The Edge of Forever

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Come Home (OneRepublic) - Nate POV

One year. One year since I've seen your smile, heard your laugh, held you in my arms. I didn't know it was possible to miss someone so much, but every day it's like you get a little further away from me, and it's starting to feel like you were just a dream that I can't wake up from. I wish life was fair. I wish you could come back. I wish you could come home.

"Mom is going to kill you," my little sister Tracy's squeaky voice piped up from the door frame, jolting me out of my thoughts. I pushed myself up from my desk chair, where I'd been hunched over a scrap of paper for the past two hours, trying to put my feelings into words. Tracy tapped her foot, scanning the room, before rolling her eyes in exasperation.

"You've been back for three weeks and you still haven't unpacked?" she shook her head, as usual acting like she was ten years older than me. I groaned.

"Thank you Sherlock," I said. "Can you get out? I'm busy,"

As much as Tracy annoyed me, I couldn't stay mad at her for anything. I hadn't seen her since she was a baby, and I'd missed her more than I was willing to admit.

"You still want to be here, right?" Tracy asked.

"Of course I do," I said, sitting down on the edge of my bed. "I just have other things on my mind today,"

"Yeah, I know," she said, her voice finally getting quiet. "Mom says you have to leave in twenty minutes,"'

"Yeah," I turned my head away so she wouldn't see the pain in my eyes. Even though no one in my family had known Lexi, I'd told them so much about her that they could probably have written out her life story from beginning to end.

If only it could have been longer.

My phone buzzed angrily from my bedside table, and I scooped it up to see a flurry of incoming messages from Sebastian, who was panicking about which suit to wear. Obviously it didn't matter, but I texted him back to try and calm him down. Visiting Lexi was always difficult, but no one really wanted to talk about it directly, so we freaked out about other things instead.

"Nate?" the door creaked open again, and my mom walked in, sitting down beside me on my bed. "Are you ready to go?"

"No," I muttered, looking down at my hands, which were starting to tremble with a mixture of nerves and sadness.

"You know she would love that you're doing this for her," she said. She brushed a piece of hair away from my face, her eyes taking on a misty glow. "Oh Nate... I know I've missed so much. You're so grown up all of a sudden,"

"I should go," I said, standing up from the bed. "I can't be late,"

I appreciated that my mom had taken me back into her life, but it was still hard when she tried to pretend they hadn't thrown me out. Our family had an ugly past, and even though I was happy to be home, there was no forgetting what had already happened. And to make matters worst, there was only person who I knew would understand.

I got into my car, and started it up, pulling out into the familiar roads. I almost couldn't bring myself to make the turn into the cemetery, but I saw Sebastian's truck already parked there, and I knew that I couldn't avoid talking about it any longer.

Once I was parked, I started walking slowly towards the little cluster of people in the distance. If I squinted, I could make out Sebastian and Ragan holding hands, and Maya leaning against Toby. Adam and Juliet weren't there yet, but they had just texted me to say they were on their way.

As I got closer, Sebastian broke away from the group, and walked over to meet me. I could probably count on one hand the number of times he and I had hugged since we'd been friends, but there was no hesitation in that moment. When he pulled away, Maya walked up to me, and I wrapped my arms around her, her tears staining my shirt.

Adam and Juliet arrived a minute later, and the seven of us gathered around the headstone. The white marble stood out against all of the crumbling graves that dotted the lawn. No one said anything for a long time, before I finally cleared my throat.

"Did anyone write anything?" no one answered at first, and I reached into my pocket to touch the unfinished memorial speech I'd brought with me, just in case.

"I don't..." Sebastian took a deep breath, his voice shaking. "I can't really put it into words,"

I understood what he meant – the seven of us loved Lexi more than we could ever say, but it seemed impossible to capture what had been the best year of our lives in words. There was no way to describe how much we missed her without completely shattering our own hearts.

"I can't believe it's been a year," Maya said, wiping a few tears off of her cheeks. Toby pulled her closer, and my heart twisted as I realized I was the only one there without someone to hold onto.

We lost track of time after that. No one could say anything else, but it didn't matter, because we were together, and that was all we really wanted in that moment. There was no telling when that would happen again.

The summer was beginning to dawn, and we were set to graduate in a week. As exciting as everything was – the graduation, living with my parents again, getting ready to head to college in the fall – it still felt wrong. Something was missing. She was missing, and even though we'd all been friends for years before we'd even met her, it felt like we didn't fit anymore. Not without her. She had walked into our lives, and changed everything, and now none of us knew how to go back to normal. We couldn't even remember what normal felt like.

"Nate?" Adam's voice brought me back down to earth, even though it was quieter than I'd ever heard it before. "You okay, buddy?"

"Yeah," I realized that I'd started to cry, and I wiped my face hastily, and rubbed my hands together. "It's getting cold,"

"Do you want to go?" Toby asked, his arms still tightly wrapped around Maya's shoulders. I took a deep breath, and shook my head.

"Not really,"

So we didn't.