I never thought that I'd end up back here.

I'd lived in Redmond, Oregon my entire life before Oaks which, I guessed, was really like another life in and of itself. It was located east of the Cascade Mountain Range in Oregon's High Desert Plateau. It wasn't a huge place, with a population that barely reached twenty-seven thousand. It happened to be a popular hiking area since the state park was practically just around the corner. I'd spent many summer days climbing my way up through the vertical traverses of the park with my brother and Daniel.

When I'd gone to Oaks, I'd left those days far behind me. I didn't regret the decision to leave...much. I missed my family and Daniel, who was pretty much my only real friend at the time. I hadn't exactly been bullied. It was more as if I just didn't fit in anywhere. While I was relatively intelligent at Oaks, I was practically a genius compared to the people in this town. That had been my problem. Too smart to hang out with even the smartest kids because they got jealous. Not athletic enough, at least at the time because that was entirely a different story now, to fit in with the jocks. And nowhere near sociable enough to be popular.

Those three factors combined together had been enough to cut my social circle down to near nonexistent. Growing up, I'd let them bring many tears to my eyes. Daniel was always there, of course, and in a way I'd always felt bad about that. He'd had the makings of a popular, smart, remarkable guy, and yet I'd always held him back. I'd known that, even when we were little kids. Daniel had always had a natural charisma about him that just drew people in.

It was probably part of the reason that I'd been completely and horribly in love with him.

When I'd left for Oaks at fourteen, I'd had feelings for Daniel that I'd known could never be reciprocated. The moment I stepped onto the plane that had taken me far away from the small town I'd grown up in, I'd sworn that I'd leave my feelings for him behind. And I had.

But that didn't mean that there wasn't a knife twisting in my gut as I watched him and his parents sitting next to my brother and my father in front of my mother's casket in the front pew of the church.

I was in one of the last rows. Far enough back that I wouldn't be remembered and close enough to not be separated and, by extension, conspicuous. It was unlikely that people would recognize me since I'd been gone for four years and looked so unlike the girl who'd gone missing so long ago.

Still, as a precaution, I'd pinned a dark brown wig on my head and had put in brown contact lenses, which contrasted horribly with my naturally pale blue irises. The brown turned out muddy and utterly horrible which, I guessed, was good for what I needed them to do.

The service was beautiful. People said good things about my mom. Told funny stories about things that she'd done. Remembered stuff from way back when she was a kid. She'd been a teacher at local elementary school and some of her past students stepped up and spoke of how she had been their favourite teacher. But, mostly, they talked about how kind she was. How compassionate. And how much she'd loved her family.

It was a closed-casket service and the front was littered with flowers and some pictures. There was a large portrait of her, standing just to the left of the casket. They'd picked a nice picture, showcasing her bright smile and long dark blonde-brown hair. She had the same eyes that Wes had, that bright, bright blue, that was almost azure.

When the service ended, most people got up to leave and headed towards the door. Others drifted off towards the front where my dad and Wes and Daniel's family were, offering up condolences. I stayed where I was for another few minutes longer, only getting up when my two remaining family members started walking down the aisle towards where I was sitting. They approached, looking tired and haggard. It looked as if there were new wrinkles on my father's head and he appeared weary. Wes just looked exhausted. His eyes were rimmed with red from crying and his face was puffy. It didn't look as if he'd brushed his hair recently.

Neither of them even glanced my way as they passed by. It was as if I was truly invisible. I supposed it was a good thing, but I couldn't help the drop in my stomach, almost like disappointment.

When most of the church was empty, I stood, making my way towards the front. I walked between the rows of pews, running my fingers along the familiar edges of the wooden benches. I'd come to this church every Sunday for fourteen years at my parents urging. I wasn't sure that I believed there was a God. And even if there was, sometimes I felt as if He'd abandoned me a long time ago.

I reached the front of the church and came to a stop in front of the smooth wooden casket. In a few minutes, it would be collected to be brought to the cemetery where my mother would be buried. I placed my hand on top of the casket and closed my eyes for just a fraction of a second. This was it. My final good-bye.

"I'm sorry," I murmured, so quietly that even I had a hard time hearing myself. I didn't dare say anything more, in case of listening ears. Besides, if there was a God, then my mom would be with Him and she would know exactly what those two little words meant without any explanation.

I turned away from the casket, ready to head back to the cheap motel I'd rented for the next few days, when I crashed into a hard chest. A strong pair of hands shot out to steady me and when I looked up, I felt my stomach drop even more than it already had.

Daniel Ortiz was standing in front of me.

