Five months of complete avoidance of social media ended the six-month anniversary of the shooting.

Though I'd been spending most of my time with Garrett, he'd had previous engagements with Homecoming tonight, and I had no desire to step foot in that school unless necessary. Dad had left the house for the first time in a little over a month, and Mom was working graveyard as she had been the last two weeks.

I was alone.

In hindsight, pulling out my laptop and logging onto Facebook probably wasn't the ideal way to distract myself. Yet, I still found myself scrolling down my feed and seeing friends, classmates that I'd watched rush out and into the courtyard bloodied and sobbing six months ago, living life as if it hadn't happened. Their timelines were flooded with all things Senior year; Senior Sunrise, Homecoming, plans for Prom in a few months.

All things that I should be planning.

But the very thought of living without Miles by my side twisted my stomach into the most uncomfortable of knots. Though I was tormented by the gruesome images of him every time I allowed my eyes to shut, the reality that he truly wasn't going to come back still hadn't quite sunk in.

He wouldn't be in the crowd between my parents cheering me on and hollering my name obnoxiously loud as I crossed the stage for graduation. That necklace that he'd worn as if it were a piece of him would forever sit in the corner of my jewelry box. All those jokes and promises of being a complete fool at our wedding would forever remain fantastical conversations shared between us.

As soon as my curser slid across Naomi Chao's profile picture, I impulsively clicked her page and retracted my hand instantly, as if the trackpad had become contaminated. Her background photo was of Miles and Brady at Senior Prom last year, and though I'd seen both of their memorial pictures, something about seeing the picture hit different. Maybe it was that I had taken it, maybe it was the way Miles was looking at the camera melted me to this day every time I laid eyes on the photo.

I extended my hand and brushed my fingertip against Miles' photo, tears stinging the back of my eyes as my hand moved to Brady. He was wearing his usual lopsided grin and those brown eyes that had been misty with tears the last time I'd looked into them, were glistening with just the faintest glint of mischief.

Exiting out of the photo before my emotions could break me further, I scrolled down but stopped a could posts down. It was an Event for tomorrow night at six. A memorial and remembrance for those lost. I shut my laptop and blinked a few times before grabbing my phone from the nightstand and checking the logistics from here back to Lincoln Heights.

Three hours by car wasn't bad, but I knew without a doubt in my mind that my parents wouldn't make the trip with me. Not only because my mother would be too busy running off to baby Clark, but because the moment they showed their faces in that town again, all hell was sure to break loose.

I pulled up Garrett's contact, but my finger lingered on the contact photo he'd put in it.

Did I want to burden him with this? He was at a dance in celebration of his team, and I was about to ask something of him that was surely going to make him reconsider befriending me. My finger found the green icon before I could stop myself and I pressed the phone against my ear.

He answered on the third ring, the faint sound of dubstep in the background. "Hey, Ev, you good?"

"Yeah." I looked to my closed laptop in front of me. "How's the dance?"

"Best part of the night was Angie stepping on Holly Park's dress and her face going into the snack table." he said, and though he wasn't next to me, I could almost see the smile tugging at the outer corners of his lips and the light flickering on in his usually dark blue eyes. "What's up? I know you didn't call to hear about my night."

I traced my bitten down, jagged nail along the top of my laptop. "Are you busy tomorrow?"

"Not yet, but I'm assuming I'm about to be. Why, what's up?"

"It's a lot to explain over the phone. Facetime me when you get home?" I offered the best option outside of him being here I could, but I heard a loud voice call from him in the background and him shouting back before his voice was against the receiver again.

"I'll do better, I'll drop by in about an hour."

Then the line went dead. I leaned back against my headboard, legs against my chest and pulled up Miles' contact. I moved up through the texts until I found his last voice message, about a month before the massacre.

"Evie, baby, answer the phone please. I love you."

Closing out of the app, I opened my gallery and inhaled sharply, only to have my breath catch in my throat. I had refused to look at the thousands of pictures I knew were hidden behind that flower icon. I knew beneath the surface were every memory of Miles I'd managed to catch on camera. I moved my way back to last April until I was faced with a couple dozen photos and videos of Prom. I pressed down on the one video Miles had managed to talk Brady into taking; even with his shaky hand and commentary it was absolutely my favorite video of the two of us.

We were slow dancing, one of Miles' hands just above my tailbone, the other moving from my waist to my back. About ten seconds into the video, I glance up and he looks down and I paused the video. Because the way he looked at me, the love, the adoration, the awe, was something I'd never been able to shake. Hilary had once said that Miles had loved me with his entire being, but I hadn't ever considered the words to be more than an exaggeration until that night.

"He knew." she'd said. "When I tried to remind him that you two were still so young and once he left for college it'd be different. He said, 'Mom, I could spend the next ten years going through girls left and right, but I know I'd never feel even a fraction of what I do for Everly for them. I love her. She's it. She's the one.'"

