How To Live

Chapter Nineteen

My mind and body were awash with a strange sense of calm when I woke up this morning. It feels as though all of the emotional turmoil that I have pushed through over the last couple of weeks has begun to fade away, like every drama and big issue that entered my life after Tommy's death has suddenly become so insignificant that I can't waste any energy even worrying about it.

Not today, there are far more important thinks taking place today for me to focus my energy on. Positive changes that a lot of really great people have worked hard to achieve will happen today.

Today, the people of Bolton will know how our generation feels, they will understand the rights we are stripped of everyday we leave our homes and walk the halls of our high school, or even the streets of our small town. Everyday we fear for our lives because public shootings are real, and they could happen at any time, of any day.

And they have.

Today, we will stand together to make that sure no one ever suffers the same fate that Tommy, Mike, Samantha, Dave, and even Henry were subjected to. Today our voices will be heard, and we will continue to fight until our reality changes. Until we are safe and happy, and no longer at risk of being gunned down and never returning home again.

It is time Bolton changed its gun policies to ensure the safety that every person in this town deserves. It is time to make our voices heard and join the fight to end gun violence.

I can't wait.

I have spent far too long wallowing in the despair and depression that followed after Tommy died. The feelings and emotions that I have been through is an experience that I would never wish upon another person. Losing a loved on is hard, when they are sick, or they die in an accident, or some freak act of nature. But when an unstable person with a gun takes someone you love from your life, you tend to become aware of just how much this country needs to change.

Before Tommy died, I didn't really weigh in on all of the politics revolving around guns and the laws in the United Sates. But now that he is gone, I wish the events that are going to happen today had happened a lot sooner. I wish the world had of fixed this issue when it first arose, instead of brushing it under the rug continuously denying the fact that people are dying because we refuse to do anything about it. We as citizens have killed so many innocent people because we have stood by and done nothing. The deaths of the students at Bolton High, and any other high school across America are on all of our hands. Staying quiet about this issue won't make it any easier to bear, and it certainly won't make it go away. Its time the people who can make changes and save our lives act. Its time we make them act.

It shouldn't have taken the death of my brother to make me realise that, but it did. And now, the only thing I can do to get a piece of Tommy back, is to make sure no one else has to die like he did.

Today, we will march and we will raise our voices and we won't stop until we are heard.

The loud beeping of a car horn breaks me out of the internal daydream that has overcome my body and I blink at my reflection in the mirror. It is staring back at me, and when it smiles I realise that I don't feel like a stranger in this empty vessel of a body anymore. I feel like me again, and that's because of this rally, and the friends I have made, the people who saved me from the emotions that I didn't even realise were slowly swallowing me. The girl in the mirror is exactly who I want to be, and I know she is the kind of girl who Tommy would be so damn proud of today.

I race down the stairs and slam the front door, my smile widening at the memory of Tommy doing the same thing every morning.

"Morning!" I haul myself into Wesley's truck and give him a quick kiss on the lips. He looks at me with wide surprised eyes.