“someone will remember us,

It wasn't a goodbye.

That's what I told myself when I pulled away from Alastair's arms. That's what I told myself when I left Maria's party. That's what I kept telling myself when I laid down on my bed that night, staring up at the ceiling, until I fell asleep.

And that's all there was going through my head when Luce dropped me to the airport.

"I'll miss you, Lia." Luce murmured before pulling me into a very tight hug. "Why do you have to live so far away?"

"Why do you have to live so far away?" I asked her instead, which came out more like a muffled mess of words since she was still hugging me, way too tightly for me to even breathe. "Luce. I can't...breathe."

She laughed and pulled away. Her eyes, I noticed, seemed sad.

"Send me a text when your plane departs, okay?" She asked. I nodded. "And Lia?"

I raised my brows questioningly.

"Take care of yourself." She smiled, squeezing my shoulder. "For me, yeah?"

I gave her a smile back, which might have wavered a bit before I hugged her again.

"Goodbye, Luce," I whispered.

When Luce left and I had settled in the waiting area, waiting for my flight, I called Alastair. A little part inside me hoped that he'd answer. But he didn't. It went straight to his voicemail. So I left him a text.

Me: hey. i'm leaving in a little while. hoping i don't end up beside a bitchy baby this time. call me if you see this. and if you don't then well, i'll try calling you again.

I looked down at the text and sighed.

Me: i love you, Alas.

I spent the next half an hour on my phone, surfing through random apps, sending texts back and forth with Luce. I even received a few texts from Nora and apparently she knew that I'd be arriving back in New York somewhere near tonight--thanks to Mum of course. Nora seemed adamant to come and pick me up from the airport, even when I insisted that she shouldn't.

Seeing her face right when I landed in my hometown was the last thing I wanted. But it was either that or go back home (alone) from one of the New York cabs. And that was something I despised more than having that first awkward face-to-face conversation with Nora after years.

Mum would've come to pick me up from the airport herself since Dad would be busy late at work, but Mason had one of his school's taekwondo competitions, and he was so hyped up--like every time--to even care that I was arriving back. Not that I was mad at him. I missed my little brother enough to not be mad at him at the moment.

I was in between typing a rather short text to Nora when I heard my flight's name being announced on the speakers, ready for departure in a few minutes. I switched off my phone then, without really sending that text, and got up, pulling on my suitcase.

And this is where I say goodbye to the last bits of Oak Valley.

I got to take only a few steps towards the departing line when out of nowhere my phone started ringing. I was a little confused when I saw that it was Luce who was calling me.

"Luce," I answered with a small laugh. "You can't already miss me. I haven't even left the airport yet."

I continued walking towards the boarding area, where a small line waited ahead of me. Thankfully, there were no crowds. I hated crowds.

"Lia." Luce sounded out of breath. I frowned a little at that. "Lia, have you...have you departed?"

I kept on frowning and stopped walking towards the line, looking up at the black screen where the time flashed in bright red. I had probably ten minutes before my plane left.

"Not really. Why? What happened?" I asked.

"Lia," She sounded worried. Not just that, I could hear the underlying sadness in her voice too. "There were these ambulances on my way back. They...They are saying it was an anonymous tip. I...I don't even know how this happened, Lia."

I frowned at that, slowly feeling my heart starting to pick up its pace.

"What are you talking about, Luce?"

"The lake." She still sounded like she had been running. I didn't quite understand how she knew about the lake until I remembered telling her about that sweet little spot myself one time. I vaguely remembered her not liking the idea of going there, especially since she hated the woods even more so than me. Then why was she talking about the lake right now, when I was about to leave this country?

"Lia, you need to come here." She added, almost in a rush. "Something happened. I...I can't tell you over the phone. You need to see this for yourself."

I blinked in response and it felt like everyone who was walking around me were all just becoming a blur.

"What happened?" It was just a whisper that escaped my lips. A scared whisper.

