Just to Remember

It was cold and lonely in the deep, dark night. Her face, turned up to the moon, shone with the light of the fading, dim stars. She did not know how long she had been standing there, her toes submerged in the dense mud of the lake’s shore. There were tears behind her eyes that refused to fall, though she desperately willed them to. She wanted to know that she was still capable of feeling sorrow, for all she could feel was a dull ache that left her empty and void. Feeling, even in pain, was better than feeling nothing at all.

Slowly, she tilted her head down and away from the moonlight and stared out across the glass surface of the lake, eerie and still with its smoky layer of mist. It had been four summers since she had last been here, up in the cold mountains of the Pacific Northwest. It had been four summers since everything had broken inside her at this very place.

The tears finally fell, and she hated them. It was suddenly too much, the throb and the hurting too much to bear. She pushed the palms of her hands against her eyes, hard enough that stars began to burst behind her eyelids.

“Lynn?”

The girl turned to see her friend standing in the shadows of the trees, his form outlined dimly. He approached slowly with the caution and silence of a phantom. “Why don’t you come back to the cabin? I’ve got a fire started in the pit by the porch. I can’t leave it alone for too long, though.” When Lynn didn’t respond, he added, “We could roast some s’mores if you wanted to.”

Still no answer.

Dorian glanced past her and scanned the water of the lake. He couldn’t see what she saw out there. He couldn’t see why she insisted on doing this to herself every summer.

Sighing, his gaze fell to the pebbled ground. “You can’t make them come back.”

Lynn turned to face him fully, her brown face damp and her eyes swollen. “I know.” The words caught in her throat. She said louder, “I know that.”

Dorian thought for a moment. “Maybe we should head back home,” he suggested, moving closer to her, ashy hair falling over his brow as he shook his head. “Why did we come here, Lynn?”

“Someone has to visit them.” She went back to staring out at the water, her eyes unblinking.

Frowning, Dorian said, “I can’t leave you here.”

“Go on ahead,” she replied with a forced lightness. “I’ll come back in a little bit.”

“Come on,” he insisted, holding out his hand. “I don’t want you out here by yourself.”

She only shook her head and murmured, “I want to stay here.”

“But it might help to take your mind off—”

“I said I’ll come back in a little bit. It’s fine.”

She did not need to turn back to see Dorian weave through the trees, his head hung low. She did not need to see his face to know that his jaw was clamped tight as his mind worked to take note of everything about their interaction. He would tuck away within his mind the little details he’d caught while she was talking and save them for later reference.

He had always been like that, Lynn knew. Always analyzing everything—a quiet observer, content to watch rather than do. She had always admired that about him, his talent to speak sparingly yet stay so engaged. But perhaps she was more grateful for the patient, silent kindness that he offered when she could not contain her emotions any longer and had no one else to talk to. He listened when others around her only said, They’re in a better place. They would want you to move on.

Lynn shook her head, clearing the distracting thoughts. She was here for a specific reason, not just to spend a weekend in the mountains with her only friend and think about how alone she was.

She reached into the pocket of her thick jacket and withdrew a handful of yarrow, their stems bent from her hike to the lake. Yarrow for healing, her mother had once told her, back when Lynn had still worked in the family flower shop before moving away for college. It’s always nice to include yarrow in the bouquets that are going to be given to people as ‘get well soon’ gifts.

Breathing deeply, Lynn crumbled the fragile white petals in her hand and let the dust drift from her palm down to the water. Almost immediately, the yarrow disappeared from view, pulled down into the sways of the lake. She only hoped that it was able to reach the bottom and lie at rest with those who could not heal when they needed it most.

As Lynn stood still in the silence, remembering a time when her brother and sister were beside her in the same spot, laughing without a worry for tomorrow, a breeze blew past. She was suddenly chilled enough that she decided to button up her jacket and pull up the hood, her teeth chattering. The trees behind her hissed with wind and a shiver ran up her spine. Deciding it best to begin the trek back to the cabin, Lynn turned.

Upon entering the first line of trees, the wind died down and she was left feeling calmer than she had in years. Though she could never understand why Edwin and Amara had taken their lives those four years ago, she knew why they had chosen this place. There was something that seemed to summon her back to the water, something that beckoned her name. Lynn obeyed the calling, stumbling back over the roots and rocks in her path as if she could not reach the lake fast enough. She would only stay for a few more minutes, and then she would return to the cabin, if only to comfort Dorian’s worries. She just needed to enjoy the sight a little while more.

