Loving Lakyn | ✓

[70] The Goodbye Part

The wind was in our hair, both of us wearing hoodies and sweatpants as I rested my head against his shoulder. Everything in that twenty-minutes was perfect and I just remember thinking, this is it. This is what I live for. Everything is going to be okay.

It was as though something had awoken inside of me and this excitement began to burst in my stomach. I realized how beautiful the world was and that I no longer like sunsets more than sunrises. Sunsets symbolize the end, whereas sunrises symbolize a new beginning. A fresh start.

This was the universes way of telling me in the form of a blood orange sky, that this is my fresh start. After spending the majority of the prior month crying and barely caring for myself, things are going to get better now because I have felt the pain, I have grieved, and now I am ready to heal.

The weeks before that, I was at rock bottom. Nothing was a priority. Showering, cleaning myself, eating, brushing my teeth, they were all a struggle. But I managed. Even when my bones would ache and my eyes would sting with tears, my past traumas using all of their strength to hold me back, I kept fighting. I kept going on with life because even when those horrific depressive episodes strike, you must remember that you are still a priority.

The skeleton found at the bottom of the lake was identified and the news of Arden Roson's body being found spread like wildfire. And not long after, the detectives working on the case managed to gather enough evidence to convict Kian Carrington of murder. 

You see, this case was a mess, especially to the inexperienced, pea-brained policemen—no offense—and two privileged boys were involved. Those two boys are practically invincible in this town, even when they are involved in a murder case. The third suspect was Kian and he is not as privileged, besides, Lakyn did put that polaroid of the two in his locker, so, according to Eden, they came to the conclusion that Kian was obsessed with Arden, and when he saw a girl get taken upstairs that night, he killed Arden once Lakyn and Hale left.

But, the bittersweet thing is, they were unable to pin it on him until Kian's parents found him dead. Suicide. And the note that he left was psychotic, apparently, talking nothing about anyone except for Arden. If he had not done something that changed the person that I am—was, forever, then I would actually feel bad for him. But I hope that he never finds peace. He took the easy way out and now he is going to suffer. Even in hell, he will be distanced from Arden.

Amidst finding out all of this information, I resided at Eden's but I often shifted from house to house. Most nights that I was at Eden's and we would just lay together in silence. Our friendship took no steps back, but we were both broken. Two broken girls that went through hell and back, alone.

She was cold and I was sad but we managed. Part of me felt as though she blamed me for her brother's suicide. But she seemed to not know very much about his liking toward me and I was grateful for that. I cannot possibly even begin to tell Eden that her brother left this world and I was one of the reasons.

The hardest part, was having to go into his room and get my things. To have to take down that air mattress that he had blown up on the floor to sleep in, so that I could sleep on his bed. His bed was still unmade, slept in from me. His goddamn retainer was even on the nightstand and all of those photographs stuck to his wall, portraying his contagious smile, were just a reminder that the world lost another beautiful human.

As I got to know him for the two months that I stayed with him, I found that he was clingy, he liked attention, he liked the fact that I didn't want him, he liked the chase. But he realized toward the end that he was chasing someone that was chasing someone else. 

My thoughts in relation to Sam were poisoned by the final phone call that we shared but I tried my hardest to forget it because regardless of what he said, he was hurting. The kindest guy I have ever known—and many would agree—was gone. And I pray that his heart of gold, his smile of an angel, and his kind soul, will find peace beyond this world.