Come to Me Quietly(127)

Aly was going to miss her, too.

Once the coffin was fully lowered, the minister made an announcement that all could come forward to the grave to give their final respects. Afterward they were all invited to a reception taking place at the Moore home.

Jared’s grandfather helped Neil to stand, stayed at his side as he lumbered over the hard ground. He took a single, long-stemmed rose from a basket and dropped it into his wife’s grave. For a few minutes, he just stood there, staring, lost in the bleakness of finality, of what could never be taken back, never recovered, never regained.

She tried to hold it in, but a soft sob escaped from Aly’s throat. She caught a glimpse of Neil’s face when he turned around. The man had forever worn an affable smile, and now Aly wondered if he’d ever smile again.

The rest of the front row stood to pay their respects, all except for Jared, who didn’t so much as flinch. People cried as they approached the grave. Each one dropped a rose to the top of Helene’s casket and said a last good-bye.

Aly followed her mother and father out, took her own rose, and tossed the flower into Helene’s open grave. With her eyes shut tight, she murmured toward the ground, though she was speaking toward the heavens. “I’ll miss you so much, Helene.” Wiping her eyes, she stood aside and watched as the sea of black made its way by the grave that would permanently mark Helene’s death.

The entire crowd made their pass, before they scattered out to gather in groups where people wept and hugged and comforted each other.

Aly couldn’t help noticing those who whispered, ones who cast sidelong glances speculating about the boy who sat utterly alone, staring blankly ahead at the spot where his mother’s casket had rested before she’d been lowered into the ground. Anger twisted through Aly’s gut, and she wanted to lash out at them, to tell them to stop judging because they didn’t come close to understanding who Jared was. None of them knew the kindness of the boy who had always thought of everyone, the one who loved his mother and who was so obviously destroyed.

Breaking from the circle of her family, Aly made her way back to the basket of single, long-stemmed roses, taking one in her hand. The few that remained had been at the bottom of the pile, the wilted, red petals crushed. Cautiously, she made her way over to Jared, searching for some sort of recognition in his eyes. Still there was nothing. Aly gently laid the rose on his lap and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Jared.”



His hair fluttered in the breeze, and Jared just stared.

Two months had passed since the accident. Everything had changed.

Aly was in her room with her door shut, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her sketch pad on her lap. The small lamp on her nightstand softly glowed against the walls of her room. Furiously her pencil brushed across the thick, textured paper. Shadows sprang to life, her worry inscribed on the page.

So many nights she spent awake worrying for Jared, completely powerless, while she watched him fade away. How badly she wished for some way to help him, to make him see that he was only hurting himself more, and that Helene would never want this for him.

Rumors had begun to surface, trickling all the way from the high school to the middle school. They terrified Aly more than anything because she saw their truth. She saw it in his eyes every time the two of them passed, even when he didn’t seem to even know she was there. It was like he saw right through her, like he was absent. Gone.

Helene was gone and now Jared was, too.

Aly stilled her pencil when she heard the soft knock at her door. “Come in.”



Her mother popped her head in. “Are you still up? It’s past eleven, and you have school in the morning.”