed shut with glue.

I thanked her, went home, and opened it.

Inside was a cheap little notebook. The kind you'd find at a dollar store. I started flipping through it and the pages were blank. All of them. Just... nothing.

I kept going anyway.

And then, right around the middle of the notebook.

one line.

pressed in hard with a ballpoint pen, every single character written carefully:

*"If I die, I hope X dies too."*

My name. In that blank.

I felt the blood leave my face. I just sat there. frozen. couldn't move for a while.

I thought about taking it to a temple to have it ritually offered or whatever but I didn't know which one and honestly I couldn't stand being in the same room as it for another second so I ripped it up, poured salt on the pieces, and burned everything.

And now I keep thinking. Because back in high school A used to say stuff sometimes. Like "I always want us to be together" or "it makes me weirdly mad when I see you talking to other people." Always kind of laughed it off, said it like a joke. I never took it seriously.

Maybe it WAS a joke. Maybe A made that notebook as some dark humor thing and forgot about it.

but.

nobody knows where A was driving that night. alone. at night. nobody knows.

And that notebook looked brand new.

I still haven't visited the grave.