12 Golden Sands and Deep Sorrows

Golden Sands and Deep Sorrows

Cael

Goa, India

T HE CONTRAST BETWEEN N ORWAY AND I NDIA WAS MIND-BLOWING. F ROM the second we stepped off the plane, we were swallowed by sticky humidity and soaring heat. Sweat dripped from my temples as we got off the bus and headed to where we were staying in Goa.

It was a paradise.

Palm trees swayed in the warm breeze, the beach sprawled out before us, white sand and crystal-blue waters glimmered like something I'd only ever seen on a postcard. When I traveled for hockey, it was mostly to cold cities and even colder arenas.

Savannah had stepped off the bus before me. I found her on the sidewalk, head tipped back and basking in the sun as it kissed her face. Her cheeks were flushed from Goa's high temperature. Her long hair was sticking to her neck, but there was happiness on her face as her eyes stayed closed and she worshipped the heat.

"It feels like Hell here," I said, only for Savannah to crack an eye open and playfully scowl at me.

"I love the heat," she said and slipped off her cardigan, revealing her peach-colored bare arms. Freckles appeared every few inches. She was perfect. She must have seen me staring, as the flush on her cheeks deepened to what I now recognized as a blush.

"It reminds me of home," she said and lifted her hair off the back of her neck. I watched a drop of sweat run down from her scalp and disappear under her white tank.

"Welcome to Goa," Mia said. "Your home for the next several days."

I still couldn't get my head around the fact that only a day ago we were wrapped in thermals and standing under never-ending falling snow. Now, the sun was burning brightly, and the smell of sunscreen permeated the air.

I slipped my arm around Savannah, not caring if the shared body heat added to my already overheated state. Savannah linked my hand that was resting over her shoulder. I was instantly at ease.

"Come this way," Leo said and led us into the resort that would be our home for a while. We were taken into a room that could be used for yoga. Calming, meditative music sailed through the room's hidden speakers. The room was painted a deep, rich red, and large plump cushions were laid out in a circle.

"Please," Leo said and gestured for us to sit down. I shucked off my hoodie, leaving me only in a sleeveless tank top. I felt Savannah's eyes burning into me. I slipped off my beanie and ran my hands through my messy hair. I smirked at her as she tracked her gaze over my arms, chest, and neck tattoos.

Realizing I had caught her staring, she said, "They're so beautiful." She traced her fingertip over the anchor that was the centerpiece on my forearm. Then over the shamrock that showed my Irish heritage. I couldn't resist it, or stand her looking at me like that, so I bent down and captured her lips with my own. I was freer with my affection now. Everyone knew about us, so we didn't feel the need to hide it. I pressed my lips to hers and immediately felt any nerves I had put at ease. I was always wary of any new activity or country we embarked on. Just as I got used to the newest place we were in, Mia and Leo unsettled us by moving us on to something completely different. It was the worst part of the trip. I used to love seeing new places. Since my brother passed, it brought me nothing but unease.

Guess it showed that I was still nowhere being healed.

A throat cleared and I pulled back from Savannah. Leo was standing, exasperated. I still wasn't sure if he approved of us. He didn't give much away. "When you're ready," he said, and chuckles ran around the rest of the group. They were waiting for us to sit before we could begin.

Savannah's face was scarlet red as she quickly ran to her cushion and sat down. She was still so shy and reserved. She wasn't with me, though, and that made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

"So," Leo said, "did anyone guess what we were trying to show you in Norway?"

"Nature?" Lili asked, after a few minutes of thought.

"A new culture?" Jade tacked on.

Leo smiled at their guesses, then said, "We wanted to take you to a place of awe and wonder. To see sights that were spectacular, unique, and often overwhelming to the human eye."

"More times than not, when we are consumed by grief, we feel alone, and our world reduces to just ourselves and the trauma we have experienced. Our world becomes myopic," Mia said. "By seeing such breathtaking sights in the world that can often leave us awestruck and sensorily overwhelmed, it can also shift our perspective. It can give us access to the marvels of life and the universe that maybe help open our minds and allow us to step into a new way of thinking. It can remind us we are alive, and although still fighting through grief, we still have a lot of life left to live."

