Surrender -- a T@gged Story

Surrender

A few days after everything that happened, we all found ourselves down by the water with Japenese lanterns. I watched Trevor, who seemed just a little bit lighter ever since I found him in the bathroom, with Brandon and Sean, running around as friends-become-brothers would. I looked over to see Elisia wheeling Ash onto the sand before sitting down on his lap and nuzzling herself under his chin. Her smile was so bright and Ash was so at peace to have her in his arms. I looked over at Jai and Tessa, happy to be with each other - both beginning something new.

I felt Hayley's absence so much looking out at everyone. I wished she would've been able to enjoy this moment with us. For the first time, watching everyone together, I felt alone. I bit down hard on my lip, trying to choke back tears as the girls started handing out lanterns and sharpies to everyone. Brandon walked up to me brimming with excitement.

"I enrolled in boarding school." he tells me.

"You did?" I ask, trying to choke back the tears, push the hurt down, and smile.

"I wanna finish high school. I made a deal with my dad." he continues, before breathing in and allowing his classic smirk to come forth. "Some beautiful babe once reminded me that I had choices in my life."

I smiled a little and wrapped my arms around him for a moment. Letting go, I turned to grab a lantern and sharpie from Trevor, giving him a playful nudge. I wrote, "Dunbar" on the thin paper before passing it to Brandon who drew a big smiley face underneath. I looked over to see Elisia had written, "Mom and Dad," Sean, Tessa, and Jai wrote, "Nicki,". On the count of three we lit our lanterns and released them into the sky.

A small tear escaped from the corner of my eye as I watched it rise up and float slowly and gracefully into the sky. My bottom lip quivered once again. I felt Brandon's gaze on me. He looked so serious and concerned. I swallowed everything back and gave him a small smile before looking back up at the lanterns.

The big group of us all sat down and talked as we would occasionally look up at our small memorials in the sky of some of the people we had lost. Just a quickly we would return to conversation amongst the people we had gained.

Slowly, people started to get up noticing how dark and late it was without the blazing light from the lanterns. As I hugged each person goodbye, none of it felt right. Now that there was no task, no mystery, no person to look out for or protect or save, it was almost like everything I had shoved away to get it done was slowly creeping back.

I got into the car with Trevor, and was quiet as we drove home.

"Rowan?" Trevor called gently. "We're here."

I blinked, noticing that I must've fallen asleep and looked up to see that we had pulled into the driveway. Trevor was already standing outside the car with his door open.

"Oh." I said quietly, shaking myself a little more awake and gathered my bag before getting out. When I stood up, Trevor was waiting to walk together into the front door. He blocked my way when I reached for the handle of the screen door.

"Umm," I began.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I looked up and saw the seriousness in his eyes.

I tilted my head, "Yeah," I said. "Tired. But I'm fine." I reached around him for the handle but he stopped me again.

"I don't believe you." he said strongly. "Rowan, you've been taking care of everyone else this whole time. Since the beginning of it all with Dunbar."

I shifted uncomfortably. "You saved Elisia, made sure Hayley was okay when she came back, worked so hard to figure out KingCobra, you saved Brandon," Trevor paused. "You saved me."