We stopped at a traffic light, and I took my hand off his leg to turn the radio station back. I heard tires squealing, and when I looked up, I saw a big black SUV with heavily tinted windows jackknifed in front of us. Its passenger door opened, and a man in a ski mask jumped out holding a gun.

I screamed at Ben, “Oh my God, he has a gun!”

Panic set in instantly, and I struggled to breathe as he approached Ben’s side of the car. “Get the f**k out of the car!”

I was frozen in place as my body riveted with fear. What’s going on? In my panicked state, I hit the lock button on the door, but the car was already locked. My sweaty palms were shaking, and I grabbed for Ben. He looked at me, and I knew he was trying to contain his own emotions. “Just keep calm, Dahl.”

My eyes were locked on the gunman as his eyes shifted to mine. Terror shot through me as he tapped his gun against the window a couple of times and then pointed it at me.

Frantically, I started beating the dash and was screaming, “Drive, Ben drive!”

He pounded the steering wheel with his fists. “We’re f**king blocked in.”

He grabbed my hand tightly, while his other moved to open the car door. “Call 911!”

I was petrified. “What are you doing?”

“Whatever happens, don’t get the out of this car.” His voice was deep and quivering. “Do you hear me?”

I heard the click of the door and screamed, “Ben, don’t!”

He stepped onto the pavement and I yelled, “You don’t have to be the hero! Come back!”

Not taking my eyes off Ben, with trembling hands, I managed to dial 911 before the phone slipped through my fingers.

I heard a shot. Ben fell to the ground. “No! No! Noooo!”

My vision started to blur as I swallowed back the bile in my throat. My screams faded into squealing police sirens. The sirens grew louder as I grew numb, and It’s Not My Time by 3 Doors Down played on the radio while everything I knew ceased to exist.

Chapter Four

THE DIARY OF DAHL

Life is full of sadness

Life is full of heartache

I like the silence of it all

But as I fall further into the darkness

I should try to keep my place in this world.

Black is everywhere. It’s the ground where he fell, it’s the bag his beautiful body was taken away in, it’s the color of the dress I wore to his funeral, it’s how I feel, and it’s the color of the journal I have kept since I was ten. The journal he talked me into keeping because he had been keeping one of his own. Even then, he loved the thrill of putting words on paper. I never got a thrill out of it, and now it just plummets me further into the black.

3 days after…

March 6th, 2010

The funeral. His sister Serena took care of everything. His best friend Caleb was back in town. I didn’t even know he was back from his tour in Afghanistan. He helped Serena. His mother Grace, his sister, his nephew Trent, and I sat together. That’s really all I remember.

3 months after…

June 9th, 2010

Each day is a test of will. Will I get out of bed, will I take a shower, will I leave the house, will I eat dinner, will I sleep on the couch, the floor, or in the spare room because there is no f**king way I’m going back into that bedroom. When I go in there—I see him everywhere—and when I sleep in there I can’t stop dreaming about him. The thing is, they are not dreams; they are nightmares because when I dream, I dream he’s here with me, and when I wake up—I’m alone.

I had my first dream about a week after he was killed. I woke up in the middle of the night, and he was lying next to me. I laid my head on his chest to hear him breathe. I ran my hand up his stomach to feel his hard muscles. God, he felt so good and I missed him so much, and here he was. So I laid my head on his chest, happy to have him back, and fell back asleep. Of course, when I woke up in the morning, I was alone.

I had my second dream after Grace insisted on taking me to the doctor because she knew I wasn’t sleeping well. The doctor prescribed Ambien, and that night I decided to sleep in our room. Grace stayed with me, as she often did, and I fell asleep easily. I woke up in darkness. He was leaning over me, kissing me, running his hand up my thigh and under my shorts. He moved my panties to the side and plunged his finger inside me before completely removing my panties. Then he removed his boxers and slid inside me easily, moving slow at first, then faster, his thrusts increasing until he found his release. That is when I woke up and realized he wasn’t there, I was alone again and my dream was just a sweet memory of what we had done so many times before he was killed.

The nightmares of his death come no matter where I sleep. They are of that night, the road we took, the stop light, the gun, the loud echoing sound of the bullet that fired out of it’s chamber, him calling me by my full name, and him falling to the ground—blood everywhere. In my nightmares we take different roads and stop at different lights, but the outcome is always the same. He calls me by my full name and then he dies. Dahlia. Death. Those two words have echoed in my head almost every night.

The police called Grace last week to let her know they had arrested the man who killed him. They found the gun he used. His fingerprints were all over it, which lead the police directly to him. He later confessed to the shooting. Serena came by to let me know because Grace couldn’t talk about it. She was just too upset. Caleb stopped by later to check on me and ended up sleeping on the couch. He’s worried about me so he ends up crashing here a lot lately.

6 months after….

September 15th, 2010

I haven’t been coping well with his death, with life without him. I know this. I still can’t say his name. He was my friend, my love—my everything. When my parents died, I was only fourteen years old and even though my uncle moved in with me, I would have felt really alone if it wasn’t for his tender affection.

