Just Kidding | ✔️

Love, Kyla

🌻

I can sit here and tell you all of the reasons why this is unfair and why there will not be a happy ending for me, but I won't focus on the bad any longer, how can I? I've run out of negatives.

Trust me, I wish life wasn't so cruel, but that's just it.

It is.

If you assumed this story would be any different than I pray it taught you that life isn't meant to be fair, it's meant to be truthful and possibly heartbreaking. Life is full of sacrifice and affliction, beauty and peace,

Beginnings and endings.

And this ending? This just so happens to be mine. . .

I was surprised that I slipped away so fast, the pain just seemed to fall away along with my touch then my smell and soon everything inside of me weakened and not long after, I was only a soul.

Now I feel as if I've finally resurfaced, as if I can breathe again because here where the sun is delicate and the trees are green; the skies are clear and blue, there is no such thing as pain or worries.

My parents and grandmother are here too. They waited for me beneath the cherry blossom trees as I hoped they would.

They tell me I'm safe, that I'm home.

So instead of worrying and thinking of the way I lived and how I was loved; how I gave love or the things I did wrong or right, I simply watch over the ones I've left alone in the world.

I watch them cry and I watch them laugh, I watch them smile for what seems like is rare in school these days, then I watch them break.

I sit beside Cooper every step of the way although he never notices.

I hold his hand, I lay beside him on the sheets that he once laid me down on so long ago.

I watch over Cooper in his loneliest of moments which seems to be a never ending loop, and sadly enough. . .I watch him slowly return to the cold detached man he used to be.

I pray that one day I can hold him again, tell him everything will be alright. I want so badly to tell him now, but I can't. I can't tend anyone's broken heart, all I can do is watch them shatter and blame myself for putting them in that situation in the first place.

The day after my funeral, Lora finally had the courage to go into my room and find the pieces of my life that I left behind. She broke down shortly after; looking at the unfinished books I was determined to read through, the sweet smelling perfume and opened window, the unmade sheets from restless nights and the clothing scattered along the floor from when I got too lazy to put them away.

Even Snickers took a while to pull through the darkness. He left my bedroom unwillingly after days spent cooped up, sitting by the door waiting for me to come home. I never did, so naturally the dog grew tired of pacing the length of my room and he's roaming around the house, growing larger as the days go by.

When it's finally graduation day, I sit and watch my friends pick at each other's gowns, smiling and laughing. Even if it pains me to see the future I so desired for myself live on through my friends, I find interest in the paths they take and moves they make. I watch each one of them reach their final destination in high school, then I watch them separate into the world:

Bryce leaves town, ending up in Seattle where he fulfills his wants and wishes that he always desired to finish.

Chloe and Chris get an apartment somewhere deep in California. They spend their wild and reckless days on the beach enjoying each and every moment as if it were their last.

Blake takes Amber as far from home as possible, showing her the world I never got to see. From London to France, to Moscow and Chile, the two experience every inch this world has to offer.

Even Dawson ends up in a small town in Ohio, working at his uncle's old car shop. He tends to go from girl to girl and it seems like it fills the emptiness inside of him. At least for the time being.

But the two lives I find myself looking after the most are the ones of Riley and Cooper. They stay behind in Santa Cruz spending the summer watching Millie and Snickers grow and move on without me there.

They help Lora and James uncover the clues of my room. Then after fall passes once more, the room is empty and Riley and Cooper are gone.

Now truly all sign of Kyla Daniels is lost in the past; in the boxes that hide in the closets and in the hearts that hide in the bodies.

I never expected anything more. Or anything less.

Which leads me to ask. Do you remember that question I asked you before we began his journey?

Yes?
No?

Well I'll remind you, it went something like this:

"Do you believe in happy endings? More importantly, will you still believe in them after this story ends?"

So, perhaps there are no happily ever-afters, maybe there never were but in a way nothing is a happy ending is it? But don't worry, this is no ending. This is only the beginning. For, you can complete the ending of a fairytale yourself if you so seek it.

With that, I will tell you my own personal goodbye so that next time when you read about a simple girl and a complex boy, you won't forget that not everything turns out how you planned it to. If life was steady and painless it would be a fairytale and this, my friends. This is not. . .

Love, Kyla.