The group was nodding, like it resonated with them. Even Savannah seemed to agree, to feel that way. The stars, the northern lights had made her feel more connected to Poppy than she'd been in years. I'd seen the subtle change in her. And she hadn't succumbed to her anxiety even once.

She'd seemed a fraction more settled by the time we had left. Not healed, still wrestling with the heavy grip of grief. But lighter somehow. I could see it in everything she was.

I hadn't felt it quite like everyone else. Panic rose inside of me. I'd gotten back on the ice. That was progress. At least progress with how I felt about hockey. But when it came to how I thought of my brother, not much had changed. I'd tried to picture him in the stars, but not long afterward, the doubt and dark thoughts crept in. Why couldn't I look at the northern lights and see my brother dancing among them? Why couldn't I picture him as free and at peace?

I kept my face neutral. I didn't want Savannah to see just how troubled I was.

"This leg of the trip," Leo said, "is about confronting mortality." In our one-on-one sessions, Leo had gently pushed me to open up about Cillian. But I'd given him nothing. I liked how it had felt in Norway when I'd pushed everything aside. It had become addictive. And Savannah had become my salvation. When I was with her, holding her, the pit in my stomach didn't ache; it was comfortably numbed. My anger had ebbed. It was strange. The way I used to attach myself to anger shifted to the way I attached myself to Savannah. She was the life rope that was tying me to her, keeping me from drifting away. I refused to lose that.

"What does that mean?" Dylan asked nervously.

"We will explore the natural journey that we all take—life and death and everything in between." I glanced at Savannah; she was wringing her hands together. That thought had clearly made her nervous too. I checked her breathing. So far, she was keeping it together.

"We'll be visiting three places on this leg of the trip. Goa is the first. Here, we will immerse ourselves in group sessions and one-on-ones, as well as therapy classes that can help us address some of our inner traumas."

"But this is also a chance to recoup," Leo added. "We've had two very full-on experiences in England and Norway." He gestured around us. "This place is a haven. We encourage you to relax some, swim, soak in the sun. Eat together, hang out, talk ," he said, referring to the group.

"Get some rest, unpack, hang out by the pool. Tomorrow we'll start the sessions et cetera," Leo said and handed out our room keys.

As we grabbed our luggage, Travis said, "Should we all meet at the pool?"

I took hold of Savannah's hand. "Do you want to swim?" I kissed her again. I never wanted to stop. Life didn't feel so bleak when she was in my arms.

She smiled against my lips. "Okay."

My room was sandwiched in between Dylan's and Travis's. As we approached our doors, they were walking together, quiet whispers shared between them. I hadn't noticed how close they'd gotten in Norway. But then, outside of Savannah, I hadn't noticed much else.

Throwing on my swim shorts, I headed to Savannah's door and knocked. When she didn't answer, I went in search of her at the pool and stopped dead when I caught sight of her. She was on the edge of the pool in her pale-blue bathing suit, the warm breeze kicking up her dark blond hair around her head like a halo. Her hand rested on a palm tree trunk as she looked out onto the beach and sea.

In that moment, I couldn't believe how lucky I was that someone like Savannah had taken a chance on me. I was broken; I knew I was. The more I sat in on group sessions, and the more we all hung out, I was starting to see everyone else make gradual improvements. They were laughing more, smiling more, and some were even talking about their deceased family members more. Remembering them in good ways, sharing happy memories.

I hadn't mentioned Cillian to anyone but Savannah.

At night, Savannah would read the notebook her sister had left her. Then she would write back to her in the journal Mia and Leo had given us. Like she was having a conversation with her again.

I hadn't been given another journal. Leo and I had decided that wasn't part of my journey right now. It was too triggering for me, and we'd focus on talking therapies in our sessions instead. That wasn't exactly working either, but I wasn't writing anything in a journal and he understood that.

That seven-word note in my wallet was still there, untouched and an albatross to my life.

Despite the roasting heat, all I felt were ice-cold chills as I stood there, lost in my head. I was only wrenched from my own darkness when Savannah turned and found me across the poolside. She was like a damn mirage as her blue eyes—made only more vibrant by the swimsuit—broke out in a shy smile at my presence.

I wasn't sure I'd ever deserve that smile. But I'd take whatever she wanted to give me. I walked around the pool to where she stood. I flipped the bird when Dylan and Travis, already in the pool, splashed water at me, soaking my legs.