My uncle was a shell of a man who had lost his wife and only brother in the plane crash that took them all from us. The crash that changed not only my life, but also my dreams of performing; performing on the stage at the place where my father loved to be. I never thought I would recover from losing my parents, and even at fourteen, he was not only my best friend, but also my sole source of comfort. We spent every day together in the year following my parents’ death and we formed a bond that was unbreakable.

When tragedy struck again, there he was, my rock; the mountain I depended on to give me strength. I don’t really remember my parents’ funeral. I think I blocked out the memory of that devastating time. I do remember him sitting next to me, staying with me, taking care of me just as he did when my uncle died. But he couldn’t do that when he died, since he too was dead.

I remember my uncle’s funeral well. I was kneeling in the pew of the empty church, crying as he came to sit beside me, pulling me onto the bench. Smoothing out the wrinkles in my black skirt, he asked, “I’ve looked everywhere for you, Dahl. What are you doing here so early?”

Looking around, I noticed there was no one else in the church and thought how appropriate that was. I looked into his blue eyes and cried, “I’m all alone now.”

I shifted my gaze quickly to look somewhere else, anywhere else but at him. I didn’t want him to see me crying. I was stronger than that. I was a girl who knew death well. As I looked back to the front of the church I caught sight of Jesus on the cross. The colors from the stained glass windows reflected on the statue, and Jesus suddenly looked amazingly beautiful and tranquil. I wished I could feel that much at peace.

Cupping my chin, he turned me to face him as he looked at me with his crystal-blue eyes, clear as the sky on a cloudless day. “You will never be alone; you will always have me, you know that, right Dahl?”

But I don’t have him. He’s gone, just like the rest of my family, and I’m alone.

9 months after….

December 18th, 2010

Recently, I’ve started leaving the house, but I feel like I have no hope, nothing to look forward to and wonder what the point is. To say life has been hard for me since he died would be an understatement. I haven’t gone back to work. I don’t really have to work, for the money anyway. Not that money matters to me in the least. Between what my parents left me and what he left me, along with the mortgage insurance that paid off the house; financially, I’m secure. Emotionally . . . that’s a different story. I can’t seem to care about anything. So going back to work isn’t an option.

Grace and Aerie stop by almost every day. Serena comes as often as she can. Caleb brings dinner at least once a week and stays to watch TV until I fall asleep. These are the only people I have left in the world now. I’ve had many friends in my lifetime, but these are the people I’ve stayed close with. They’re very concerned about me, I know. They try to get me to go out with them: lunch, movies, errands even, but I can’t seem to go anywhere without breaking down.

My last breakdown was mid-October. Serena brought me to the farmers market to get apples because she wanted to make an apple pie. I didn’t want to go but she insisted. When we got to the market the outside was decorated with pumpkins and bales of hay. Off to the side of the entrance was a huge display of ghosts and goblins. I didn’t open the car door. I couldn’t. I told Serena to go in without me. She was used to my mood swings and didn’t argue with me anymore, so she went on in without me.

As I stared at the festive display with tears streaming down my face, I remembered our first Halloween Party together as freshman in college. His fraternity house was having a party and at the last minute he told me we had to dress up. I was so pissed because he knew I didn’t dress up for Halloween, and even if I did, we didn’t have costumes to wear. I remember the argument so clearly.

We were standing in his bedroom, and I’d just finished drying my hair when he decided to tell me about the Halloween Party.

I was so mad at him, I was seeing red in the mirror instead of my ashy light blonde hair. My mouth started spewing before I could stop myself. “Why do you always have to do things last minute? Can’t you get your shit together just once and think ahead?”

Not answering, not arguing back, not even looking at me, he strode over to the bed and grabbed the two sheets off it. He still hadn’t said a word even as my spewing continued.

As I watched him, my fury only grew. “What the f**k are you doing now?”

Taking the sheets into his bathroom, he came out holding a pair of nail scissors.

He walked over to me with the sheets in his hands; he started cutting holes in it. When he was done he grinned at me. “Here, you be a ghost,” he announced, while tossing the cut up sheet over my head, “And I’ll be a goblin,” he said while cutting the other sheet into strips and wrapping his body with it.

“I’m not wearing that. I’m not wearing any costume. I hate Halloween,” I hissed at him as I pulled it off my head. But he knew why I hated Halloween and I knew he knew why. Of course he knew why; it was the day my parents’ plane crashed some many years ago. “Fine then, be your own f**king gorgeous self,” he remarked, grinning at me as he pulled me to him and kissed me hard. “Now let’s go to the f**king party and have some fun.” And just like that, we went to the party.

He didn’t take my shit; he just took care of the situation, of me, always. So as I sat in Serena’s car missing him and remembering that day, I thought God he definitely had his flaws, but he always had a way of calming me down. That was how it was with us. If I was mad at him, he was always the calmer one, taking control, and making things work out.

I wish I could have done the same for him, but it never worked out that way. When he was mad at me, his anger would linger no matter what I tried to do or say. It could last one hour or one day. I had learned to just stay away and let him come to me when he was ready. He didn’t express his love in words very often, but his gestures more than made up for it because at the end of the day he always made sure I knew how much he loved me. That’s just one of the many things I miss every day.