"It's Alastair." She told me. "You need to come here quickly, Lia."

******

I didn't know how I got back in town, nearing the familiar Oak Valley woods. I didn't know how long it took me to reach there. It was all a blur for me.

I just remember rushing into the familiar woods, walking deeper and deeper and not even caring where I was going. Because I knew I'd reach there, at the lake. I had memorized the route enough to reach there with my eyes closed.

Why had Luce sounded so sad over the phone? Why had she mentioned Alastair's name? What had happened?

Alas. Alas. Alas.

That was all there was going through my head by the time I stopped near the green veil of vines surrounding the trees in front of me.

And then I started making out the faint sirens of ambulances, which shouldn't have been possible since all I could hear at that moment was my very loud heartbeat. But I did hear it, and I think it wasn't coming from anywhere near the lake, but from the mud path that I once came across in these woods. The path which most of the cars took from past here.

Ambulances. Why were they here?

I pushed past the vines and stepped near the lake.

There were a lot of people there. Too many unfamiliar faces. Paramedics. Police? But I didn't see Alastair's familiar face. I didn't see him anywhere.

"Lia! Oh my God, you're here." It was Luce. She looked tense and sad and like she was about to cry.

But why? What had happened? And where was Alas?

"Lia, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"What happened?" I cut her off with this strange urgency in my voice, my voice which sounded so far away from my own ears.

My eyes flickered to the familiar lake, noticing how the iced layer at the top was broken down. Just like that time it had broken down beneath my skates, just like that time I nearly drowned.

"Where's Alas?" I looked back at Luce, my heart almost in my throat. "He's fine, right?"

"Lia." She was shaking her head. I felt her hands on my arms, squeezing them a little too tightly. I saw her eyes glistening with tears. All that seemed to make my stomach clench in a horrible way. "I'm so sorry."

"Why..." My voice broke and I shook my head, a small dry laugh escaping my lips. "What is this? Why are the police here? And where's Alastair?" I asked her. "Look, I'm not in the mood for jokes, Luce. I just missed my flight to come here. This isn't funny."

God, what was happening here?

"Lia, he's not here." Her eyes were wide, almost pleading. The small disbelieving smile fell from my lips. "Alastair's not here anymore."

Naturally, I thought she was trying to shit with me. But then a heavy realization slowly seeped through my bones, weighing me down. Why would she joke about this? Why would Luce out of all the people joke about this?

I blinked in surprise, my head going blank. Quite literally. There were no more thoughts crowding in my head anymore. It was all just blank.

"What--" I stopped short when I noticed two of the paramedics holding out a stretcher near the lake, ushering the very few civilians out of the way. The stretcher wasn't empty. And even if they weren't exactly behind Luce, my gaze still seemed to stick to the unconscious body lying on the stretcher. A face that looked so pale and so blue. So lifeless, I realized, just like that ice.

But that wasn't what made my heart start racing a little more wildly, almost making me feel like I might pass out. That face. I knew that lifeless face.

Alastair, a tiny voice in my head spoke for me, it was my Alastair.

Dead.

No. No. No.

I looked back at Luce and she looked scared. I realized why now. She was scared for me.

"That's..." I trailed off, my voice failing to come out. My eyes darted back towards the stretcher, but the paramedics had now covered the body with a dark black sheet.

"Luce," I felt light-headed. "That's...is that..."

I couldn't say his name, I realized. I don't know why but I couldn't say it.

And then there were arms around me, and Luce was hugging me.

"Oh God, Lia. I'm so sorry." She was murmuring, again and again. "No one knew about this. I'm so sorry."

My first instinct would've been to reassure her, tell her that it'd be all right. She sounded so upset and scared. I had never seen her like that. And so I wanted to tell her that it would be fine. Wasn't that what everyone said? It'll all be fine in the end.

But it wasn't fine. It would never be fine.