As I arrived beside Savannah, the scent of her sunscreen hit me first, as did her beauty. Her long, straight hair had curled into ringlets in the humidity. I decided this was how I liked her best, in the sun where she belonged.

"Hi," she said when I took hold of her hand.

"Hey, Peaches," I said back and wrapped her up in my arms. The feel of her bare skin against my own felt perfect, and as I reared back, I kissed her, slow and soft, tasting the cherry ChapStick on her lips.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. She nodded when I broke from the kiss, and I could already see her nose and cheeks turning pink in the sun.

"You?" she asked back, a slight furrow of concern on her brow.

"I am now," I said, only to feel another splash of water on my legs. I glared down at Dylan and Travis.

"Stop making out and get your asses in here," Dylan said. Without warning, I jumped into the pool, making sure to drench Travis on his floatie. Savannah's light laughter burst into the air behind me.

"Get in, Peaches," I said when I broke the surface, and watched as she slid into the pool. I caught her as she hit the water, and she wrapped her arms around my neck, holding on as I waded us through the water. We congregated in the middle of the pool, Dylan and Travis ducking off their floaties to give them to Jade and Lili, who arrived a few minutes later.

"I'll take this over rain and snow," Jade said, closing her eyes as she lay back on the float. Dylan slipped under the water, then came up underneath her and turned over the floatie. Jade screeched as she fell into the water, head going straight underneath.

"Dylan!" she shouted when she got up and gave chase.

"Don't even think it," Lili said to Travis as he dived under the water too. In only a few moments, she was thrashing in the water as Travis pushed her right off.

Savannah gripped her arms around my neck tighter as she laughed, her chest heaving as the four of them raced after each other all over the pool.

It was nice, I thought. To hear such carefree laughter. When you'd lost someone, laughter didn't come easily. For me, it never came at all. When I felt myself quietly laughing too, it felt so foreign, like my body couldn't even remember how to laugh.

"Cael," Savannah said, brushing her hand across my neck, right over my Adam's apple. I didn't know what had brought a sheen of happy tears to her eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked, puzzled.

"You laughed," she said. "I haven't heard you laugh at all since we've been on the trip." Her words hit me like bullets. I used to laugh all the time. Embraced fun. I thought of Stephan, my best friend. Thought of my team back in Massachusetts. How we would always be messing around, spraying each other with ice, tripping each other up with our sticks.

We would always laugh.

I'd missed that sound. But … I had just laughed .

Maybe I wasn't quite as broken as I believed.

"We have to start talking soon, Cael," Leo said, but my body was rigid, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to be better. I wanted to have Leo and Mia help me, but I just didn't know how to start.

Leo sat back in his chair. We were in the red room from the first day we had arrived here. All of our group sessions had been held here. I hadn't participated. But I'd listened, which was an improvement on most of the sessions before.

"When it comes to suicide," Leo said carefully, "especially notable in men is the lack of talking." At those words my body went still. All my muscles locked, and my bones turned to stone. Leo sat forward in his chair. My eyes dropped to the ground. "Talking saves lives." Leo placed his notebook on the floor beside him. "Around eighty percent of all suicides in the United States are men. It's one of our biggest killers." I felt anger stirring inside of me. He didn't have to tell me this. I knew this. I had researched this. "I'm worried about you, Cael," he said, and this time, I met his eyes. "You don't talk to us. You don't even mention your brother. Not just by his name but at all . I know you have opened up to Savannah some, but Mia and I are here to help you through this. We are here to help you professionally. To give you tools to move on."

Leo linked his hands together. "I need you to know that there is nothing you could have done," he said. I felt a familiar flash of anger flare inside of me. Only, where it used to burst out of me through shouts and screams and fists through walls, since being with Savannah, it now instantly faded and turned to guilt and shame and sadness. It was so intense, it actually ached when it settled within me. Because I didn't believe Leo. He didn't know me and Cillian. He didn't know how close we were. How closely our lives were intertwined. I should have known there was something wrong with him. How had I missed it? How had I let him die?

My leg started bouncing in agitation. I opened my mouth, to try to speak, but nothing came out. It was like there was a mental block whenever I wanted to try to talk about it, to give voice to my pain and shame and fears.

