I drive around town until I'm done crying, and then I drive home.
My mother and Matt are in the kitchen when I walk in, making some sort of casserole that looks both vegan and inedible. They drop everything like it's on fire when they see me, but they don't say anything to me.
I take the stairs two at a time and close the door to my bedroom behind me.
On my mirror, stuck with a piece of tape, is a picture of Shiloh and me from prom, six weeks ago. We'd gone as each other's dates, because Colton wasn't able to go with Shiloh and I wouldn't have gone if she hadn't. Shiloh's dress was teal and black lace, and she had pulled her hair into a side ponytail and curled a few pieces. She'd finally agreed to let me put eyeshadow on her. We'd spent the entire afternoon getting ready at my house, watching YouTube videos about hair tutorials while listening to whatever underground music Shiloh was obsessing about that weekend. The food was okay, the music was stupid, and half our class was either drunk or crying in the bathroom. We'd left an hour early and gone to Steak n Shake, and then fallen asleep in my living room watching Sixteen Candles.
Shiloh looks so happy. We're hugging each other in front of my staircase and laughing at something my stepdad had said right before he took the picture. That was just six weeks ago. Six weeks, and she's gone.
I want to go back to that moment and see inside Shiloh's brain. Had she known then that this was going to happen? Was there any point in time where something could have changed her mind?
Seeing her so alive and happy, even frozen in time, is too much for me. I realize then that it probably always will be. I grab my phone and run down the stairs again, being careful to dodge my mother's gaze as I slip out the door.
I know the way to Shiloh's house like I'd know the way to my own. Six streets over, turn left at the stop sign, go up three more blocks and then turn right. Fourth house on the left, just past the subdivision entrance.
Her house is empty, and I know it. But for some reason, I want to go there.
It's getting dark by the time I reach the bottom of her driveway. Her mother had left the curtains open. I can see right into the living room.
The couches are still there. The TV is gone. A few rolled up pieces of clothing are strewn around the floor and laying across abandoned chairs. I can just barely see around the corner of the wall into the kitchen. The toaster is gone.
It's eerie. Like they could come back anytime. There's enough stuff left that they could.
But they won't.
This is what Shiloh used to do. Take enough stuff away so that you knew she was gone, but left enough that she had a reason to come back.
Except Shiloh always came back. But now she can't. And they can, but they won't.
And I never left and now I never will.
I look down. They left their doormat. Out of curiosity, I peel back the top left corner with the toe of my shoe.
There it is. Shiloh's spare house key. The one she kept there for all the times she locked herself out. Her parents never knew she had gotten another one made.
I slide it into the lock, turn it to the left, and hear the thick clicking noise as the door unlocks.
Her house smells like cotton and lavender, like the candles her mom used to burn. I could spend hours in her house, taking in every corner. But right now, I only have one mission.
I take the stairs two at a time.
Shiloh's room is the last one at the very back of the hallway. Her bedroom door is closed, a dark grey rectangle at the end of a pale grey hallway.
Her ghosts are all around me. I can almost hear her laugh again, bouncing off the ceiling and the walls.
I know I won't find her in there. But I can't help hoping that I will.
The door handle feels cold, yet my fingers find the same hold on it that they always have. I slowly push it open.
My breath catches in my throat.
Everything is there.
Every little piece of Shiloh's life, all her clothes, her pictures, her bottle of ocean breeze perfume, all of it, stares me in the face.
They left all of her stuff behind. Every last thing.
I want to cry all over again, because they left her behind in the only form she had left. They left her stuff here to collect dust, to fade, to decay.
Her closet is the same mess of black and grey that I'd come to know. It hurts me to feel familiarity. Because she was just here, and it still feels like she'll come back.
I take her perfume bottle off her dresser. It's cool and heavy in my hand. It feels like part of her.
On her mirror is the same picture of us from prom, taped up at the corner just like the one in mine. And then next to it is another picture, a little bit crumpled and a little bit faded.
It's the two of us from when we were kids, maybe around nine or ten. We're standing next to a giant pile of leaves we'd raked in Shiloh's yard. We're hugging. Shiloh is wearing a black hoodie and Converse, and I'm wearing that ugly purple jacket my mom bought me, the one Shiloh used to call "the grape coat".
I peel it off the mirror slowly, like it'll rip at any second.
I stare into ten-year-old Shiloh's eyes, the same pools of ocean glass I'll always remember.
I never knew I'd have to get used to life without you.
I take the picture, her perfume bottle, and her key with me when I leave. Just in case I need to come back and see her room. Just in case someday I forget how much I needed her.
I lock her front door and head down the street back to my house. It's dark now, and breezy. On the way back, I pass the community center and the soccer fields. The light poles surrounding the parking lot are lit up, casting the entire pavement in a golden glow.
There are fifteen lights. Shiloh and I used to count them at night on our way from her house to mine, like some kids count stars.
One of the lights is flickering. On and off, golden to dark, fading in and out.
I stop, watching it. It's the only thing I can seem to focus on.
And just like that, the light goes out. A brief flicker follows, but then it goes gray and lifeless, a gap in the perfect ring of light around the field.
A life lost. A soul cast into darkness.
Shiloh was a light that had been flickering for a while. And she finally went out.
The other lights, me and Colton and her mom and Lillian, continued to burn around her, bright and alive. And Shiloh flickered, and used what little strength she had left to be that unique, vibrant person I knew her as. I didn't know that most of her light had already gone out.
And then it's all gone, dark and cold and still.
"Shiloh?" I whisper, immediately feeling stupid for doing so. Shiloh's gone. And she's going to be gone for the rest of my life. I have to be someone else now, somebody apart from Shiloh and everything she had made me.
The light looks empty and cold, standing against the darkness while the others continue to burn.
You knew how much I loved you.
You gave me all your pain and it's too much.
The thoughts come like a wave over a floodgate. The cool summer breeze stirs the trees around me, moving and twisting the air.
I will never know you, but you knew all of me.
All I ever did was love you.
I'm something without you, but I don't know what.
Please come back. Come back and show me how to be whatever I am.
I can't bring her back, but I want to. More than anything, I want to.
Everything is cold.
Is this how you felt?
No matter how many times I ask, she can't answer.
She will never answer, and I'll never know, and that will never change.
I walk home to the rest of my life.