It had been so long since I'd last seen him but he hadn't changed very much. He'd gotten taller, growing at least a foot and a half. He now towered over me by at least six inches. He was wearing a rumpled black suit, hanging open to expose his black tie and white shirt underneath. His naturally tanned skin, that came from his father's Mexican heritage, was practically glowing, a clear sign that he'd spent a considerable amount of time out in the sun. His jaw had become stronger, more defined, and his cheekbones were slightly more pronounced. Daniel's black hair was short and, oh god, his eyes. They were exactly as I remembered. Sea-green and clear as day.

As he stared at me, I felt as if he could see through my flimsy little disguise. The wig on my head suddenly felt very cheap, as if I'd gotten it from a crappy Halloween-costume store. The contact lenses, all at once, felt painful in my eyes.

This was bad. This was abort-mission level bad, and those rarely happened.

Normally, I was very good at thinking on my feet. But this was uncharted territories. It wasn't everyday that you returned home to a family that believed you to be dead and run smack-dab into someone you used to care for very much. My mouth went suddenly dry.

Luckily, Daniel spoke first, relieving me from having to come up with something on the spot. "Hey." He nodded towards my mom's casket. "You knew her?"

That one sentence gave me the time I needed to come up with a decent cover. "Yeah. She was my teacher at Tom McCall Elementary. What about you? Was she your teacher, too?" I asked. I already knew the answer to that question. My cover, on the other hand, did not.

Daniel nodded his head as I spoke, recognizing the name of the school my mom had worked at. "No, she wasn't my teacher. She was my best friend's mom. Practically family."

"I'm sorry."

"We'll get through it together." Daniel smiled forcefully. Then, he frowned at me, peering intently. "Did you go to Redmond High? I don't remember seeing you around."

I shook my head. "I went to Ridgeview."

"Oh." He looked back down at the casket, uncaring once more.

"Well," I said a moment later, "I should get going."

Daniel turned to me. "It was nice to meet you...?" He trailed off, the question clear in his tone.

"Amanda," I replied without missing a beat. "And you are?"

"Daniel."

I shook his hand. "Maybe I'll see you around sometime."

He nodded politely, disinterested. That was good. I hadn't made a lasting impression then. "Yeah, maybe."

"Good-bye."

"Bye."

And then, I turned and high-tailed it out of there faster than I'd ever gone before. I was almost certain that he was staring after me but I didn't dare turn around. I just left the church and didn't look back even though nearly every cell in my body was calling for me to.

Instead of responding to those instincts, I wandered downtown, walking down the streets that were still ingrained into the back of my head, never to be erased, even after so many years. I was stalling, giving the cemetery time to clear out from the burial before heading there to mourn my mother's death alone.

As soon as I'd told my friends what had happened, and the fact that I'd planned to come home, I'd been immediately overwhelmed with a surge of gratitude as they each offered to put off their summer vacation plans to come with me. I'd turned them all down, even Lia and Max, though they'd been the most insistent on coming, because this was something that I'd had to do on my own. The girl they knew wasn't the same girl that had grown up in this small town. She was as alien to them as she was to me now and, even though they'd wanted to come, I'd known that this girl, this Melanie, was someone I'd chosen to leave in the past. She was a girl I never wanted to come back.

I'd spoken to my friends and professors very briefly since I'd arrived back in Oregon. The one meager phone call we'd shared was simply me telling them that I'd arrived safely and would alert them as to when I would be lifting off again to head back to England.

Professor McCarthy had put me in touch with a member of the CIA, apparently he was also one of the men who was in charge of recruitments and had heard of me, in case I needed something while I was here. His name was Richard Jameson. We hadn't talked long, only a few lingering moments at the airport where he'd picked me up and given me a lift to town, before he'd departed. I didn't have much of an opinion on him, except to say that he was very focused, all dark and brooding. He hadn't smiled once throughout our exchange and had only nodded curtly at me when I'd hopped out of the car and disappeared into the motel that I was staying at indefinitely.

I wasn't planning on staying too long, though. I'd wanted to be here for the funeral and then a few days after that to ensure that my dad and Wes were holding up all right. Of course, I couldn't talk to them, but even just seeing them would, at the very least, give me the sense of closure I'd been denied all those years ago when I'd first left home for Oaks.

I'd always wondered what had happened when I'd left. What my parents went through. Undoubtedly, the authorities had been involved. I'd vanished without a trace, which likely meant that they'd called the cops and reported a missing persons case. I was sure my mom and dad probably panicked for days, weeks, maybe even years, on end, wondering if I was ever going to come home.

