The day of the funeral, I stood in front of my bedroom mirror, staring at myself in the black suit. My eyes were puffy, and I couldn’t tie my tie. I kept looping it repeatedly, but no matter what, I couldn’t do it. Katie always did it.

She always fixed my ties.

“Let me?” TJ asked.

I knew he was standing behind me in the doorframe, but I didn’t speak to him. I hadn’t really spoken to anyone. Words seemed pointless. Tying ties seemed pointless.

Everything was pointless.

I dropped my hands to my sides, defeated, and TJ stepped into the room. He picked up the two ends of the tie, and as he did it, he cleared his throat.

“You can talk to me, you know. About anything. About everything. About nothing.”

I remained quiet.

Mom walked past my bedroom and peered inside. She paused for a moment and parted her lips as if she were going to speak, but nothing came out. She hadn’t spoken much to anyone, either.

Especially not to me.

I’d never known eyes could look so sad until I stared into my mother’s. She was my Wonder Woman, and watching her walk around so unbelievably broken was beyond heartbreaking. I’d caused her that pain, that suffering.

“She do-doesn’t look at me the same,” I whispered to TJ. “She hates me.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “Elliott Adams, no one could ever hate you.”

“She doesn’t talk to me.”

“Not because she hates you. It’s just that she doesn’t know how to communicate right now.”

I glanced down at my shiny black shoes. “Because I kil-killed Katie?”

TJ shook his head back and forth and gripped my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him. “Boy, if I ever hear you speak those lies again, I will rip out your tongue.” My body started shaking in his grip, and he stared me hard in the eyes. “Do you understand me?” he ordered as tears cascaded down my cheeks. “Do you understand that what happened wasn’t because of you?”

“Yes, sir,” I lied, and he knew it was a lie.

TJ’s eyes filled with tears, and he pulled me into a tight hug as I shook against his hold. “You didn’t do this, Elliott. You didn’t do this at all. Never say that again. Never say that,” he said over and over again, shaking himself. As he held me tight, I could feel it happening to him, too.

His heart breaking.

Many people showed up at the funeral service, and that pissed me off. All of the ‘friends’ Katie once held walked into the church building as if they hadn’t disowned her for the past year. A lot of them even had the nerve to bring tears along with them.

“They sho-shouldn’t be here,” I angrily barked, my hands forming fists from their level of disrespect. How dare they show up for her now, when in reality they should’ve stood by her side last year during the darkest times of her life?

How dare they want to speak their apologies?

How dare they pretend to care only because it was too late to change anything?

“Let them be,” TJ told me, squeezing my shoulder. “Guilt has a way of swallowing individuals whole, and now they are remorseful.”

“They hurt her,” I told him.

“And they know that. And that guilt they are feeling? That’s not between you and them. That’s between God and them.”

I hadn’t the nerve to tell TJ there wasn’t a God. At least not one I’d stand behind after he took my sister.

“Those people made bad choices, Eli. There’s no getting around that. They made their beds. Now they have the rest of their lives to sleep in them. But for today…just let them be.”

I hated TJ in that moment, because he always did what was right.

At the burial, we gathered around the casket, and I watched them lower my big sister into the ground. It was all so surreal. It blew my mind how one day everything could be fine, and then the next, your loved one was gone.

“Elliott,” a voice said behind me. I turned around to see a chubby red-haired guy walking toward me with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Jason.” I narrowed my eyes, confused that my best friend was standing there in front of me. “Wh-what are you doing here?” I asked.

He was still supposed to be in Nebraska with his mom.

He shrugged. “I wanted to come back to stay with my dad for a while.”

“You hate your dad.”

“Yeah, but you’re my best friend,” he said, somberly. “So, I’m going to stay with my dad for a while.”

He’d never know how much that meant to me. Whenever I’d start to cry, he’d pat me on the back and turn his head away so I wouldn’t see his own tears. Katie was Jason’s first crush, the girl he thought he’d someday end up with after life lined up for the two of them. She was the first girl to ever tell him he was good enough the way he was, and she was the first girl to ever call him handsome. He loved her, and I wasn’t surprised.

How could anyone not love her? She was everything good in a bad world.

“They are, um, the lawyer Mom got wants to charge the guys as adults inst-instead of minors,” I told Jason.

He grimaced. “That’s still not enough.”

“No,” I agreed. “Not enough at all.”

Letting someone sit in a prison cell didn’t seem like justice to me, not when it was supposed to be the justice for taking my sister’s life.

For the remainder of my life I’d be trapped in the prison of my guilt. I’d be trapped behind the bars of my mind, unable to break free from the damage that had been done to my heart and soul.

Yet still, that wasn’t enough.

Not enough at all.

We stood in the cemetery for a long time until Mom was ready to say goodbye to Katie…until I was ready to say goodbye.

“When my grandpa died, I remember being really sad that I never got to say goodbye. So, my mom turned to me and said, ‘Never goodbye, always goodnight until we wake again.’” He knitted his eyebrows and he shrugged. “I never understood what that really meant until now. You’re not saying goodbye forever, Eli. Just good night for now.”

I lowered my head. “That doesn’t make it easier.”

“No,” he agreed. “It doesn’t. But maybe someday it will.”

Death was such a foreign creature. You knew it was a sad thing for people, but you never truly understood the grief until it washed up against your shore. Then, once you saw the strange being, you wished you could go back in time to all the others who’d lost someone close and apologize for not giving them any extra comfort. I wasn’t sure who death hurt more—the ones who left, or the ones who had to stay behind.

As each day passed, I realized how impossible it was to ever really get over missing someone. There were always the small reminders that brought the loved one rushing back to the forefront. Maybe it was the way someone laughed in a supermarket or danced poorly. Perhaps it was the way you could be sitting alone in a dark room, missing the warmth of your loved one, so you’d cry alone in the darkness. Or it was the way you could be standing at a party with a lot of people, surrounded by love and happiness, and out of nowhere you fell apart because the celebration cake was purple and purple was their favorite color.

In a way, it was as if our loved ones never truly left. They were within everything, within everyone.

I wasn’t sure yet if that was a blessing or a curse.

* * *

It took seven days for Mom to be able to stand in front of me and not cry. One night, she came into my doorway and crossed her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she told me.

“I’m sorry,” I replied.

Her eyes glassed over, but she didn’t cry. “It’s not because of you, Eli. I just need you to know that. But when I look at you…” She took a deep inhale and released it as a heavy sigh. “Your beautiful eyes. You have your sister’s beautiful eyes. And I guess that’s hard for me. But I’m working on it. Okay? I just want you to know, I’m working on being better. For you. Always for you.”

She walked over to me and kissed my forehead. “You are my world. Do you know that?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

After that talk, each night, Mom would come check on me. She’d smile my way and be the bravest woman I’d ever known. She’d tell me none of it was my fault. She’d say she loved me fully. She’d beg for me not to blame myself for something the devil had laid on our doorstep. She’d say it without a single tear falling from her eyes as the sadness poured out of me.

Then, she’d stand up, kiss my forehead, and tell me to try to get some rest.

Later, I’d hear her.

She kept her tears locked away from me, but I always heard her crying in her bedroom.

So, I’d check on her.

I’d smile her way and be the bravest man I could be. I’d tell her none of it was her fault. I’d say I loved her fully. I’d beg for her not to blame herself for something the devil had laid on our doorstep. I’d say it without a single tear falling from my eyes as the sadness poured out of her.

I’d stay with her until I knew she was sleeping.

Then, I’d fall asleep right there beside her, because I selfishly didn’t want to be alone.