Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Ida laid her head on my shoulder. “He just needs more time.”
I nodded. “He’s hurting, but I know he’ll get through it.”
My family ate together, and we laughed. When the meal was done, I walked into the blossom grove and gasped. Each year was the same, yet each year made a brand-new tapestry out of the small, secluded grove. Petals of white and pink were in full bloom. And beneath them all was a white marble headstone, shining just as brightly. As I reached Poppy’s grave, I smiled, seeing the picture of me and Rune in Kyoto taped to the bottom.
I sat down, allowing the warm breeze to dance around my hair. I sighed, then with unwavering doubt, said, “Poppy … I’m going to Harvard.”
Healing
Cael
Massachusetts
End of summer
WEEKS UPON ENDLESS WEEKS HAD LED ME TO THIS. I WAS FINALLY HOME. I placed my hand on Cillian’s bedroom door. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. All of the therapies, all of the daylong sessions with Leo, Mia, and the many psychologists that had guided me through my healing … it had led me here. The unwavering support and weekly visits from my mom and dad, the single hour I got to speak with Savannah for each week drove me to this new place of peace.
I was stronger, now. I breathed easier. I stood straighter. I wasn’t angry, and most of all, I understood. I understood Cillian in a way that I never had before. I understood his crippling depression. I understood why he couldn’t speak to me. It was difficult, but I understood.
He was my big brother. And I missed him. Would always miss him. But I had to move on too.
I took in a deep inhale, and with my hand on the handle, I turned it and entered his room. The sun shone in through the south-facing window. His bed was made; every inch of his furniture was clean. My mom kept it nice. I breathed in the room’s air and could still feel him in here. He had been so vibrant and alive when he was here. It was like he’d left his imprint on this room.
On all of us who loved him most.
His bedroom walls were a shrine to hockey. I ran my fingers over his signed Bruins jersey, framed and protected by glass. Then I came to a stop at his Harvard jersey. The one he’d received on his first start in freshman year. I’d been at that game. I remember smiling so wide my cheeks ached.
Then I stilled when I saw the wall full of pictures of me and him. Months ago, this would have gutted me. I was still sad, seeing these pictures. Of us both happy, the promise of an amazing future in our wide smiles. But the thing that had captured my attention most was the old and age-frayed Bruins ticket that was pinned to his cork board.
The one that matched the ticket on which he had written his goodbye to me.
My stomach clenched. I had ripped it up. I had been so sick of feeling sad and, in a moment of anger, had ripped it up and left it in Japan.
I wished more than anything that I had that ticket now. Months of therapy had made all the bad that I saw within Cillian’s death lighter. Seeing him crash, holding him in my arms … I sighed deep when my body broke out in shivers, the memory of that night still difficult. I would always think that way.
But therapy had helped me reframe things. Made me see that I’d had the privilege of being there with him at the end. I had been there with him when he had passed. I had held him in the aftermath as his soul moved on. And that ticket … that ticket was a happy memory that had meant so much to us, and now it was only made more special by his handwritten goodbye. That ticket had been a piece of him too. One that I deeply regretted leaving behind.
In the end, I was glad I was there with him as he left this Earth. I loved him enough to have wanted him to have had me close at the end. A brother who loved him more than life, there beside him as death claimed him. It was better, I thought, to have company as you passed.
I’d held on to that thought when the image of that night had tried to destroy me. I turned away from that wall, proud that I had faced coming back in here, when I came to a stop. Leaning against the wall was the stick that I had shattered all those months ago when Mom and Dad had told me I was going on the grief trip. Only now, the stick, wrapped again in Bruins colors—Cillian’s stick—was repaired and gleaming in the sunlight.