Leo checked the clock on the wall. "That's our time up for today, Cael." I jumped from my seat, needing to get out of the room. Before I reached the exit, Leo said, "I know it's hard. Believe me, son, I know ." Shivers darted down my spine at the way he had said that. Had someone close to him done what Cillian had done? If so, how had he moved on? "But to help you gain back your life, we have to start talking." The expression on Leo's face was earnest, beseeching. When I didn't react, he said, "I've also spoken to your parents again today." My stomach dropped. "I told them you were well. They said you're still ignoring their calls and texts." Once more, he let unspoken words hang between us.

He was right. I still hadn't called them once since I'd been away. They tried to call at the same time every day, no matter where I was. They texted every day too. My dad especially. I left them all on read.

I had nothing to say to them.

I left the room and let the sticky Indian air coat my skin. I walked aimlessly, lost to my thoughts. I just didn't know how to open up. I didn't feel that I would ever be able to do it. Savannah's face came to mind. I'd told her about Cillian. I'd told her he'd taken his own life. But I hadn't said anything else. Hadn't told her of that night, of what I'd seen …

I didn't know if I would ever be able to.

I turned the corner of the resort to see Savannah and Dylan sitting together at a café table drinking coffee. She was listening to him speak. She listened so attentively, so well. She never judged, never made me feel stupid. Just looking at her had my muscles relaxing and my shoulders dropping. It still surprised me how another person could have such an effect on me.

Maybe one day I could tell Savannah everything about Cillian. How he'd built me up when I was low, or how he'd taught me how to take a slap shot. Or how I had found him … how the last image of my big brother was him gone, by his own doing, limp in my arms.

A wave of emotion choked me, and I ducked back into the hallway. I picked up my speed until I was running. I ran out onto a jogging trail, and I just kept going. I couldn't talk to Savannah about this. She was mourning her own sister, fought daily with not succumbing to her anxiety. She didn't need my issues weighing her down too.

So, I ran. I ran and ran until I was exhausted. Until the gutting sadness my session with Leo had brought up had faded. I ran until I couldn't think of anything anymore. Until I was so tired all I wanted to do was sleep.

Once again, I'd successfully ran away from my brother's death, as fast as my feet would take me. And I wasn't sure how that could ever change.

Today's lesson was out in the open air, in a secluded gazebo overlooking the turquoise sea. Miriam was our therapist for this. We'd had days of group lessons and one-on-ones. We'd had days of yoga and walking nearby routes, of meditation and music therapy.

Today was art. Painting, to be exact.

"You all have a blank canvas before you," Miriam said, and I glanced down at the paints, the brushes and the container filled with water to clean off the paint between strokes.

I wasn't much of an artist, so I wasn't hopeful of what I'd get out of this session. The past few days' activities had been okay and, with regard to facing our own mortality, had been soft and gradual. Nothing had pushed us to the brink yet. I didn't think for one second those days weren't coming.

Savannah was beside me, but none of us could see one another's canvases. I stared at that white piece of canvas and wondered what the hell she'd ask us to draw.

"For today's session, I would like you to remember the person or persons you have lost," Miriam said, and my world absolutely stopped. Invisible hands took hold of my lungs and heart and began to squeeze. I heard my heart beat slow in my ears as white noise filled in the rest of the barren space.

"You have an array of paint colors in front of you. I want you to think of who you have lost and simply paint. It can be a portrait or simply a conceptual representation of who they were to you, who they were in life. Perhaps how you feel since they have been gone.

"I want you to really pour your heart into the memories you have with this person and purge it on the canvas." Miriam walked slowly around us all, circling the silent room. The tension between all of us rose so high you could slice it with a knife.

"I want you to really delve down deep." Her voice changed sympathetically. "This can be emotionally draining. But we must face these emotions head-on. We must think of the person we have lost and not run from their memory or the pain their passing can inspire." Miriam stood in the center of the circle. She placed her hand on her chest. " Feel this painting. Feel your loved ones. Let your soul lead you on this journey and allow all the pent-up sorrow and happiness and unfairness you feel leave your body." Miriam smiled at each of us. "When you're ready, please begin."

I stared at the canvas for so long, I completely lost track of time. I didn't know what to paint. Nothing was coming forward. In my peripheral, I saw people beginning to put their brushes to their pieces. I didn't look at what colors they were using or what they might be painting. The canvas before me seemed like an impossible mountain to climb.

