Always and forever ❤️💫

prologue 💖

"Shiloh, hurry up!" I heard my sister call out to me from outside, her voice dripping with utmost annoyance. We were very late, and despite the fact that I was a fairly punctual person most of the time, I was unintentionally the reason for our current delay.

"In a minute!" I replied with a weak yell as I continued scrambling through the blouses in my drawer. I wasn't bothered by the fact that my room currently looked like a rat's nest; I needed to find it. I couldn't do this without it.

The pent-up anxiety I had been feeling all day was starting to get to me, and with an exasperated sigh, I plopped down face first on my bed, sending all the scattered clothes and items flying. I could vividly recall falling asleep with it on last night, so I couldn't have misplaced it; I never took it off.

That's when another memory hit me, and I almost tumbled off the bed with the amount of energy I used getting up from it. I ran, not walked, to the right side of my bed frame and slid four of my fingers into the nook between the mattress and the side rail. Immediately, I felt a familiar steely texture brush against the tip of my fingers and let out a silent prayer of gratitude, wondering why it had taken me so long to remember this spot.

Several weeks prior, I had lost one of my foundation brushes in a similar manner when I fell asleep with it in hand, and after hours of searching the next morning, I found it in the exact same nook. I was a heavy sleeper, so I wasn't surprised things would slip off my hand, and I wouldn't notice.

I pulled it out from where it had hidden itself and stared at it for a few moments, relieved to have found it before I slipped it onto my wrist.

To the normal eye, it was a simple rose gold chain bracelet, bearing nothing distinct except for two initials at the head, an 'I' and an 'S'. To me, however, it was a lot more; it was a memento of sorts, a reminder to a time where there were no bad days, where the sun always shined and the clouds stayed white all year through. I was never sad, and I never cried, all because of Ian.

The bracelet was a gift from him. And with or without it, I doubted a single day would ever pass without me thinking of that night, the night everything happened, the night it all started... and the night it all ended.

I didn't realize it, but when I sat back down on my bed, my eyes began to water as my mind drifted away to the first time I saw Ian, the first time I made a friend, how inseparable we had been, all the good and bad times we had, and also the last time I got to ever talk to him.

"Shiloh! We are almost two hours late, what could possibly–" my sister barged into the room, berating me, but stopped when her eyes fell on me and she caught sight of my teary eyes. I quickly snapped out of my melancholic reminiscence, but it was too late; she had already formed an idea of what I was thinking about, as she knew only one thing could get me looking so low on a day like this.

She sat beside me and wrapped both arms around me in a warm embrace. The irritated sister who had been rushing me mere minutes ago was gone, and in her place, the soft-spoken, comforting sister was reassuring me that Ian would be proud of everything I had accomplished today. I smiled and looked at her, willing the tears not to fall. "I know, Aurora, I know," I said to her, somehow managing not to cry. After freshening up and doing some minor touch-ups to my hair and makeup, she and I headed to the car and set off to probably the biggest conference I've ever hosted in my life.

Ian's death left a huge scar on me. He was everything you could ever love about a person. Beyond his typical outgoing, charismatic, thrill-seeking teenage boy-next-door demeanor, he was also kind, caring, generous, intelligent, and genuinely hilarious. Like everyone else, he had his flaws, of course; he suffered severely from mental health issues, and it was part of the reason his life took a downward spiral for the worst. But he was still everything you could ever want in a best friend, and everything you could ever love about a person.

Yet it wasn't enough. The drugs didn't spare him. And neither did death.

I can still vividly remember what he looked like as he took his last breath, the multitude of emotions that ravaged my heart at the sight of my first, my only best friend, the person I loved more than anyone else in the world leaving me.

I was angry, angry at the drugs that took my best friend away from me, angry at the wretched world and people that pushed him to this, angry at Ian for leaving me when I needed him most, even though I know it would hurt him more to stay, and most of all angry at myself for not doing enough to help Ian, stop him from going down such a dreadful path.

The depression that plagued me afterward was severe and lasted far longer than I wanted to remember, but once I managed to pick myself back up, I made a personal vow. A vow to fight the scourge killing millions of other innocent people like Ian, a vow to do everything in my power to enlighten, protect, and help heal the world of the insidious illness called drug abuse that was infecting it, a vow to spread mental health awareness so no one else would have to go through the pain and anguish I went through. And the pain and anguish that Ian went through.

So I set off on my journey, you could call it a redemption journey of sorts. I didn't care much about labels so long as I achieved my goal. Giving speeches about the dangers of drug abuse and enlightening people about mental health and the importance of not neglecting it, joining NGOs and institutions that provided care, help, and shelter to victims of drug abuse, volunteering at schools, hospitals, and camps to teach about the harmful effects of drug abuse and helping those going through a lot mentally.

After so many ups and downs, trials and errors, victories and drawbacks, I thank God that he has placed me where I am today, as I make my way to this conference about to give my biggest, most important speech yet. I feel a sense of purpose and duty that I've never felt before, my campaign won't be for nothing, and even though it will never bring back Ian, I will make sure his death wasn't in vain, I will make that difference I failed to make years ago.

This is our story, mine and Ian's.

Hi guys, this story is meant to deal with a lot of sensitive topics and I hope you'll like it. I'd like to thank all my friends cause I definitely didn't do it alone and I'll be updating every 2/3 weeks please vote and comment❤️

This is how I envisioned Aurora and Shiloh respectively. Drawing credit to Joyce