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“Mom,” I sobbed, pulling the blanket down to look into my mother’s puffy eyes. She pulled me into a hug and held on tight. “I’ve got you.”
If only that were enough to keep me from breaking completely.
The next weeks were a whirlwind of memorial services and trying to keep from drowning in my grief. I tried to be supportive of Lake, I knew he needed me, but I couldn’t.
Weeks later and I was still staying with Everett’s family. Leaving was too hard.
I was sleeping in his bed when I woke up out of the trance I was in. Somehow I stood up on my own two legs and glanced around. The pain nearly stole my breath.
It was dark outside and the clock on the table said it was one in the morning. I couldn’t talk to anyone and didn’t want to see the others, I just needed to go.
I stood in the middle of Everett’s room and fought the urge to run so I could make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind.
His backpack still hung on his bedpost and I upended it on the floor so I could stuff my things inside along with a few of his that I couldn’t leave behind.
The framed picture of us that sat beside his bed was the first. The tee shirt he’d worn last at the top of his hamper that actually smelled like him and not all the terrible medications he was taking. Then, finally, a blanket we always snugged under to watch movies.
Finally, I picked up the book he’d been reading and traced my fingers over the cover. It wasn’t my style of book, he loved horror novels, but knowing he read it had me stuffing it in the bag, too.
With nothing left to do I padded down the stairs and left without a single word.
Call me an asshole but self-preservation was the only thing keeping me going for now.
* * *
A knockon the door pulled me from staring at the pages of the book I’d taken from Everett’s room. I hadn’t read a page yet, I just pretended. It kept my mother from sighing heavily and urging me to do things.
I stood up and pulled open the door when she didn’t bother. My breath caught at the sight of Lake standing on my doorstep.
Seeing his turquoise eyes that matched Everett’s was nearly my undoing. We couldn’t even speak at first but finally, he handed me an envelope.
“He wrote us each a letter. I couldn’t read mine.”
Lake sounded different. The life had drained from him; the enthusiasm he’d held in everything was completely missing.
He was drowning and I couldn’t save him.
His hair was disheveled and the dark circles under his eyes looked more like bruises than lack of sleep. There was a dead look inside of them that shook me to my core yet I wasn’t strong enough to be there for him when I was dying inside like this.
“I can’t either,” I said with a sigh. There was no way I could read whatever beautiful words he’d written me. Not when breathing was still too hard to manage most days.
My hands gripped the envelope tightly enough my fingers ached.
“What do we do? How do we get through this?”
“We do the motions, Lake. There’s nothing else we can do. I promised him I’d try.”
“Read the letter with me. We can wait a year, go to the cabin and be alone with it,” he said in a rush. “In a year we’ll be able to read it, right?”
He was pleading with me, desperate to not face this alone.
Never. That was the answer I wanted to give but couldn’t. Everett wouldn’t want me to abandon Lake.
“Okay, one year,” I agreed even though I wanted to run away and never look back. I was leaving for a new college in a month and I wanted a fresh start, one where everyone didn’t look at me with pity.
“If you ever need me, Shaye, I’m here for you,” he said, giving me one last sad smile before walking away.
My chest ached as I watched him get in his truck and drive away. The letter was clutched so tightly in my hand that I was crushing it and I had to force my fingers to uncurl.