A familiar heat seared through me. And today, I let it. I needed to feel it right now. I was so angry at Cillian. He had taken our dreams and smashed them into pieces, so many that they could never be put back together again. He had destroyed our family. He had destroyed his friends, his team; he had destroyed so much in his path that he was like the deadliest of tornadoes.

And he hadn't told anyone. He'd hid his pain with easy smiles and loud laughs. He'd played every game of hockey like he was in the Stanley Cup final. Talked animatedly, the life of the party at family gatherings, at our family dinners. And me, I was the idiot who hadn't seen through the cracks—his fractures. I hadn't seen the sadness in his eyes. Hadn't noticed the tiredness in his voice, hadn't noticed him giving up, day by day, pretending to the world that he was fine.

But worst of all, he hadn't told anyone why . They'd been no obvious reason for why he'd done it. No falling out with friends, no girlfriend who had left him broken-hearted. He hadn't been in trouble. He was in the first line at Harvard, on his way to the Frozen Four, NHL shining brightly in his future. He had a mother and father and brother who adored him.

But he'd fucking left anyway.

It was only when the paintbrush snapped in my hand and the canvas blurred before me that I realized I'd been painting. That I'd thrown color onto the white canvas and poured all of what I was thinking into some kind of art piece.

I blinked my eyes and cleared the tears that had formed. And I just stared … I stared at what lay before me.

Blackness. Black swirls laced with red. Red for blood and anger. Black for the loss and the state I'd been left in. Ice trickled down my spine, picking up speed until a thought came to mind—was this painting how Cillian had been feeling that night to do what he did? Nothing inside of his heart to live for?

Death his only option.

Death, to stop the pain.

Death, to escape whatever hell life had become for him. He'd suffered in silence and died that way too.

A hand landed on my shoulder. The touch was gentle and supportive. "Beautiful," Miriam said, and her voice was shaking. I didn't look up, but I thought I heard tears in her tone. "It's so truly beautiful, Cael." I stared at the painting and saw no beauty in it. It was like a void, sucking everything bright and light into its mouth. The longer I stared at it, at the flashes of red, the swirling brushstrokes, and pitch-black opaque of the center, a deep coldness settled over the rest of me.

Goose bumps covered my skin when I truly studied the picture. It was almost like Cillian had been beside me, guiding the brush. Like he wanted me to know how it had felt inside his soul, giving me a glimpse of why he'd felt there was no other option. I shuffled in my seat.

I had no idea what happened after we died. But had it been possible for him to show me this? Had he somehow been in this moment with me, urging me to see ? To understand . Foolishly, I searched around me for any sign that he was here. Then I shook my head at my stupidity.

What was I even thinking ?

Yet the picture stared back at me, like it had an ominous force, a malevolent agenda, trying to swallow me into darkness too. Was Cillian's presumed depression so numbing that all his light was sucked from him into a nothingness void of despair? Was this kind of bleakness too much to live with and his reasoning for taking his own life simply to stop this level of anguish and darkness?

If it was, how could I ever hate him? How could I ever question why he didn't want to stay in this world if this was what he lived with every minute of every day?

Had this darkness stolen his voice too? Is that why he didn't tell me he was suffering? Had it robbed him of his plea for help? Had it given him no other choice but to succumb to its pull?

I tasted salt on my lips and realized it was from the tears that were tumbling from my eyes. I didn't want to feel this. I didn't want this picture to be me too. If this darkness had been in Cillian, could bring such a strong hero down, could it be in me too? Panic wrapped around me and almost brought me to my knees.

Leo appeared beside me. "Let's take a walk, son." I stood, not wanting to think and just wanting to be led away from here, from that darkness I felt was calling my name.

I felt the group's stares on my back and knew there would be one set of blue eyes hyperfocused on me. But I let Leo take me to the white sand of the beach. I didn't even feel the heat from the blazing sun bearing down upon me. Chills kept me frozen, like I was standing in a freezer, unable to escape.

Leo didn't talk at first. He just sat beside me. Until he said, "It was my father." I stopped breathing, only starting again when he said, "I was fifteen." Leo paused, and I heard him take a deep inhale. "I found him."

