Before I Let Go

“And yet you left her.”


I slap her before I even realize what I’m doing. Gasps from somewhere behind me tell me it hasn’t gone unnoticed, but I keep my stare trained on Piper, who merely shakes her head. She seems disappointed.

“I was part of her life for sixteen years,” I seethe.

“But we were here when it mattered most.”

“Don’t tell me about friendship,” I snap at her. “I was her friend.”

“You were,” she acknowledges. “Once upon another time.”

? ? ?

At the microphone, Sheriff Flynn clears his throat and starts the memorial by directing us all to our seats. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson sit in a place of pride in the front row, directly in front of Mr. Sarin and Roshan, who are apparently guests of honor in Lost. The Flynns sit next to them, and on the other side of a small aisle sits Mrs. Morden, her son, and her grandchildren, Piper and Tobias. Everyone else finds seats among the rows of chairs, which make the space look like a small church.

I stay in the back, where I lean against a paneled wall. I’m too overwhelmed to sit. I think about what I’d said to Piper and Roshan at Claja. I’d honestly thought that Lost had taken the idea of not speaking ill of the dead to a whole new level. Now I know that it’s more than politeness; it’s a belief.

Sheriff Flynn talks us through the proceedings. There will be speakers, with the Hendersons last in line. After the formal part of the memorial, we’ll have time to come together and remember Kyra’s life. Mrs. Henderson baked a cake specially.

Mrs. Morden steps up onto a small stage and takes to the microphone, and everyone sits up straight.

“We never found God here in Lost,” she begins, “but we did find Kyra.”





No Need to Say Goodbye


INT. LOST SCHOOL—GYM—DAY

A gymnasium, set with rows of chairs. Two hundred people or more are in attendance. The entire town, if some people are to be believed.

Mrs. Morden, owner of the town’s post office, notable widow, and purveyor of fine gossip, stands at the microphone. She touches the magenta flower she’s wearing, almost reverently.

Mrs. Morden

“Tell me a story.” That’s how our Kyra always started her observations. “Tell me a story about Lost, about the people you knew, about the endless snow around us. Tell me a story, and I will paint it for you.” She gave us a past we’d forgotten and futures we couldn’t yet see. She saw both at the same time.

“Tell me a story,” she said, and we told her— Crowd

We will obey.

The crowd collectively pauses to let their words reverberate through the gym as they touch the magenta flowers they all wear.

Mrs. Morden

For the longest time, we didn’t understand Kyra. We all know how hard it could be to connect and to truly hear what she was saying. But once we came to understand her art, we came to know her and to hear her messages. We came to understand her love for this home we’ve built.

Corey bites her tongue.

Mrs. Morden

Sometimes I wonder, and I know I’m not alone in this, what would have happened if we’d heard her sooner. Her art gave her purpose, but she was with us for such a short time, a bright star that burned out.

What if we’d recognized what she’d been trying to say from the beginning? What if we’d acknowledged her?

But Kyra taught us that we cannot change the past. We must look toward the future. Life is what it is— Crowd

And so be it.

Mrs. Morden

At least we can draw comfort from knowing that we provided for her, for a little while. We provided for her art and gave her all that she needed to create. She came home to us, built her home with us. She brightened our gray world. She made this community tighter, better.

We have no need to say goodbye. Kyra will never be far from us. She’ll live on in her creations, and the town she left behind will be filled with her heart. We will continue her legacy. It is what it is— Crowd

And so be it.

Mrs. Morden

“Tell me a story,” Kyra said, and we told her— Crowd

We will obey.





Scorn and Celebration


Halfway through the remembrances, there is a short intermission. So far, with the exception of Mrs. Morden, none of the people who have spoken about Kyra were people I’d ever seen with Kyra. It hurts more and more to be unable to speak out, to be forced into this dance without knowing the steps.

When Piper appears at my side again, hers is the last face I want to see.

“Don’t hit me again,” she says, raising her hands. “I came to apologize.”

I scowl. Does she really think making amends is that easy?

“No,” she says, as if I’d asked the question out loud. Maybe I did. “I don’t think it’s that easy. But I always considered you a friend. You were Kyra’s friend. I behaved like an ass earlier, and I’m sorry.”

Piper seems genuine, which makes it hard to stay angry at her. Still, “You did,” I say. “And you may think that I abandoned her, but Kyra meant everything to me. Is that so hard to accept?”

She cocks her head. “No,” she says. “But in return, is it so hard for you to accept in return that we truly cared about Kyra?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” The truth is, I’m starting to believe Lost Creek only thinks it cared about Kyra. I’m starting to think they believed they were doing right by her. I even think their intentions may have been good.

But intentions alone are never enough.

? ? ?

The memorial continues on, a performance, not a remembrance. Almost everyone in town speaks a few words to Kyra’s memory. People who passed her by whenever she walked around town, who pretended she was invisible. People who demanded she be sent away. They all claim to have known and cared about her.

At first, I think Kyra would have been amused. It’s as though they’re talking about a world-famous artist, a traveling bard, someone larger than life.

She did want to change the world. She wanted to go on adventures, explore, collect stories. She wanted to love and lust. She wanted to volunteer and travel, if she could find the right combination of therapy and medication. She wanted to discover who she could be outside the borders of Lost.

After our kiss, after days of talking and not talking and talking some more, she holed up in the school’s library, the only place in Lost with decent internet. She wanted to understand us, she said, and she came back with a whole list of orientations and identities. It was the first time I’d seen asexuality spelled out, and I found myself in the description.

Kyra claimed pansexual, and it fit her comfortably too. “I don’t want my love to be limited,” she told me. “I just want to love.”

This was Kyra’s story. She’d only just started it.

? ? ?

Collectively, the speakers talk for a long time. Given our scant hours of daylight in the winter, it’s an unspoken rule to make the most of them. Today, daylight might as well have been ignored altogether. Night falls again.

“Do you understand now?” the people around me whisper, and the one thing I do understand is they want me to believe in the same world they see. But I can’t, because that world no longer includes my best friend.

I can’t believe it. And I won’t. I start down the aisle.

I owe it to her to tell her story. I’ll remember her on my own terms.





Service, Interrupted


INT. LOST SCHOOL—GYM—DUSK

Corey strides down the center aisle toward the front of the room. Onstage, she glares at the crowd.

Corey (not loudly enough to be heard by all, but still loud enough): Let me tell you a story.

Let me tell you a story about a girl who lived in an abandoned spa, who cried for help and was refused it. Let me tell you a story about how she died.

Crowd

(Dead silence.)

Corey

Kyra was my best friend.

Aaron shifts in his seat, taking in the unrest around him. Following Corey’s script, not the townspeople’s, he rises and joins Corey onstage.

Aaron (to Corey):

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