She tried to hold it in, but a soft sob escaped from Aly’s throat. She caught a glimpse of Neil’s face when he turned around. The man had forever worn an affable smile, and now Aly wondered if he’d ever smile again.
The rest of the front row stood to pay their respects, all except for Jared, who didn’t so much as flinch. People cried as they approached the grave. Each one dropped a rose to the top of Helene’s casket and said a last good-bye.
Aly followed her mother and father out, took her own rose, and tossed the flower into Helene’s open grave. With her eyes shut tight, she murmured toward the ground, though she was speaking toward the heavens. “I’ll miss you so much, Helene.” Wiping her eyes, she stood aside and watched as the sea of black made its way by the grave that would permanently mark Helene’s death.
The entire crowd made their pass, before they scattered out to gather in groups where people wept and hugged and comforted each other.
Aly couldn’t help noticing those who whispered, ones who cast sidelong glances speculating about the boy who sat utterly alone, staring blankly ahead at the spot where his mother’s casket had rested before she’d been lowered into the ground. Anger twisted through Aly’s gut, and she wanted to lash out at them, to tell them to stop judging because they didn’t come close to understanding who Jared was. None of them knew the kindness of the boy who had always thought of everyone, the one who loved his mother and who was so obviously destroyed.
Breaking from the circle of her family, Aly made her way back to the basket of single, long-stemmed roses, taking one in her hand. The few that remained had been at the bottom of the pile, the wilted, red petals crushed. Cautiously, she made her way over to Jared, searching for some sort of recognition in his eyes. Still there was nothing. Aly gently laid the rose on his lap and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Jared.”
His hair fluttered in the breeze, and Jared just stared.
Two months had passed since the accident. Everything had changed.
Aly was in her room with her door shut, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her sketch pad on her lap. The small lamp on her nightstand softly glowed against the walls of her room. Furiously her pencil brushed across the thick, textured paper. Shadows sprang to life, her worry inscribed on the page.
So many nights she spent awake worrying for Jared, completely powerless, while she watched him fade away. How badly she wished for some way to help him, to make him see that he was only hurting himself more, and that Helene would never want this for him.
Rumors had begun to surface, trickling all the way from the high school to the middle school. They terrified Aly more than anything because she saw their truth. She saw it in his eyes every time the two of them passed, even when he didn’t seem to even know she was there. It was like he saw right through her, like he was absent. Gone.
Helene was gone and now Jared was, too.
Aly stilled her pencil when she heard the soft knock at her door. “Come in.”
Her mother popped her head in. “Are you still up? It’s past eleven, and you have school in the morning.”
Aly glanced at her pad. “Sorry, Mom… I just… ”
Softly, her mother smiled. “I know, sweetheart.” Karen came the rest of the way in. Sitting at the edge of her bed, she ran a gentle hand through Aly’s hair. “Are you doing okay?”
“I think so.” Gazing up at her mom, she asked, “Are you?”
Aly’s mother pursed her lips, then offered a small, reassuring nod. “Some days. It’s getting better.” Then she placed a kiss on Aly’s forehead. “Get some rest. It’s late.”
“Okay.”
Karen crossed to the door and looked back at her daughter. “I love you, Aly.”
“Love you, too, Mom.”
The next day, Aly rushed out into the bright morning sun with her backpack slung over her shoulder. If she missed her bus, she’d have to walk to school, and that was about the last thing she felt like doing since she’d spent half the night awake. Even when her mom told her to get some rest, none would come. She felt agitated, like she could feel something building – something bad. It wasn’t a premonition. It was just plain obvious.
Aly came to a stop when she saw the boy she couldn’t get off her mind walking ahead of her on the opposite sidewalk toward the main street. Spring had come, the morning air crisp but warm, but still Jared wore a heavy black leather jacket, his attention focused entirely on his boots as they ate up the ground in his long stride.
She rushed across the street, closing the space between them. “Jared, wait.”
He didn’t even acknowledge her.
She called out to him again, “Hey, Jared, wait up.”
He finally hesitated before he turned around, rushing a nervous hand through his hair. He bounced anxiously as he looked at her. Through her, really. “Aly… ,” he managed to say.
Aly frowned, unable to look away from his pupils, which had all but disappeared, his light blue eyes too wide, frozen ice.
He glanced away, and he raked his hand through his hair again. “Hey,” he mumbled into the distance.
Aly fidgeted. “How are you?” She cringed. What the hell was she thinking, asking something so dumb? How did she think he was?
Jared turned back to her, just blinked, looking everywhere but at her face.
“So, uh, we miss you at the house,” Aly ventured, feeling more like an idiot, completely out of her element. But weren’t they all? None of this was their element. Everything was wrecked, and all of them had been left on foreign ground. “Why don’t you come around anymore? I know Christopher would like to see you.”
She would like to see him.
She needed to see him.
Jared twitched. “I’ve just been busy,” he said at the same moment he looked behind him, back toward the busy street. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around.”
Aly’s heart sank. She stood watching the boy who consumed her walk away from her, his head hanging toward the ground as he gripped the hair at the back of his head.
Aly closed her eyes, wishing for a way to make things better, even though she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do.
When she opened them, he was gone.
Aly frowned when she saw her dad’s car parked in the driveway after she got off from school that day. He never made it home before five.
Aly cracked open the door. The second she did, she knew something was off, could feel the tension in the air. Their house had been so much like that lately – off – emotions rising, then waning, heartbreak, then glimpses of joy, slipping back into overwhelming sadness. They’d diagnosed her mom with grief-related depression, had written her some prescriptions to help her get through the time they said would pass. There’d been some days when she never got out of bed, but like her mom had said last night, she was getting better.