Before she could quite comprehend what she was doing, Lynn stepped into the water up to her ankles. It was chilling at first, making her wince, but then the cold became a warm relief that she imagined herself lulled to sleep in. Beneath her boots were an assortment of pale, shining stones, gleaming like they were carved from the moon and gilded in stardust.

Another breeze brushed past her, this one gentle and soothing. On it was a whisper, a whisper so soft she did not believe she heard it.

Lynn.

We’ve missed you.

The voice held the pure calm and peace one can only dream of. It called her name again, and she recognized the strong tenor. “Edwin?”

From the middle of the lake where the moon reflected so clearly on the glass surface, another voice hummed.

Lynn.

“Amara?” She gave a step forward, too many confusing thoughts at once swirling in her mind. The wind picked up again, pulling tight curls of her hair loose and disorienting her sight. Between her narrowed eyes she beheld a sight that brought pain to her chest.

Her brother stood before her, unchanged from the last time she had seen him, looking just as he had the summer of his high school graduation. He would have been six years older than Lynn if he had lived to see more of his life. Clinging to his side was Amara, smiling with the dimples she’d gotten from their father. She still held the childish innocence in her young face, untouched by adolescence.

Lynn’s throat closed and she found herself drowning in all the words she wanted to say. “I don’t understand.”

Edwin said nothing and only smiled down at her, his lips tugging on the jagged scar across his cheek that he had earned from a brutal fight at school. The familiarity and reality in seeing both of them again made something within Lynn shatter and rebuild itself. A tear rolled freely down her cheek, and she had no care about it.

“How are you both here?” she managed to say above the roaring in her ears. “Why?”

Amara let go of Edwin and held her arms out to Lynn. A simple invitation but one that Lynn felt hesitation in accepting. She rubbed her eyes, certain that everything in front of her could only be her mind’s reprieve from the sorrow.

Yet they were still there when the haze cleared.

Edwin reached for Amara and pulled her back, his face suddenly tense. He began to turn from Lynn, taking her little sister with him.

“Wait,” she said, moving forward in the water that was now circling her waist. “Don’t leave me. You can’t.”

Her brother glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He waved with his hand in a way that Lynn knew to mean follow. She shuddered and found herself wading deeper, despite the efforts she put into halting her legs. She wanted to get away from this lake that had caused so much of her pain through the years, but she wanted to reach her siblings, her happiness, more than anything.

Lynn accepted Amara’s small, outstretched hand, and a wave of numbness and relaxation swept over her. She was able to tread further out into the warm water with them, feeling lighter than ever. Edwin embraced his two younger sisters and the world was still and quiet.

Then Lynn felt the darkness close in around her as Edwin plunged beneath the water. There was no panic within her when her siblings did not return to the surface; a blind joy had encompassed all her senses, and as Amara and Edwin called Lynn’s name, swimming deeper and away, she followed.

The pressure in her lungs grew to be too much when she finally reached the bottom and took her first breath.

It was cold and lonely in the deep, dark night. He kept his gaze upon the lake, unafraid of the fading light as ominous clouds layered over the moon.

Two summers ago, everything had been fine. Lynn had been getting better and was beginning to move on. She had started smiling more, something she never used to do.

Then they had decided to come back here, to this lake, so that she could say goodbye to Edwin and Amara again. They had come back so that she could finally put the past behind her and live her life. And he had agreed. He had let her.

He had never gotten the chance to tell her what she meant to him. He had never gotten the chance to be a part of her new life, to make memories that would drown out the ache of the past.

Breathing deeply, Dorian skipped pale stones across the water, disrupting the calm surface. He couldn’t understand why she had left him so soon. There had been no clear signs before then. She’d been doing so well in the nursing program at their university, and she was excited about graduating. She’d even picked out an apartment downtown.

There was so much he would be willing to give if only he could see her again. To see her nervously twisting the ends of her dark braids, to see the quiet, beautiful happiness that shone behind her softly hooded eyes when she did not have the strength to display it.

As the breeze swirled around him, Dorian sighed and turned his face into it, letting the sharp coldness numb him for a moment. He should’ve known she was struggling. Without her, he had taken himself apart and then beat himself in. Was it his fault that she was gone? Had he pushed her too much to leave the pain in the past?

The whisper on the wind broke what was left of him.

Dorian.

I’ve missed you.