As It Was (COMPLETED) (wattys2023)

Homecoming

Five months of complete avoidance of social media ended the six-month anniversary of the shooting.

Though I'd been spending most of my time with Garrett, he'd had previous engagements with Homecoming tonight, and I had no desire to step foot in that school unless necessary. Dad had left the house for the first time in a little over a month, and Mom was working graveyard as she had been the last two weeks.

I was alone.

In hindsight, pulling out my laptop and logging onto Facebook probably wasn't the ideal way to distract myself. Yet, I still found myself scrolling down my feed and seeing friends, classmates that I'd watched rush out and into the courtyard bloodied and sobbing six months ago, living life as if it hadn't happened. Their timelines were flooded with all things Senior year; Senior Sunrise, Homecoming, plans for Prom in a few months.

All things that I should be planning.

But the very thought of living without Miles by my side twisted my stomach into the most uncomfortable of knots. Though I was tormented by the gruesome images of him every time I allowed my eyes to shut, the reality that he truly wasn't going to come back still hadn't quite sunk in.

He wouldn't be in the crowd between my parents cheering me on and hollering my name obnoxiously loud as I crossed the stage for graduation. That necklace that he'd worn as if it were a piece of him would forever sit in the corner of my jewelry box. All those jokes and promises of being a complete fool at our wedding would forever remain fantastical conversations shared between us.

As soon as my curser slid across Naomi Chao's profile picture, I impulsively clicked her page and retracted my hand instantly, as if the trackpad had become contaminated. Her background photo was of Miles and Brady at Senior Prom last year, and though I'd seen both of their memorial pictures, something about seeing the picture hit different. Maybe it was that I had taken it, maybe it was the way Miles was looking at the camera melted me to this day every time I laid eyes on the photo.

I extended my hand and brushed my fingertip against Miles' photo, tears stinging the back of my eyes as my hand moved to Brady. He was wearing his usual lopsided grin and those brown eyes that had been misty with tears the last time I'd looked into them, were glistening with just the faintest glint of mischief.

Exiting out of the photo before my emotions could break me further, I scrolled down but stopped a could posts down. It was an Event for tomorrow night at six. A memorial and remembrance for those lost. I shut my laptop and blinked a few times before grabbing my phone from the nightstand and checking the logistics from here back to Lincoln Heights.

Three hours by car wasn't bad, but I knew without a doubt in my mind that my parents wouldn't make the trip with me. Not only because my mother would be too busy running off to baby Clark, but because the moment they showed their faces in that town again, all hell was sure to break loose.

I pulled up Garrett's contact, but my finger lingered on the contact photo he'd put in it.

Did I want to burden him with this? He was at a dance in celebration of his team, and I was about to ask something of him that was surely going to make him reconsider befriending me. My finger found the green icon before I could stop myself and I pressed the phone against my ear.

He answered on the third ring, the faint sound of dubstep in the background. "Hey, Ev, you good?"

"Yeah." I looked to my closed laptop in front of me. "How's the dance?"