Miles had loved me beyond comprehension. Miles had loved me more than he loved himself.

That love had ultimately been what killed him.

*

"Okay, so you want me to drive you four hours away to a memorial service?" Garrett repeated, leaning into my window, "Is there a reason one of your parents can't take you?"

He hadn't been trying to blow me off when he said he'd be here in an hour. He'd showed up at eleven thirty on the dot, tapping at my window even though neither of my parents were home to scold either of us anyway. He'd hopped in through the window still in a suit and tie, though his tie was askew and his hair a mess, he still looked far better dressed than he did most days in his loose shirts and worn jeans.

"If either of them even thought about stepping foot back there they'd get mauled, Garrett." I tried to explain, "It's easier for me to hide myself. But I. . . I have to go."

He finally breaks away from the window and sits at the end of my bed beside me. "Are you sure you're ready for this, Everly? This is huge. Not just being back there, but around others who went through it with you."

I looked to Miles' Letterman hanging off the bed post in front of us. "I have to."

"Everly, you don't have to put yourself through the trauma for him to know you care." Garrett reached out and touched the top of my trembling hand, grasping my fingers to steady them. "He knows. He can see it, feel it, from wherever he's at. He wouldn't want you putting yourself through this."

"I. . . I need to do this." I stuttered. "I have to."

Garrett dropped his gaze to my lavender comforter, deep in thought, before he whispers, "I don't think you're ready, Ev."

"I don't think that's your decision to make, Garrett."

The tone in my voice earned me a grimace from him. "Everly, I'm your friend, I'm only trying to advise you to do what I think would be best for you."

"I couldn't save them." I eventually mustered, shaking my head. "I couldn't stop my own fucking brothers from shooting them. I can do this. I can go and let them know that I love them, that I miss them."

Garrett shifted his body and took both of my hands and rested them against his own warm palms, "I'm not telling you not to do it, Ev. I'm not invalidating any of the feelings you have. I'm asking if you truly think you're ready to step back into the line of fire. Into the place the nightmares stem from."

I looked to his own fingers, the nails just as bitten and raw as my own, then to the concern lining every inch of his face.

"I don't know."

"Ev—"

"But I need to at least try." I squeezed his hands. "You told me that I walked out of that school for a reason. That I won't ever get anywhere believing that I shouldn't have. I can't sit here idly and let this pass me by. I knew them better than half the people that will be there tomorrow. I don't know if I'm ready, Garrett, but I know that I need to go."

He searched my eyes for something he evidently didn't find because he looked back to our hands and said, "Okay."

"You'll take me?"

"Yeah." he extended one of his hands to my shoulder and added, "But if you feel, at any time, that you aren't going to be able to handle it, tell me. We'll come back home."

I averted my eyes from the boy in front of me and to Miles' Letterman and pulled it from the post, clutching it against my chest. I wished that it still smelt faintly of him, that when I put it on I felt his warm embrace around me as it had for years.

Now it was no more than a jacket, a piece of clothing he'd owned and loved almost as much as he had me. Every day that passed, more little pieces of him slipped away no matter how hard I tried to grasp on to them, even if only for a few hours longer.

"Everly." Garrett moved closer, cautious as he touched his hand to my shoulder. "Hey, you're okay."

He hesitated once more before he wrapped both arms around me and held me against his chest while I screamed into the jacket balled between my fists. I heard the door creak at some point but didn't bother to look up, and considering Garrett didn't budge or say a word, I was sure he hadn't heard it either.

When I eventually snuck a glance, though blurred with tears, I found my mother in the doorway, three of her fingers still brushing the doorknob, other hand over her chest. Then, as if all the anger I had for my brothers decided it'd be best to surface that very second, I straightened and shouted, "Go! Get out!"

She opened her mouth, tears silently falling, then shut her mouth until it was in a tight, thin light.

"Get out!" I repeated, this time with so much malice and anger that Garrett flinched.

She stepped back and slammed my door so hard it shook in the hinges, her footsteps retreating all the way to the front door before that, too, was slammed hard.

I half expected Garrett to scold me for lashing out, but he only buried one of his hands in my hair and whispered, "Just breathe."

I rested my head against him once more, my body ravaging with sobs, both from crying and the pain from my stitches.

I had countless psychiatrists tell me over the summer that I'd grown numb, seeing that I'd become a zombie. Every day after a session I'd walk down the hall, step into the bathroom, lock the door and slam my fists into the walls on all sides of me until they were bruised and bloody. Until I felt even a fraction of pain that Miles must have as he bled out on that floor. Every night I rolled over in my bed and opened my eyes to find Clark across from me, the barrel of his gun pressed against my temple as his lips curled into a sadistic smirk.

I prayed every second of every day that I'd wake up one morning and truly be numb. That I wouldn't feel anything anymore. But the reality of it was that it would never happen, because as much as I tried, I couldn't outrun my thoughts, the brutality of my memories, and I would forever be trapped within their clutches.