DRESS || ( charlie dalton )

xviii. of grief and persevering love

"it is still your home" thomas assured "it just feels different"

"it feels unimportant" loraine said "neil was important. i didn't even notice how good we had it until now"

"i think a lot of people feel that way after time"

"death shouldn't be a possibility at seventeen" loraine mumbled "you feel invincible, because getting old and dying is so far away" she looked up to meet her brothers eyes "but death doesn't care about your age. otherwise neil would still be here"

"he was way too young to die"

"he died for nothing" loraine curled a piece of hair around her finger "everything is worse and he had so much to do"

"i don't think he thought the same" thomas said softly "you recognize his potential, because you love him, but it seems that in his head, there was nothing left"

"i was left" her voice broke and this time she wasn't able to hold back the tears "i know it's foolish and selfish to think this way, but he still had me, he still had us"

"it's not selfish" thomas mumbled as he squeezed her hand. loraine thought back to the night before in mr perry's car, when she squeezed neil's hand in a similar way, assuring that everything would be alright.

now nothing was alright, but when she closed her eyes, thomas hand felt a bit like neil's did. she tried to remember the warmth of this touch, and she wondered how you could so quickly forget something as important as that.

"i wish i could've helped him" loraine admitted "i feel like everything is frozen. if i could turn back time—"

"you can't" thomas shook his head "and i can't either. even though we all wish we could change things, it's not possible. and i know that it hurts even more when you think about what you could've done differently, over and over again"

"how do you know?" loraine whispered

"i know because of mum"

unlike loraine, thomas remembered his mother well. he had been sixteen, and there were things he could not talk about to this day, not even with his sister

"there are always things you regret when you lose someone" he explained "but ultimately nothing you could've done would have changed it, or prevented it"

"i don't know" loraine shrugged

"but i know" thomas nodded "it is not your fault, do you hear me?"

"i told him all my problems, maybe that's why he didn't tell me about his. he didn't even tell me about his father being against his acting, i thought mr perry had allowed it. that was what neil told me, and i believed him"

"he would've done it, even if you told him not to" thomas reminded "you knew neil, he was persistent and he would've done anything to get on that stage"

"you should've seen him" thomas noticed the far away look in her eyes. similar to this morning, like she was trying to remember something. but loraine didn't have to try. she could see it clearly. neil on the big stage, acting like he had never done anything else. "he was amazing"

"i know" thomas smiled and for the first time since she heard the news, loraine was able to smile back

"he would've been great" thomas was sure that neil's future would've been bright if there had been enough time.

"he would travel around the world, playing in movie after movie" loraine continued her thought "he would've had endless fans. everyone would've loved him, if love just could've saved him"

"you think neil did what he did, because he wasn't loved enough?" thomas asked surprised.

loraine shrugged. "maybe"

"that's not true" thomas shook his head repeatedly and loraine looked at him in worry by the sudden seriousness in his voice "neil was loved by all of you, so much, it would've sufficed for a lot more than just one lifetime"

"then why wasn't our love enough?"

"this isn't about love, lori" thomas brushed through her hair. it was almost scary how much she resembled their mother. and it were exactly those moments that he missed her most. she would've been able to tell loraine exactly what she needed to hear.

loraine was, after all, still just a seventeen year old girl. thomas did not know that to say to make it better, to make it understandable for her.

how do you explain a boys death?

"love is worth so much" thomas said finally "and he knew that you all loved him, lori" he nodded "but sometimes, for a short misguided moment, the distress is bigger than anything else. that does not make your love for him worthless or unimportant though. you can't look back and examine every moment you two shared with each other, the bad moments don't cancel out the good ones, but we tend to forget that it is the same the other way around. the good doesn't just make the bad vanish"

loraine nodded at her brother and for the first time she could understand, not that it was right, but that she couldn't change anything to fix neil, not right now. she had been his best friend, but she had also been a child, it hadn't been her duty to save him.

"love is persevering, that's why grieving hurts so bad" thomas kissed her forehead. "goodnight, lori"

loraine smiled softly and nodded. talking to her brother had just helped her so much in a span of minutes, making the concept of her grief tangible and real.

she clasped her hand around the ribbon in her hair. the braid had pretty much dissolved, just a single piece of hair still wrapped. it was one of the ribbons neil had given her a few days ago.

it was red and soft and it was everything she had from him right now. she took it out of her hair and knotted it around her arm. not too firmly to hurt, but firmly enough that it wouldn't fall of.

she held it to her cheek and slowly, but surely she drifted to sleep.

and in her dream neil was well. and even though it was just a dream, that was enough for her tonight.

A/N

writing these chapters literally made me mourn neil all over again, but at the same time it was so healing lmaooo

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