Goodbye for now || n.h

Chapter 30

It was the year 2035.

The kids and I spend the entire summer down in Mullingar. I had taken three months off from work, which Blaine didn't mind. According to him I've helped the company grow and I deserved a break.

Jamie is now fifteen, Taylor is twelve and I'm about to turn thirty-eight. This year also means it's been ten years since I lost Dakota.

Jamie and Taylor was off on their own adventures in town, so I decided to catch up with some old friends on a fine summer night as this one.

I met up with Sebastian and Zach outside our old school. Erin was with us too, along with Bella, Lucy and Caroline. We sat down in the parking lot, talking about old memories.

Bella was the first one to bring up the tenth anniversary of Dakota's passing.

"Has it really been ten years?"

"And it's been nineteen years since all of us were here at the same time." Zach said, nodding towards the old school building behind us.

"Sebastian was so close to crying during your goodbye speech, Caroline." I chuckled.

"I was not!" Sebastian defended himself, making us all laugh.

"Okay, but jokes aside. Imagine if you and Dakota never started dating. Then we three wouldn't be here with you guys today." Bella then said, looking at Lucy and Caroline. "Zach and I wouldn't be together either. It's all thanks to her."

"Yeah. We were always her friends, and we wouldn't even know any of you if-" Caroline began, then stopping herself when she and I made eye contact. "I'm sorry, is this hard for you to talk about?"

I shrugged.

"I mean it will always be tough, but at some point I have to allow myself to talk about her." I said.

"If she were here, she'd be sitting in your lap and you'd make out like two teenagers who were out after curfew." Lucy said with a laugh. "You were always so childish with each other."

"And she'd tell us all about the story when I told her my phone was broken instead of asking her out." I smiled, shaking my head, and the others laughed.

"It was her favourite story." Bella agreed, still laughing.

Then the laughter died out and it was like all of us decided to take a minute of silence in honour of Dakota. None of us said a word for about two minutes, and Erin squeezed my hand at one point before letting me go again.

After a while we decided to go home, and meet up again tomorrow.

"My kids are probably still out, or hopefully back at my mum's house. But there's one place I'd like to go before I go to bed. Can you keep me company? Just for old time's sake?" I asked Erin.

"Of course." She smiled.

We went to the grass hill. I still got the same feeling when I came up here. This spot meant so much to me and it gave me a feeling of hope. Dakota's name was still carved into the tree to my left. I also saw "N + D summer '16" right above her name. She carved it in our first summer together. The same year she died I carved her name in.

After just standing there for a while we started to walk back home.

"I'm thinking about renting a place in Dublin. So if you want help with the kids, just call me." Erin said as we walked. "Taylor can come to me with girl problems for example. But just to be clear, I'm not interested in dating you. I was your first kiss, but I refuse to be your last. That's Dakota's."