Lost in Hollywood

Rivers

Sky pressed her palm tight against the door of Cody's locker and closed her eyes.

Her chest was cracking under the weight of emotions she'd had to keep hidden all day. Every breath she took was a struggle. She wanted to give up, to stop breathing, to make her heart stop beating, to stop fighting and just die. Here. Now. Her palm pressed on the cards and letters people had left for Cody, her fingers tracing the shape of his face in a photo where he was smiling, his smile so wide and happy and carefree that it felt like a knife in the heart.

This first day of school had been even harder than Sky had thought. The way people had stared at her all day, the whispered conversations as she walked the halls, the pieces of paper someone had slid into her locker calling her a slut, whore, murderer—

But that wasn't even the worst. The absolute worst thing was the absence of Cody.

Every corner and every door of this place reminded her of him. There was the library, where he had sought her out and asked her out for the first time. There was the table in the cafeteria, where he had sat with her at lunch dozens of times, smiling at her over the table, his eyes shining when he looked at her, as if she was something amazing, as if he would never grow tired of seeing her. There was the shadowy corner where he had pressed her against the wall and kissed her so gently, his lips so sweet on hers, that she had felt like walking on clouds for the rest of the day—

It hurt. It hurt, even if Sky knew she had been the one to end things with Cody. She had dumped him to be with Hawk, and she had been prepared to deal with all the heartache and shame that followed— But she hadn't been prepared for this. For this gut-wrenching horror and despair that squeezed the life out of her body. It was one thing to live with an ugly breakup than to live with the knowledge that the person you had loved was gone forever, and all that remained were these memories that felt like a knife in the gut.

Cody wasn't gone just from her life. He was gone from this whole fucking world, and how the fuck was she going to live with that?

Sky let out a long, shaky breath and leaned her forehead against the locker, not bothering to fight the tears that fell down her cheeks. She had been holding these tears back all day, until they had grown to be a burning ocean behind her eyelids. Now the waves crashed to the shores inside of her, she could feel the storm building, and she had to get it out, out, out, or it would drown her. So let the tears run free, now that everyone else had left, now that she was alone, now that she finally had this moment she had craved for all day.

Silence. Silence and sorrow surrounded her, and that was all she wanted.

The hot, salty taste of the tears filled her senses, blocking the scent of Cody's things that apparently still were inside the locker. The scent of his clothes, maybe a spare hoodie or a T-shirt, a hint of his spicy cologne, his books, and papers— Sky forced herself to breathe in and out, in and out, slow, focused, until she could gather enough strength to push her forehead off the locker door and open her eyes.

She hadn't come here just to weep. She too, had something she wanted to leave for Cody.

Sky wiped her face with the sleeves of her black hoodie, and found the card from her backpack, hesitating only for a moment before attaching it onto the door with a piece of blue tack. She had to move some of the other cards and pictures to make room for it, but she was careful not to rip or remove anything. Cody deserved to have all of these loving notes on this door. She wanted to imagine that he could still cross the veil, that he could come back and see with his own eyes how much people loved and missed him. But Kat had said that Cody had crossed the river, that there was no coming back—

That thought caused a new wave of tears, and Sky sobbed, slamming her hand against the door, then clenching her fist so that her nails dug into the skin of her palm.