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I watch as Ty’s coffin is lowered into the ground, the mahogany wood gleaming a beautiful red-brown despite the dreary sky above. I take hold of my mother’s hand, gripping so tightly that my knuckles are bone-white with the effort.
Memories of that last night with Ty flood my mind, as they have every day and every night since. Tears stream down my face and I can feel Mom shaking with tears too.
One by one, the crowd disperses, mourning friends and family leaving until only I and my parents are left. I stare down at the gravestone, the sky above dark with grey-black rainclouds, threatening to explode with it’s own tears at any moment.
My heart sinks down, down, past my stomach, down my legs and into the ground with Ty. My parents tell me that’s it not my fault. The psychologist at the hospital told me the same, trying to talk me out of joining him. But my nightmares say differently.
I throw my rose into the hole onto Ty’s coffin down below. When I look up, I see him.
It’s Ty.
He’s standing off to the side of the graveyard, only a few graves away from me. Wearing a sharp black tuxedo with a sky-blue tie, he smiles at me, and then speaks, his words carried to me by the wind.
“I love you, Ethan.”
My parents don’t hear, nor do they see him. I know that he’s only here for me, and another tear trickles down my cheek and falls off my chin, joining the small, cold rain drops that have started to dribble from the mourning sky.
I feel a new strength rising from within me. Ty’s spirit slowly fades away, and a new hope grows inside my broken heart. Ty’s love taught me so much this summer. In a way, I would say that it even saved me, just like he did. Ty helped me to truly accept myself and to believe in myself. He reminded me that I was lovable, and more than that- that I was worthy of love.
I make a resolution to stay on this earth, no matter how hard it may be. Ty may be gone, but here I am, heart beating, blood racing.
From this day forward, I have to keep my breath for the most important things, for love and for justice and for passion.
I have to breathe for Ty.
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