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I have to believe that.
Will’s the last to join us, and Waylon greets him with a small smile. The ache in my chest deepens as they draw close, and I quickly look away, not wanting to intrude…not wanting to feel bitter and envious, when those two deserve nothing but good vibes sent their way after what they’ve gone through.
I lift my head when I catch movement in the corner of my eye.
Waylon sidles up to Mason, splaying a supportive hand across his back, and I feel something sink heavily in my chest at the sight. Watching them like this, closer than ever—like brothers really—staring down at what remains of the girl who meant the world to both of them…
It fucking hurts.
More than I anticipated.
You’d think after all this time it would get easier, and then it just comes out of nowhere, fucking obliterating you. Hell, sometimes it comes when you are expecting it—when you’re all but taunting it out to play, like what I’m doing today—and it still manages to catch you off guard. The weight of it… the bottomlessness of it all.
Maybe it’s because it’s not just me having closure today. I see that now. This is for all three of us. A redo of the funeral we weren’t ready for the first time.
And in some ways, it’s the best birthday present I could ask for. In others, I regret going along with this completely, wishing I was doing what I usually do on this day—at least the last couple years—drinking myself into oblivion.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” I hear Mason whisper, and my throat constricts. Leaves rustle in the breeze, the only sound to be heard save for their hushed voices.
“I know,” Waylon says.
“What if she’s still out there?”
Crack.
My eyes fall shut at the agony ripping its way through my chest, tearing me in half. Guess I spoke too soon before.
“She might be,” Waylon says. “But we can’t keep living based on what ifs.”
Sniffing, I open my eyes, and stand a little taller, jutting my chin out.
“I know, I know,” Mason chants. “It’s just…”
“Hard.”
“Yeah.”
I’m acutely aware of Ivy peering up at me, but I pointedly ignore her.
I won’t break.
Izzy has been gone for years.
I’ve grieved her…
A voice pipes up, Then, why are you here?
I give my head a little shake, straining my ears to hear Waylon as he says, “She’d want us to move on, man. Even if she was alive, somehow, some way…she wouldn’t want us to keep living in this limbo, waiting around for a day that might never come. I do know that much.”
My vision blurs, my throat swelling with an unbearable pressure.
“Of course you do,” Mason says, chuckling quietly, his voice raw. “You could always read her better than me.”
“Maybe. And she could always read you better than me.”
They share a laugh at that, and through a thick sheen of tears, I watch as they turn fully toward Izzy’s headstone once more. I can almost imagine it’s her standing there instead. As things should be…
I shift around, fighting the urge to bolt—to scream.
