Alive and Shattered

Alive and Shattered: Chapter Twenty Six {Dylan's POV}

Dylan’s POV

~Two weeks later~

"Dylan Henderson," a lady had been speaking this whole time, but the only thing I heard was my name at the end of her sentence.

As I rose from my seat, I glanced out at all the familiar faces. Heading down the aisle, towards the podium, everyone turned to look at me as I passed by them. Today was the final day.

Everything was over after this.

Standing at the podium, I glanced out at the sea of faces. I took a deep breath; this was going to be harder than it thought. I peered at the paper that sat in my hands. Looking back at their faces, I watched their expressions. But when they got to be too much for me, I looked away and began.

“I met Adena three months ago. And at first, I was angry I was her partner. I wanted to be put with one of my friends, like everyone else had. But, after talking to Adena once, that all changed. Adena became my closest friend. The person I could turn to for anything and everything,” I stopped, feeling tears rush to my eyes. I could feel my emotions wanting to burst so I looked back towards the people staring at me. I froze.

This was so hard.

"Adena had such a big impact on my life."

Taking in a deep breath, I took a longer pause than I had thought I would.

“You know,” I started up again, looking out towards the people in front of me. “I never got to read Adena my essay. In fact, I never even got to finish writing it,” a tear falling from my eye, I let it race down my cheek.

Crying was the least of my worries right now.

“I’ve thoughts about this for days. What would I say? Would I tell everyone about how she made me laugh? Or how she always made my day better? But there’s only one thing I want to say. One thing that I should say.”

Turning to my side, I paused, looking down and to my left where the casket lay; Adena's still body resting in it.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I then turned to the people sitting before me. I recognized some of the faces. Some were from school, some teachers, and the others I was guessing distant family.

Scanning the crowd, I spotted Adena's family.

“I’m sorry,” I said, looking right into Quinton’s eyes. “I know you're hurting and looking for someone to blame,” I began, looking into each of their eyes. “And I am the one who is to blame.”

Just saying the words made my eyes glisten with tears. The look in Quinton’s face broke me even more. It was a look of utter despair. As I started to sob, my father rose from his chair.

“This is my fault!” I screamed. “Everyone needs to know that I’m the reason she’s dead!” Dad grabbed onto my arm and started to lead me away from the podium. “I’m sorry,” I gasped as I started to fall, not being able to support my weight.

My father managed to hold me up and drag me away from everyone. Taking me to the dirt path away from the funeral, he let me go.

“You need to calm down,” he stated calmly.

“Calm down? Calm down! How can you tell me to calm down?”

“I know your broken… But it was just a high school romance.” Just his words filled me with anger.

“Just a high school romance?! No, that was love! There’s no age limit! I know that was the real thing. I know I lost my soulmate…”

“Dylan-”

“I can’t believe you’d say that…. Mostly because you and mom were high school sweethearts. So if you're saying that you can’t be in love in high school, then you're saying you didn’t love mom.” Dad gave me a sad look.

Not being able to take it anymore, I took off running.

I didn’t know where I was going. All I knew was that I needed to get away from it all; the sympathetic faces; the tears; her body; the death and sorrow of it all. I couldn’t handle it any more. It was too much for me to handle. I followed the main road until I spotted a little clearing off to the right. I decided to take it. I rushed past the bushes and into the woods, following a small path that was hard to see. The trees whizzed past while I ran as fast as I could go.

A little log caught me off guard and I fell to the ground. I lay there for a second, breathing hard. Everything was so peaceful. It was like the perfect little picture you see in fairy tales with the princesses.

Except this wasn’t a fairy tale and my princess wasn’t with me anymore.

I started to scream. I was so angry at everything… but mostly myself. Punching the ground in anger, I then broke down. My anger quickly turning to pain I started to weep. Just thinking of Adena broke me. Just hearing her name or even seeing her picture made me want to die inside.

In fact, all I wanted in this moment was to die.

“Why!” I found myself screaming. Sitting on my knees, I looked towards the sky. “Why did you take her away from me? Why?

Breaking down again, I found it getting more difficult to breathe. I could hear footsteps behind me and I turned around, seeing Grady standing there.

“What?” I snapped. “Come to make fun of me? Come to remind me I have nothing?”

“I came to make sure you were okay… I saw you run off,” moving in front of me, Grady knelled down. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

“Why can’t I? I broke through the barriers she had to keep me out and you know what I did? Just broke the heart she was trying to protect! She’s dead because I basically told her she was nothing….”

“Is that what you think?” The voice was so soft, I didn’t recognize it. Spinning around, my eye’s met Kyleigh's. Her eyes were red, showing she had been crying.

“Kyleigh?” Grady questioned.

“I saw Dylan run off and I got worried,” she said, looking to Grady. Her gaze fixed on me. “I got worried because what you said was a lie…. How it was your fault,” she bit her lip and I could tell she was fighting back tears. “How you were the one to blame,” her eyes became glassy. “It’s my fault, Dylan. Not yours.”

“What are you talking about?” I questioned, rising from the ground.

“I… I tormented Adena every day of her life, you know that? I made her miserable. I insulted every aspect of her life….” As she spoke, tear after tear raced down her face.

“But you apologized,” Grady added. “This isn’t your fault either. You both made Adena happy.”

“Do you know what it’s like to be the reason someone hurt themselves? Do you know what it’s like to know some sweet, innocent, girl is dead because you were trying too hard to fit in!” She screamed. “Do you know what it’s like to want to die for what you’ve done!” Her tone got louder with every word.

Shaking her head, she buried her face in her hands. She began shedding tears widely.

“Kyleigh,” I said. She looked up towards me and I walked over to her. “This isn’t your fault,” Throwing herself at me, she began to cry into my shoulder. Wrapping her arms around my tightly, I hugged her back. As she cried, I found myself crying to.

Because I had realized something while crying. That I hadn’t only lost Adena, but I had lost myself.