“Officer, are you there?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got a unit attached to an incident matching your description but it’s to a house on Crescent.” Jae squeezed my hand.That’s her old house.“Seventeen-year-old female was announced DOA at 0357. Gunshot wound to the head.”
My legs gave out, falling onto my bed, pulling Jae down with me. I shook my head, tuning out the sounds of my dad hanging up with dispatch, and pulled up the voicemail from Shiloh.No. It’s not her. It’s not. She’s fine. This is a fucked-up nightmare.
“—finish what we started.” There was a pause of silence, and I could hear her sniffle.Fuck, she was crying.“I…” Her voice cracked and she huffed. “I just want you to know that you are the single greatest thing to have ever happened to me. You are so good, Enoch. Like the best person I have ever met. You are so loyal, and you fight like hell for the people you care about. Jae told me how you were planning to kidnap me if I wasn’t going to show up for Thanksgiving.” She laughed through her tears and my stomach flipped.Let me hear you laugh again. Don’t do this.
“God, you really don’t know how to give up. I hope you never change that about yourself. I hope that you have an amazing time in the military and that you get to travel the world, get to see all the places you want and meet incredible people. I hope that it’s everything and more. But most of all…I hope that one day you’ll forgive me.Please. I’ll miss you. So much.” She choked on a sob, and an invisible weight crushed my chest.Was I even breathing? Jae’s hand was squeezing mine so tightly I couldn’t feel my fingers. I swiped at the tears on my cheeks.
“I know we only spent a few months together, but I want you to know that I love you. And not just how I love you and Jae as my best friends. I’ve never loved anyone before, but I know that everything I’m feeling means that I love you and I’m so lucky that you were my first and only. Please know thatnone of this is your fault and you couldn’t have stopped me. It was inevitable, so please…pleasedon’t think that you could have done anything. This was always going to end this way. And I’m s-sorry. Bye, Enoch.”
“Fuck!” I was pulled into my mom’s lap, tears obstructing my sight as they continued to pour out of me.
“No, Mom. Please. She needs to be okay,” I begged through choking sobs. “I knew...I knew about the shit going on at home. I knew she had watched her brother’s suicide, and I thought—I thought I was helping her, Mom. She could stay here, right? I’ll make sure she’s safe. She’ll be happy here.”
“She’s gone, baby.” My mom held me tighter, stroking my hair.
“No. I love her. Iloveher, Mom.Welove her.”Deny. Deny. Deny.It’s not real. I can be enough for her. I can help her.“I need to see her. She’s probably scared and alone. I need to go be with her.” I sat up from her grasp, pushing past Jae and my dad.
My dad gripped me from behind, his arms trapping me to his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he said through his own tears. “She’s gone, Enoch. She’s not coming back.”
I crumpled against my dad, letting him catch my body as we lowered to the floor. I didn’t recognize the sounds coming out of my mouth as I clutched onto his arms around me. I kept clawing for some air, for some hope that this wasn’t real, that she wasn’t…gone.
We were a mess of limbs. Jae. My mom. My dad. Me.
We held each other on my bedroom floor until the numbness settled in. Until the tears stopped. Until I stopped shaking and white-knuckle gripping my dad like he could stop this nightmare. Until the nightmare became reality.
I would never see Shiloh again. Never make her laugh. Never kiss her. Never hold her. Never share her pain.Never tell her I loved her.
She was dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
To Be Continued…
