Some people wait their whole lives to find the perfect friend.
But not Isabella Washington.
She knew she'd be best friends with Aiden Cunningham the moment she set eyes on him. But staying friends through school is easy. It's what comes after that c...
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"It was hard talking about him that day. It was hard for me to see Aiden's casket go underground."
Isabella was talking in her therapy session as Kate listened to her.
"How did you feel when he was gone?" Kate asked.
"I felt . . . miserable. I felt trapped knowing he would never wake up." Isabella sighed, trying to find the words to explain.
"It was as if he slipped away from my heart, and I couldn't find him there anymore because it broke into a million pieces. Like he had been emptied from my heart forever. It was hard to accept that I would never hear him talk again, see him smile again, hear him laugh again . . . anything.
"All I can do is remember him in my memories and imagine him being there with me. Sometimes he's in my dreams, and I wake up believing he is still alive, but he's not."
A lump was growing in her throat, and she was tearing up as she spoke, "After all these years, I can still feel him hugging me, hear his voice in my head, his eyes staring back at me, but those are just my memories of him.
"The worst part was when he died, I didn't notice until I was at home and my parents told me he was gone. I don't know what happened. I was there when Aiden stopped breathing, but when the nurse said she was sorry . . . I lost it. Next thing I knew, I was in my room not remembering what had happened."
Kate looked at her lap and asked, "After the funeral, what happened? What did you do?"
"I wanted to hurt myself again. I kept thinking, what was the point of living my life if he's gone? He was the love of my life. When I saw other people with their friends, family, boyfriends, or girlfriends, I was jealous that they had happiness and I didn't. I would always think, 'why can't I be happy like them?' and 'how can they be happy at a time like this while I'm still grieving?' It was hard for me to let go, and it took a while for me to heal—almost three years.
"Sometimes, I would cry a lot over it. Other times I would just be emotionless and wouldn't talk to anyone who tried to help me get better."