I closed my eyes, hearing the gentle flow of the water, trying like hell to use it to calm me down before my heart tried to lurch from my chest.

"For years it consumed me," Leo said. "So much so that I became lost to darkness too." He wrapped his arms around his legs. "I was self-destructive. I flunked out of school. Threw any possible future I had away."

He let that confession hang in the air between us, until I grabbed hold of it, reeled it in, and asked, "What changed?"

"I got sick and tired of it, Cael," he said, and I heard the honesty in his deep voice. "I'd lost my dad, but that day, I also lost myself. The boy I was died, and the one I became afterward was born." He smiled, and I frowned. "Then I met my wife." Savannah's pretty face automatically came to my mind, and I felt a spark of grace inside of me grow, and a solitary candle flame began to rise, sucking up more oxygen from the well of grief inside of me to give it more strength.

"I wanted to be better for her." Leo tapped his chest over his heart. "But I needed to be better for myself. " He finally faced me. "So I went back to school and decided that rather than running from my father's death, I would face it head-on, honor the man that was my entire world by helping those just like him … and those just like me—the grievers."

"Why did he do it?" I asked, my chest cracking open and feeling like I was bleeding out, marring the golden sand in red.

"I never knew," Leo said and ran a fistful of sand through his fingers. One by one the grains poured back onto the beach—nature's hourglass. I stared at those grains of sand. A billion tiny parts making up a whole. "Knowing what I do about depression, I imagine it was that. But I've never known." He faced me again. "And Cael, I've had to make peace with that." Emotion radiated from Leo's frame, but I could see he embraced it, wore it like a cape rather than a shroud.

Leo placed his hand on my shoulder. "I'm always ready to talk, when you are." He got up and left me on the beach. I stayed out there until the sun began to fade over the horizon, a burn-orange semicircle casting the beach in a golden glow. I only moved when darkness fell and the stars came out. I looked up at every one and thought back on what Savannah had said in Norway.

I searched each star for one that could be Cillian. But there were so many, just like the billions of grains of sand I sat upon. Lifting from the sand, I made my way back to the hotel. The lights were still open in the gazebo where we had painted.

The pull of a thread inside of my gut guided me back there, to the piece that I didn't even remember painting. When I reached the gazebo, everyone's paintings were still out, drying. I made my way around them, looking at what my friends had been thinking when they had opened their hearts. Dylan's was full of pastel colors and blues. It was affectionate, somehow. Peaceful. Like the feeling of coming home.

Travis's made my chest ache. Eleven white crosses in a vivid green field. The sun was bright and yellow shining down upon them. And there was a flash of orange and red standing to the side, hand upon one of the crosses. I understood that to be Travis, mourning his friends.

Lili's was three hands holding on to each other tightly, never letting go. Only two of the hands were lighter, almost transparent, angelic. Jade's was a riot of color, every color that could be named. It spoke of vibrant people, bright and fun and filled with life. Her mother and brother.

Then I came to a stop at Savannah's. Pale pinks made flowers of her canvas. A mason jar sat off to the side, a blossom tree in the background too. Stars hung in the sky, looking down upon the scene. It was calm and peaceful. It looked like a place I wanted to see.

"The blossom grove," a gentle voice said out of the darkness. I turned to see Savannah coming up the stone stairs from the hotel into the gazebo. She was dressed in a sage-green dress that had strap sleeves and floated around her knees. Her blond hair was down and curled with the heat. She was more beautiful than any of these paintings.

"It's a cherry blossom grove, back in Georgia. What our small town was named for." A nostalgic smile flickered on Savannah's lips. "It was Poppy's favorite place." She reached my side and ran her hand over the bottom of the tree. "It's where she's buried."

"Savannah," I said and wanted to reach out and pull her into my arms. But I felt exhausted and not myself. I didn't want to hold her the way I was feeling. Didn't want to tarnish her with my touch. Today had shaken me. Completely. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin.

"It's where she was happiest. It's only right she rested there for eternity." I was so damn proud of Savannah in that moment—and always. The girl I'd met in JFK would never have talked about her sister like this. She stood beside me, right now, strength in her stance and an outspoken love for the sister she cradled in her heart. And Savannah Litchfield, I found, had the biggest of hearts.