I didn't hug her back. I didn't push her away either. Not when it felt like someone had literally drained me from everything. Every single thing.

All I did was close my eyes against Luce's shoulder. All I did was repeat Alastair's words in my head, again and again.

I'll keep loving you until I live. I promise.

******

Alastair James Hawthorne was dead.

He was dead by the time they took him to the hospital. He was dead by the time Luce and I reached the hospital. He was dead by the time his aunt, Mrs. Hawthorne, or Maria, or anyone else came by the hospital.

I didn't believe them. Not because I didn't want to, but because they told me he had been dead for days now. They told me that he had drowned, committed suicide, and his body had been inside that lake for days.

Which couldn't have been possible since I saw him last night at Maria's party. With my own eyes. I saw him there. I told him that I love him. And he had been there. Right there. How could he have been dead for days then?

Maria didn't believe me. She was just crying. She thought it was the shock working its way through me, and the denial. The doctors thought the same. Even Luce thought I was just making it up.

Maybe I was. Maybe that all had just been a hallucination.

Everything hit me at once then. Pain, that's all I felt. But I didn't cry. I just stood there in the hospital hallway, watching as people walked by, watching as few of them cried and then left. I just stood there silently.

I didn't know what else to do. What else to believe in.

It was almost around night when Luce somehow convinced me that we should get going. To her apartment, I guess, since I had missed my flight. I momentarily forgot about it, though. I think I forgot about everything at that moment.

All except Alastair's face. His beautiful face seemed to haunt me, even when we left the hospital, even when we entered Luce's apartment. It was engraved deep inside my head. His beautiful smile. His grey eyes. Everything.

I felt a little nauseous.

"Lia," Luce spoke up once she had closed the front door behind her. Her voice was soft and warm and laced with sadness. And she spoke it carefully, almost scared that I might lash out. Or that I might break. I hated it. I was beginning to hate everything right now.

"I...know it's too much, Lia." She added, slowly taking off her coat. "But talk to me. Don't keep it inside yourself. Please."

Don't keep what inside?

"I forgot my suitcase at the airport." Was what I said. My voice came out raw and hoarse, which was surprising since I'm pretty sure I hadn't cried even once.

Luce just looked at me worriedly. "We'll get it. Don't worry."

I stared at her. "It'll be lost by now. Someone might have taken it already."

She furrowed her brows, still looking worried, as she stepped closer towards me.

"I'm pretty sure the security must've taken care of it." She said, then frowned. "Lia, it's okay to cry. It's okay to talk about it. Please just...hear me out. No one's gonna judge you. Or push you away. We all equally loved him. We all are sad."

But I loved him more, I wanted to say. I still love him more than anyone else.

"I saw him last night," I said, a little too quietly.

Luce was shaking her head. "Lia--"

"I saw him last night at the party, Luce." I sounded pissed off even to myself. "Why can't you believe me? He was there. He was right there with me. We even..."

My voice broke and I closed my mouth shut.

We even danced together, I thought, we even kissed.

How could that not have been real?

"That's not possible, Lia." She murmured softly, cautiously. "You heard the doctor. Alastair wasn't...he..." She trailed off as well, and I realized that she didn't want to say dead in front of me.

"He couldn't have died days ago." I hissed at her, furious. "That wasn't him. That body wasn't Alastair's."

It couldn't be. God, it couldn't be him.

"Lia, do you even hear yourself?" She asked. Her voice, unlike mine, didn't raise up a notch. "You recognized his face, yet you're still saying that."

I fell silent at that.

"It was Maria's party." She murmured, coming closer until she was right in front of me. "She didn't see him, Lia. Alastair was supposed to be in Knightsridge to everyone else's knowledge."

"No. He came back for me." I said and then realized how incredibly stupid and moronic I sounded. No wonder they all thought I was in denial. Maybe I was. Maybe they were all right.

"Lia," Luce whispered. "It's all right. It will be. I promise."

