He sat alone in the dying field and stared at the graying sky. He struggled to find peace, for each of his thoughts led him to the one thing he didn't want to think about: Catherine.

The blooming trees reminded him of her magnificent green eyes and the way they would light up every time that she talked about her love for animals. His broken mind drifted to the gentle way she would treat him; the thing that she feared the most was hurting her dear older brother. But her death had hurt him beyond repair. Her absence had created a void within him, a deep hole that nothing of the world could satisfy.

He stood up and looked around. The wind picked up speed, carrying two brown leaves with it. The leaves drifted up and down in the air, occasionally knocking into each other, like two young birds just learning to fly. Suddenly one leaf, slightly smaller than the other, fell to the ground as the other continued flying in the breeze. This saddened him once more.

How am I expected to live without her?

His grandmother his told him that death was just another part of life. Others said that he should carry on and not let it get to him, but to him, that was impossible to do. Catherine was his sister and his best friend. Nothing could ever make him let her go. Not even death.

"Blake?"

He turned to see his mother standing behind him in her usual weekday outfit (skinny jeans and a plain, single colored v-neck), but he noticed something oddly missing: her wedding ring.

"Hey, Mom," Blake said and turned back to see the other leaf gone.

"Whachya up to?" His mom asked while taking a seat on an old tree stump beside him.

"Nothing," he replied and took a seat on the ground too. He felt strangely uncomfortable with his mom, though he didn't understand why. His mom, second to Catherine, was always the person he told everything to. His mom always had good advice, though most of their talks led to the subject of girls and dating, but Blake was never interested in dating anyone, at least not for a while.

"Just thinking," he added, playing with a piece of dry grass.

An awkward silence fell between them until he couldn't bare it any longer. He opened his mouth to speak, but his mother beat him to it.

"I know it's hard...Without her, I mean," she said softly. "But... We'll make it through." She picked up a stick from the ground and stared at it closely as she talked, as if to distract herself from crying. "She's still with us though, in our—"

"No, Mom!" Blake cut her off, yelling. "No, she's not here. She's gone! She's... She's dead." He stood up, shaking from all the emotions burning inside of him. "People keep saying that... Keep saying that she's never gone as long as we keep her in our hearts and our thoughts, but that... It doesn't..."

He stopped. His emotions had gotten the best of him, and he fell to the ground crying.

"Oh, Blake..." His mom wrapped her arms around him for comfort, but she too was overcome with a flood of tears.

The silent crying lasted for nearly ten minutes before the sky got dark and the two had to go inside for another sleepless night.