“There’s also the option of the hardwood caskets. Now, they aren’t as strong as these ones, but they are shock-resistant, which is nice. They come in different types of hardwoods such as cherry, oak, ash, or walnut. Now, my personal favorite is the cherry finish, but that’s just me.”

“Fucking creep,” I muttered under my breath, my mom the only one to hear me.

“Tristan,” she scolded, turning away from the funeral director. “Be nice.”

“He has a favorite casket. That’s fucking weird,” I hissed, irritated with Harold, irritated with my mother, irritated that Jamie and Charlie were gone. “Can we get this over with?” I complained, looking into the empty caskets that would soon enough be filled with my everythings.

Come back to me.

Mom frowned, but went ahead and handled the details that I wanted to pretend didn’t exist.

Harold took us to his office, where he wore his creepy smile and talked about shit that annoyed me as each moment passed. “For the tombstones we also offer wreaths for the holiday season, vases for flowers, and blankets for the colder months—”

“Are you shitting me?” I murmured. Mom placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, almost as if to stop me from snapping at Harold, but it was too late. I was too far gone. “It must be really nice for you, huh, Harold?” I asked, leaning forward with my eyes narrowed and my fingers laced together. “It must be a good fucking job to offer sad fucks blankets for their loved ones. To get them to pour all their money into stupid shit that doesn’t matter because they are in a vulnerable state. A blanket? A BLANKET?! They are fucking dead, Harold,” I shouted, standing up from the chair. “The dead don’t need blankets because they don’t get cold. They don’t need wreaths because they don’t celebrate Christmas, and they don’t need flowers because what’s the point?!” I hollered, slamming my hands against his desk, sending papers flying.

Mom stood up and reached for me, but I yanked my arm away. My chest rose and fell, my breaths becoming harder and harder to control, and I could feel the wildness that was living within my eyes. I was losing it. I was falling apart more and more as each second passed.

I rushed out of his office and leaned my back against the closest wall. Mom apologized to Harold as my hands formed fists and began to slam against the wall behind me. Over and over again, I slammed my fists against the wall. My fingers were turning red, and my heart was turning cold as it all began to set in.

They were gone.

They were gone.

My mom walked out of the room and stood across from me, her eyes filled with tears.

“Did you get the blanket?” I asked, sarcastically.

“Tristan,” she whispered, the heartbreak audible within her soft words.

“If you did, you should’ve gotten Charlie a green one, and Jamie purple. Those were their favorite colors…” I shook my head, not wanting to talk anymore. Not wanting Mom to try to make me feel better. Not wanting to breathe.

It was the first day that their deaths felt real. The first day I came to the realization that in three days I would have to say my final goodbye to my world. My soul was in flames, and every inch of me felt the burn. I shook my head more and more, cupped my hands over my mouth, and howled into my sadness.

They were gone.

They were gone.

Come back to me.

“CHARLIE!” I screamed, sitting up in my bed. It was still pitch black outside, and my sheets were soaked in my own sweat. A slight breeze passed through my window as I tried to shake off the nightmare that was more real than ever before. My nightmares were my past memories that came to haunt me.

I watched as a light turned on across at Elizabeth’s house. She walked over to the window and glanced my way. I didn’t turn on my light. I sat on the edge of my bed, my body still burning hot. The light flooded over her face, and I watched her lips move.

“Are you okay?” she questioned, crossing her arms against her body.

She was so damn beautiful, and it annoyed me.

It also annoyed me that my shouts probably awakened her almost every night. I walked over to the window, my eyes still heavy with the guilt of not being there for Jamie and Charlie. “Go to sleep,” I told her.

“Okay,” she replied.

But she didn’t move to her bed. She sat on the ledge of her windowsill, and I leaned against mine. We stared at one another until my heartbeats slowed, and her eyes faded shut.

I silently thanked her for not leaving me alone.

Chapter Fifteen

Elizabeth

“Rumor has it you’re banging an asshole,” Faye said over the phone a few days after I’d sat up with Tristan after his nightmare. I hadn’t spoken to him since then, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“Oh my gosh, that is not a rumor.”

“No, but it sounds more exciting than Tanner whining about some dude cutting your grass, even though I remember offering you a certain guy named Ed to trim your bushes. But really, though, are you okay? Should I be worrying like Tanner is?”

“I’m fine.”

“Because that Tristan guy is a total dick, Liz.” The worry on the end of each of her words was sad. I hated that she was worrying about me.

“I can talk to him,” I said quietly. “About Steven, I can talk to him.”

“You can talk to me about him, too.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s different. Tristan lost his wife and son.”