I clenched my jaw and looked away from her. None of this was her fault, I knew that. Yet I still felt like lashing out on her, on everyone. Why weren't they believing me? Had I really made it all up in my head? Was that why Alastair hadn't been answering my calls or texts when I had been at the airport?

No. No. He wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't leave me.

But who else was it then? Whose dead body was it?

"I'm not crying for him," I said.

"Okay," Luce was still staring at me.

I looked at her and the heaviness was back. The miserable feeling of loss.

"He...he didn't like it when I cried, Luce." My voice fell down to a small, scared whisper. "He didn't like it when I cried because of him."

But he wasn't here anymore to care about that, a small voice spoke in my head.

He was gone. Forever.

******

Three whole days passed by. Just like that.

I stayed in Luce's apartment, mostly in my bed, letting the hours pass by silently. Luce kept coming into my room from time to time, replacing untouched trays of food with new ones. I didn't eat anything. The thought of it made me feel like I might throw up.

Mum called more than once to check up on me. I didn't talk to her. My phone was already out of battery, switched off, and I didn't bother charging it. What was the point?

When Mum called Luce, I heard her telling Mum little bits of what had happened. And I felt a little sick then, enough to actually throw up in the toilet that night. It wasn't a panic attack (I felt too empty to actually feel the panic settling in). I threw up because every time I tried getting some sleep, Alastair's face would flash in front of my eyes. His dead face.

The icy blueness of his skin. The dead emptiness in his grey eyes.

And when Luce told me that the Hawthornes had kept a small funeral for him tomorrow, it didn't help either. Not a big funeral. Not when he killed himself. Not when his death and the cause of it had already spread all around the town, thanks to the Hawthorne's name within the media.

I felt sick to my stomach. That's why I threw up.

I didn't go to the funeral the next day. Luce didn't either.

There were a few times when I'd hear the doorbell ringing. The times when Maria came to visit. For what, I didn't know. Perhaps she felt the need to check up on me once in a while, despite her own grief of losing her only best friend. She kept visiting me, even when each time I made Luce tell her to leave. She was stubborn that way.

Luce was the same. The way she kept checking up on me every hour, trying to distract me with hundreds of different things. I had a feeling she was scared that I might mentally break down any second. She was dreading something like that panic attack of mine.

I couldn't reassure her. Not when everything felt so utterly empty. Not miserable, or sad, or scary. Just empty and broken.

When I finally managed to charge my phone and go through my texts, I saw that most of them were from Mum, Dad, and even Helen. They all sounded worried. Maybe Luce told them more than she should have. I didn't really care about it though, not at that moment.

Few of the texts were from Tara and Steph too. They actually remembered that I was supposed to reach back home days ago, and when I hadn't, they must've gotten worried too. Why did that not make me feel better? Why did any of that not make me feel a little better?

Nora was the one who sounded the most worried after my mother in her texts. I read some of her texts and almost, almost smiled when I realized that she was actually threatening me to reply back. But I didn't smile. I felt too dead to smile these days.

Almost as if Alastair took that major important part of me with himself when he died.

When he killed himself.

******

When I told Luce that I was ready to go back home, she seemed surprised, and maybe even unsure at first. But then she must've realized that that was the best for me, to leave this place that only reminded me of Alastair. So she managed to get me a flight for tomorrow, in place of the one I had missed.

And I visited the lake that night.

It was probably the worst, most unhealthy thing to do, but I went there anyway. And I was glad when I noticed that it was back to normal. No police tapes around the area. No broken ice in the lake. No paramedics. And no ambulance sirens.

It was empty, unlike the last time I was here. Just like how this place always was for me.

Except that there was no Alastair beside me.

I was alone. And I realized that he'd never really be by my side again. Ever.

Cruel, that's how life really was.

I walked along the grass, stopping near the corner of the lake. I blew out a shaky sigh then, stuffing my hands further into my coat pockets. I wanted to say something. It felt like I should. It