He pushed his dying, wheelchair-bound friend down the city street, nervous because he had never steered a wheelchair before and, given his friend’s delicate state, really didn’t want to fuck anything up.

The friend asked him if he could read his journal, said,

“I want to see what you’re always writing in there, what you’re hiding from everyone.”
“It’s nothing, really. Nothing you’d want to read.”
“Come on,” the friend said, “I’m not going to tell anyone, so it’ll all go down with the ship anyway.”

He handed the friend the journal, who opened to a random page and read in silence. They remained like that for a few minutes, moving along the icy-wet sidewalk, until the friend read one line aloud, softly, to no one in particular:

“I just want to be true.”

He nodded, hugging the journal to his chest, and said it again.

They continued on, receding out of focus into the city-light distance.

We linger for a moment beside an adult video store with a flyer for a lost dog barely clinging to the window. Who knows how long been there for, or where the dog is now. I just want to be true.