"What's that?" I asked, voice hoarse as I pointed to the mason jar. My throat was sore, like my soul was so tired it didn't want me to speak. But I had to. All of these feelings were bubbling inside of me, rising to the surface, begging to escape.

Savannah smiled wider. "Our Mamaw gave Poppy a jar of paper hearts before she died, one thousand of them. Each time Poppy had a kiss—an earth-shattering kiss—she was to write it down and record it. She was to collect one thousand in her lifetime." Savannah's hand slightly shook as she traced the outline of the jar. "When she was diagnosed with cancer, she didn't think she would achieve it. But she did it. With her soulmate, Rune." Savannah looked up to me. "Kiss one thousand was given on her very last breath."

My heart fired off into a fast-paced beat. I'd never heard anything like that.

"When I used to think of Poppy, I would think of loss and pain and feel her heavy, irreplaceable absence walking beside me every day, ominous and gutting. But when Miriam asked us to paint our lost loved one and who they were to us, and how they made us feel, I couldn't paint anything other than something beautiful." Savannah inhaled a trembling breath. "Though her life was short, she lived big and she lived loud and never wasted a single moment, not even when she was dying. She lived life until her very last breath. She was grace personified until the end—and even beyond."

I thought of my painting, sitting beside us in the gazebo. The blacks and reds, the void that triumphantly drank down your happiness. There was a wall behind me, and I sank down upon it, exhausted. Savannah did too, but not before running her hand through my messy hair.

I linked my hands together in my lap and stared at the cherry blossom grove, at the beauty and the uplifting colors and said, "I don't know how to talk about that night."

Savannah reached out and linked her arm through mine. "I'm here whenever you're ready."

"You have enough to deal with, Peaches. You don't need the added weight of my trauma too."

"It's not heavy," she said and squeezed my arm. "If it unburdens you, then it's the lightest weight in the world." She kissed my exposed bicep, and the shards of ice that had created an impenetrable armor around me melted in the exact place that her lips had touched.

I felt guilty for even contemplating laying all my trauma at her feet. But here I was, in Goa, at night, beside a dreamlike seaside with a painting that was haunting my every move, and I just needed to purge everything from my soul.

"I wanted to do it for her. But I needed to do it for myself," Leo's words rang in encouragement in my mind.

"Nothing was different about that day," I said, and my vision blurred, forcing me to relive it all in my head. "I went to practice. Then Cillian had a game that night." I huffed an unamused laugh. "He got MVP. They won—a shutout. Cillian scored all the goals, a hat trick." I shook my head. "He played his heart out. Now I wonder if he played so hard because he knew he would never play again. Was that his final goodbye to the team he loved so much and the fans who had supported him since starting Harvard?"

My leg bounced in nerves. I'd never talked this much in my life. It was like slicing open my heart and letting it bleed out, willingly. "At the game, I was with my parents. But afterward, I met up with my teammates. Stephan, my best friend, had been invited to a party one of the Harvard guys was throwing, next door where my brother lived off-campus." I remembered arriving at the party, everyone celebrating. "We'd been to a hundred of them before. My brother was there, of course, but when he saw me walk in, rather than wearing the happy smile he always gave me, his eyes were stormy, and he told me to go home."

I shook my head, like I was back there living that night. "He'd never been like that to me before. It had shocked me so much. He never sent me home. Always stayed by my side. I just thought he must have been tired—"

My voice cut out and I choked on a sob. "There was a sign, Sav. And I missed it. He'd never been like that to me, ever. He wasn't the typical big brother growing up. He was always so good to me." His face came to mind. He looked more like my dad than me; I had my mom's features. But anyone could tell we were siblings. "He was a good person and was all about family. He never treated me like I was lesser than him. Hell, he never even told me to get out of his room. He didn't send me away from the frozen pond on our property when his friends came to play hockey. He included me. Always. " I turned to Savannah and saw tears running down her face. Her bottom lip was trembling. "But he never told me he was hurting, Sav. He never told me that. Never told me the most important thing."

I sniffed back tears and just gave in to the sadness I'd held trapped inside for too long. "He'd never sent me away before that night. But he did then. I should have fought him, asked why he was acting that way. I think I was too stunned. He threw a twenty in my hand and told me to run to the store and grab some snacks for the house."

