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I open my eyes and suddenly he’s there, staring back at me with those hazel eyes, the blue and green specks catching the sunlight just right making them almost sparkle.
“There she is.”He smiles.
“Kam.” I choke back a sob, knowing he’s not really here but wanting so desperately to believe the lie my mind is telling me.
“You didn’t do this, bean. You can’t spend the rest of your life focused on what might happen. You don’t have that kind of control, no matter how much you wish you did. All you can do is love with everything that you have while you have the chance to do it. I died and you’re going to have to find a way to forgive yourself for that. If not for you, then do it for me, bean. Do it for Kane.”
“You make it sound so easy.” I sniff.
“It’s only as difficult as you make it.”
“I don’t want to let you go, Kam. I don’t want to purge you from my life and forget about you. I want you with me, always.”
“And I will be.”
“No you won’t,” I accuse, trying to hold onto the image of him that’s starting to blur in front of me.
“Yes I will, bean. I will always be with you. Letting me go doesn’t mean forgetting me. It means forgiving yourself. Don’t bury me. Don’t pretend like I didn’t exist. Learn to live with what happened and find a way to be okay.”
“Don’t bury you,” I say slowly, turning my eyes forward.
I suddenly realize that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been trying to bury his memory to ease my own guilt.
I ran away from North Carolina. I packed everything I had of his including his camera and his old Dodgers hat in a box and sealed it up tight so I wouldn’t have to look at it every day. So I wouldn’t have to face what I lost every single day.
“Your camera,” I blurt, but when I look back to where Kam was sitting next to me just moments earlier, there’s no one there. “Kam?” I look around, willing my mind to bring him back. “Kam?” I close my eyes hard, pleading, but when I open them I’m met with the truth I haven’t wanted to see since the accident.
Kam is gone and no matter how hard I wish and pray, he’s not coming back.
I let the weight of that settle around me. Let myself feel it all the way into my bones. Let it seep through every pore until I have no choice but to face it.
“Don’t bury me,” I repeat his words, reaching out to lay my hand on the front of his headstone just as a hard wind whips around me.
I know it’s probably wishful thinking but for some reason I feel meaning behind the wind. Like Kam really is here, telling me what to do, guiding me, and for the first time since he died, I close my eyes and let myself listen.
And suddenly it all becomes clear.
“I know what I have to do,” I whisper. “I know what to do,” I repeat, quickly shuffling to my feet.
“I’ve tried to forget. For months I’ve tried to forget what happened,” I say, my face tilted down to his grave. “But you’re right. I can’t forget you. And I don’t want to. I want to remember you. Every single thing about you. Because you were my best friend, Kamden Joseph Thaler. You were everything to me and you deserve so much more than to be stuffed into a box and forgotten. I know what I have to do now. I have to find a way to keep you alive forever; at least in my own way.”
I smile down at him just as a tear slides down my cheek.
“Thank you, Kam.” I kiss my fingers and lay them across the top of the cool stone. “Thank you.” And with that I turn and take off through the cemetery. For the first time in a long time, I feel some of the weight I’ve carried with me for months start to lift.
