Page 42 of #Lovestrong

Lena

Candice agrees to run me back to my house for a quick shower and change of clothes. After this, we're stopping at her house for the same. Jackson is running to his house too. Thankfully, Declan is completely okay with Candice driving his car. Most guys won't let their mom behind the wheel of their vehicle, but every moment I'm reminded Declan isn't like any other teenage guy I've ever met. He's not perfect, but he's genuinely good.

Candice isn't like Camilla, not really, but the few similarities make me smile and want to cry at the same time. The way I became friends with Camilla, which was instantly, is much like how Candice and I have just become close, only Camilla and I were like four when it happened. Both of these girls stand by me, defend me, and love fiercely without caring what anyone around them thinks of their choices.

It was that part of Camilla I always wished would rub off on me. While everyone else danced to the beat of their own drum, she polkaed. Proudly and without reservation. God, I miss her. As I walk out of my shower, a towel wrapped around my body and my hair up in another one, I stop and stare at Candice. She's sitting in the middle of my bed with my yearbook from last year in her lap.

They did a huge tribute to all those killed or injured in the shooting, and I've never brought myself to look at it. According to my dad, last year they sent out requests to the parents of those killed asking for pictures and memories to put on individual pages for them. I know Cameron and Camilla each have one.

I walk over, stopping at the side of the bed, and peek at the page she's looking at. In the center is a picture of Camilla with her dates of birth and death underneath. Around the border of the page are smaller pictures that give a timeline of her life. I'm in more than half of them. Her and I at camp when we were nine, Girl Scouts at eleven, our eighth grade graduation, Freshman year Spirit Week, Spring Fling dance Sophomore year, Ring Ceremony in Junior year, and a picture of us holding up our scholarship award letters a week before the shooting.

I sigh loudly as my chest tightens in that familiar way when memories of her flood through me. Candice startles and jumps in place before looking up at me.

"I'm sorry. I saw it on your shelf and just started looking through it."

"It's okay," I say quietly as I re-adjust my towel and sit on the edge of the bed. "I didn't know her mom sent all those pictures in."

Candice looks at me with confusion in her eyes. "You've never looked at this, have you?"

I shake my head. "Remembering them hurts. I've avoided everything since the shooting. Except their funerals. I owed it to them to be there."

Candice flips back a few pages and lays the book between us. Cameron's Junior year picture is in the center with many pictures of him and me, and of me, him, and Camilla around the border. My hand shakes as I reach out and run my fingers over his face, my breath catching in my throat.

I point to the picture to the right of the center. "This was our fourth grade chorus concert. I made fun of him for that polka dot bow tie for an entire year." I moved to the one right under the center. "This was two weeks before he died. He asked me to Homecoming with a poster taped to the window of my favorite coffee shop. I'd waited forever for him to ask me out."

A tear slides down my face and Candice rests her hand on top of mine. "I'm sorry for everything you've lost, Lena. I can't even begin to imagine what you went through, what you're still going through."

A tight smile forms on my lips as I look up at her. "Thank you. They were the most amazing people I'd ever known. Some days, it's hard to imagine living another day without them."

"I don't really think you are. God has a way of keeping people with us, even when they aren't physically here anymore. In the songs that remind us of them, in the moments when we close our eyes and wish we could share it with them. They're watching, they're there. So in a way, they're never really gone."

More tears slide down my face as I swallow the lump in my throat. "Do you really believe that?"

"Yes. I can feel my sister still with me sometimes. I can't explain it, but when I look up at the moon some nights or just the way the breeze hits my face . . . I know she's there."

I nod and silently pray for a second, hoping she's right. If Camilla and Cameron are watching, and maybe they are, I hope they know how much I love them, and how not a day has gone by I don't wish for just one more minute with them. Just long enough to say ‘I love you’ one more time.

I'm starting to realize the pain and guilt aren’t just from losing them. It's from realizing all the things I wanted to say to both of them but never did. Because I always thought there'd be a tomorrow, a future, and forever of us being together.

But sometimes, forever is just the moment we're in right this second.