I glanced down at my hand and the palm that had held that money. "I didn't see it at the time, but he'd wrapped his fingers around my hand when he'd put that money in my palm. Tightly. Just a few seconds longer than normal, but I can still feel it. Like a brand." Savannah took hold of that hand and brought it to her lips, kissing me on the palm. A choked cry escaped my mouth at her touch, at her soft lips kissing that calloused, tarnished skin.

"You're doing so well," she said and laid her head on my shoulder. Her body heat seeped into mine, thawing some of the ice.

"I looked up into my big brother's eyes and he said, "Keep safe, yeah, kid?" In hindsight, his voice was gravelly and stacked with emotion. I thought maybe he was just getting the flu or something. I'd told him I would. I thought he was talking about Stephan's driving. But now I know he was talking about my life . Christ, Savannah, that was his goodbye to me, and I didn't even know it. That was the last time I would hear his voice or feel him touch my hand. That was it ."

Savannah wrapped her arm around my shoulders and held me as I fell apart in the crook of her neck, my tears soaking her curly hair. "I replay that moment over and over in my head, all the time, several times a day. I see the subtle hints now. Hear the slight shake in his voice. But I didn't see them at the time. His window wasn't transparent; it was thick with condensation, and I just couldn't see through it."

I looked at the cherry blossom flowers Savannah had painted, then the stars that hung like gems from the sky. "Stephan was with me. We were on our way to the store, when he realized he'd forgotten his wallet back at the house. He wanted to grab some food for himself, was hungry, and we didn't have enough cash to go through a drive-through. We turned back, only to see my brother's car roaring down the road we were on, in the opposite direction. I was so confused as to where he was going. He was meant to be at the party. But what concerned me more was the speed he was going. It was reckless. He was never reckless. Always calm and measured. I told Stephan to follow him. A pull in my gut was telling me something was wrong." My teeth gritted together. I wasn't sure I could do this last part. I wasn't sure I could find it in me to say what happened next out loud.

"If that's all you can say, that's okay," Savannah said, clearly reading me right. I pressed a kiss to her hair, then met her watery eyes. I wanted to tell this girl. I wanted to share this with her. "No one is pushing you to say more."

I searched her face, then thought of my painting again. I had to tell her. I didn't want that darkness to be my future. The truth was, I think it had already begun to take hold of me. I had come to believe that kind of darkness acted in a stealth attack. Slowly invading a soul bit by bit until it had consumed them without them even realizing. Then they were too weak to fight it off.

I sat up straighter, determined to fight the goddamn thing back. I didn't want it to consume me. "We saw Cillian's taillights up ahead and followed him. I was so worried about him. He was picking up more and more speed, swerving in the road as he fought to keep it on track." I paused, fought back the lump in my throat. I breathed and whispered, "Then I watched him purposely plow headfirst into a huge, solid tree just off the road's sharp bend." Savannah sucked in a quick breath. I was shaking, I was shaking so badly as I was thrust back to that moment whether I wanted to be there or not.

"I jumped from Stephan's car before he'd even stopped. And I ran for Cill. I ran faster than ever before. And when I got there, I wrenched the driver's side door open and saw him …" I shook my head, trying to rid myself of that image. "It was too late, Sav. He was gone." Savannah's arms wrapped around me tighter, and she crushed me to her chest. I fell apart. I drowned in my tears until my chest was raw and my lungs burned so much it hurt just to take in a breath.

"There were no drugs or alcohol in his system. We found out afterward that he'd disabled the airbag, Sav. Before he'd driven. The seat belt too. He made sure there was no coming back from what he intended to do." I tried to clear my throat, but my voice was so graveled it was almost nonexistent. "I pulled him from the car … and I held him. I held his broken body until the paramedics came and they forced me to let him go."

Racking sobs still came, refreshed and carrying just as much weight as the ones before. "I still feel him in my arms sometimes, still feel his lifeless body pulled to my chest. I tried to bring him back—CPR, pleading to God to save him—but he was gone, Savannah. He was gone . As quick as that … and I watched him do it."

"I'm here," Savannah said as I dropped from the wall to the floor—she followed me down too. She held me in the gazebo beneath the stars, surrounded by painted memories of the dead, and all I saw was Cillian. So, I held her tighter. I turned my back on the painting that had reduced me to this and fought it with all I had.

I refused to let it consume me too.