That’s all he ever needed to be.
The world feels duller now that he’s not in it. Or more specifically, not with me.
But there are times… times when I swear, I see him. At my mother’s funeral; at Will’s, too. At a fancy café where he was half-shadowed by a hanging plant, sunlight touching the bridge of his nose as he ate a croissant.
And every time, I would stop and stare. But he would only rise, collect his coat, and leave. Always before I could get close enough. Once, I even followed him, stumbling through a crowd, but he was too quick, or maybe I was too slow. And by the time I reached the door, he was gone.
Lilia told me she was convinced I was going mad. Seeing things that weren’t there. But then Christian admitted he’d seen him too. Liam said the same.
And it’s worse, somehow-knowing it isn’t only me.
It’s awfully depressing, thinking about it all. About Kai in general. I remember I had a conversation with Christian about it all recently.
“Do you think he ever really cared? Or loved us, even a little bit?” I had asked him.
He had stared at me for a long time before answering.
“To tell you the truth, Adeline. I really don’t know at all.”
He looked away then. “I think if he did, he buried it deep enough to never hear it scream.” He had said it like it hurt. Like it haunts him still.
The words stayed with me, and I think of them whenever I think ofhim.
I’d think maybe that’s all Kai ever did—bury things. Hide them. Build walls so high not even he could climb out again.
And I’d think maybe we were fools to love him anyway.
Aside from that, the past few months have felt astronomically, excruciatingly, dull.
Because of the funerals, mostly. There were too many of them. Too close together. Will. Paris. My mother. Even Anderson, though I didn’t attend that one. None of us did.
People grieved differently. Some lashed out. Some disappeared. Some of us, most of us, just tried to stay afloat.
No one’s really been the same.
We spent Christmas and New Year’s at Liam’s house. Just us: Lilia, Bea, Kym, Liam, Christian, and me. It was as fun as it could have been, I guess. Mostly, we sat around a table and looked through the pictures Will had taken on that stupid fancy camera he was always carrying around.
Photos of us mid-laugh, blurry in motion, candid and chaotic. A few of Kai who was serious in some, but soft in others. One of Paris that Christian almost threw into the fireplace, but didn’t.
No one said what we were all thinking.
That this might be the closest we’d ever get to having them back.
My favourite photo was the one of Kai leaning against the tree, reading and smiling. He had just looked so… peaceful. I still look at that picture sometimes and wonder if that was the last time he’d ever smiled like that.
Speaking of that tree, it’s dead now.
The one in Kai’s Garden. The one we used to sit under. Its branches are brittle now, hunched forward. I hadn’t really noticed how sick it looked until I asked Sue about it, a few weeks back.
“Has it always looked like that?”
“Since the first winter,” she said finally. “Got bent too young, I suppose. Never grew right after.”
A pause.
“Still tries, though.”
Some days, I’m scared I’m forgetting. Their voices. The exact tilt of Will’s grin. The gold ring in Kai’s eyes.