I wasn't.

At least, not until it was too late to say good-bye.

If there was one thing I would regret for the rest of my life, it would be this. I felt bad for the grief I had no doubt caused my parents when I'd left for Oaks and yet I couldn't bring myself to regret leaving. I'd found the person I was truly meant to be at that school. Had met the best friends I could ever hope to find. I'd gone on reckless adventures and been places I could have only dreamed about otherwise. The summer vacations I'd spent with Lia and her family alone had been filled with enough adventure to last a lifetime and yet I was ready to spend the rest of my life, chasing demons and going on journeys to do the job I'd been born to do.

No, I didn't regret leaving. Maybe I should have, but I didn't. I only regretted the pain I caused them and the fact that, now, I would never get to say good-bye to my mother. Nothing more than that.

An hour and a half later, I arrived at the cemetery. It had cleared out, save for the few people visiting loved ones in other parts of the burial ground. My mother's grave was easy enough to find. There was a mound of fresh dirt piled underneath a large Oak tree. A headstone had yet to be deposited to mark her grave and instead there was a simple little plaque they'd used during the ceremony for remembrance. The headstone would come later.

There was no one at her gravesite anymore. A small congregation would be forming at Daniel's house for my mother. I knew that my dad and Wes would be in attendance, which meant that they wouldn't be turning back up here—giving me some time alone with the woman who'd raised me.

I'd never been good with words. Never the most eloquent speaker. As such, I'd had a hard time expressing myself growing up. It was part of the reason I'd thrown myself into schoolwork with such abandon. In my work, I could express myself through equations and essays. I didn't have the capacity to perform in front of people or address large crowds with ease.

So, it was no surprise to me that I found myself staring down at the little marker of my mother's resting ground silently. There were so many things I wanted to say, needed to say, but I couldn't seem to formulate my thoughts and feelings into concrete words and so I stood there, silently morose.

My mother would have liked today. The sky was perfectly blue, not a cloud in sight. It was warm, but not humid, which was good because her hair always frizzed in the humidity. The grass around her grave was green, not the dead sort of brown that occurred from the heat that caused spring to slowly transition into the scorching effects of summer. The Oak tree that served as the backdrop to her gravesite was large and full and would look beautiful in the autumn when the leaves changed to alternating reds and yellows and oranges.

I went to sit at the base of the tree and just watched her grave. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say, that would make this situation better. She was dead and I was alive and there was nothing, nothing, I could do to change that fact.

It wasn't my fault. Her death. I knew that. She'd died because of a simple hit-and-run. I hadn't even been in the country and yet I felt an insurmountable amount of grief sweep through me. It was all consuming, like a wildfire, burning its way through my body until it was the only emotion that I felt.

My mom had been a good mother. One of the best if I was being honest. She wasn't as adventurous as Lia's mom or quite as stern as Tasha's father, who had raised her alone and was both a mother and father to her.  But, my mom was kind and gentle. There was always some sort of freshly baked dessert in the house, normally cookies, oatmeal-chip, because they were her favourites. Her laughter had been infectious and hearing it had always made me smile. And her hugs were warm and tight, everything that you expected when you went to your mother for a hug.

Growing up, I'd known that she was the type of woman who would take a million pictures of me in my prom dress. She would have been an absolute mess on my wedding day. And when my first child was born? She would have been the one leading the Lion King presentation ceremony in my family living room.

Those moments would never happen. I'd known that years ago when I'd left for Oaks and yet it had never really sunken in until now. Maybe there had been some small part of me that had hoped and prayed for a reconciliation with my family. With her. But now she was resting in a grave and I would be heading back to England in a few days and there was no reunion in sight.

I sucked in a deep breath and blinked back the tears in my eyes. There was a lump in my throat and it was hard to swallow for a minute. The moment passed and when it did I lumbered to my feet nimbly.

I couldn't change what had happened. Couldn't live down the fact that I'd never gotten the chance to say goodbye. But, my mother's spirit lived on in me. In Wes. In my father. Hell, her spirit lived on in anyone she'd ever touched emotionally and I knew that number was substantially large. She wouldn't be forgotten.

I would never forget her.

There wasn't much else for me to do here. I still felt the guilt, immensely so, but I knew it would be awhile, maybe even forever, until it waned. Until then, though, I promised myself that I would aspire to at least be a fraction of the woman that my mother was. If I could attain that, then she would never truly die.

And so, with that in mind, I cast one last, long look at my mother's final resting place, and left.